Tag Archives: terraria

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Because There’s Nothing Like a Clean Slate

2 Comments

Guys, I have a terrible disease.

I can’t keep a Minecraft world or a SimCity city going for more than a couple of days. Or even hours.

I don’t know why! It’s not like I CAN’T keep a city in SC going for a while. Actually, one time I had one going for a really long time. That was in SimCity DS, which only allowed you to save one city at a time, and I played that particular city religiously over the course of about two or three months. I enjoyed the micromanagement and little improvements I could make to an already developed city, and the only reason I finally stopped was because I got to a point where my entire city inexplicably decided to become a fire hazard for no reason, and no amount of fire stations would solve the problem, and I just couldn’t be bothered to fix it. So I quit playing.

Actual blurry phone picture I took of my city when I was in the middle of that marathon a couple years back. It has a weird colorscheme for zoning: yellow is residential and red is industrial, if I recall correclty.

For some reason, that was the last time I’ve really been able to “get” into a single city like that. I’ve been playing a bit of SimCity 4 here and there over the past few months. And you know, I know how to set up a good city. I know where to put the zones, the power plants, the roads, and everything else you need, and perhaps most importantly, I know how to actually make money in the game.

But, every time, I’ll get to a point where I’ve played ten, maaaybe twenty in-game years and then get bored and delete it all and start a new city.

It’s certainly a change from the aforementioned SimCity DS, where I played that one city for something like 150 or 200 game years.

I’m not sure why this happens. It happens in Minecraft, too. I start a new Minecraft world… well, I was going to say every couple of days, but truthfully I really only play Minecraft a few times a week. So I’ll start a new Minecraft world every week or every other week or so. I honestly have no idea why. There’s just something so very enticing about a fresh slate.

(Terraria, on the other hand, has had me hooked in the same world for weeks now, so maybe that’s a sign that my attention span is actually lengthening now!)

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

Terraria, aka I’m Bored of Digging, Let’s Go Dig In Another Game

6 Comments

I think I may have offhandedly mentioned this in a previous post, but in case I didn’t, I’ll relate it again here: I was recently gifted a copy of Terraria, and I have been playing it more than I initially thought I would.

For those who haven’t heard of Terraria, well… saying it’s 2-D Minecraft both is and isn’t fair to the game. Here, let me delve into this a bit:

Minecraft and Terraria have a lot of similarities. A lot of them. They’re both about digging, mining, and building. They both have a day/night cycle. They both involve crafting by way of mixing various ingredients together. They both involve avoiding monsters. Moving from one game to the other is a pretty smooth process.

Behold my derpy little Terraria house. I have since added a basement.

I’ve noticed a couple of differences, though. Aside from the big obvious one (Minecraft is 3-D, and Terraria is 2-D), I think Minecraft puts a lot more emphasis on the building side of things and Terraria on the survival side of things.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of survival in Minecraft or a lot of building in Terraria. But let’s talk about the monsters, for example. Not only are they more abundant in Terraria (and more difficult to sequester yourself from), but you’re actively encouraged from the start not just to avoid them, but to fight them.

Take the torch, a common and necessary item in both games. In Minecraft, you make a torch by putting coal on a wooden stick. Both of these ingredients are farmed from harmless things on the map– trees and mountains. In Terraria, you make a torch by combining sticks and gel. Gel is something you obtain by fighting slimes. You want light? You gotta kill monsters.

This difference in the game’s “mindset” is also seen in their respective methods of health regeneration. Minecraft has auto health regen (on sandbox mode, anyway). Terraria doesn’t. You restore your health by drinking potions that you craft out of materials that you have to find by wandering the big, scary, monster-filled world.

The mining and building is still a big part of the game, of course, but it’s all much quicker to accomplish and the crafting is more streamlined, as if the game is telling you to get on with it so you can get back to killing monsters.

Anyways, those are my first impressions of the game. I’ve really only played three or four hours of it at this point, mostly just poking around, so there are probably a lot of things I haven’t covered. In the end, I wouldn’t call this game either an evolution or clone of Minecraft– rather, it’s the same concept, but taken in a different direction. And it may not be Game of the Year material, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re fond of this “genre”. And I do have to give props to a sandbox game that I frequently jump into directly after getting bored with a Minecraft session. Bored of digging? Let’s go dig some more!

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

There’s Something About a Sandbox

2 Comments

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of two different games: Minecraft, and Terraria (aka 2-D Minecraft.)

I know, I know, I’ve talked before about how I don’t quite “get” this sort of game, or how I prefer SimCity or whatnot. But after several months of false starts it seems that something has finally clicked, and lately I’ll merrily spend hours listening to music while… digging. Digging.

I was practically born playing this particular game, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I’m not sure what’s gotten in to me– I’m usually off playing old strategy games, after all!– but I do have to admit: it’s remarkably easy and quite relaxing to just sit down for any length of time– from a couple of minutes to a couple of hours– and mess around in a game where there is really no point. It feeds some sort of deep-seated need in the human psyche to build and create for no other reason than to build and create.

…or maybe I really am a basement-dwelling obsessive-compulsive geek who finds satisfaction in making things perfectly symmetrical. I mean, that’s an acceptable answer too.