Fontenarosa 1 Scott Fontenarosa Professor Adam L. Brackin ATEC 3352.

002 - Computer Game Design 13 February 2012 Terraria Game Analysis In Terraria, the last thing I was doing in-game was attempting to battle the demons, fire imps, and hellbats just at the edge of hell. I died several times trying to fend off against them with my boomerang and sword to no avail. At the same time, I was trying to collect falling stars during the monster-filled nights to boost my MP gauge to be able to use certain items. Every time I died during my fights with the hell creatures, I had to journey from the spawn point all the way back to where I died. Often, I would just wander to other tunnels digging for resources and treasures instead of going back directly to where I had just died. I killed several slimes, skeletons, bats, and worms while journeying through the tunnels I dug up or discovered. For two of the times I died and teleported back to the spawn point, I had a boss encounter with the Eye of Cthulhu. Each time I died pathetically. I played the game for forty-six hours. At the beginning, the game seemed pointless. I started with an axe and all I could do was dig. So I did just that; I dug. I soon realized I needed a source of light to actually get down any further conveniently so I went back up and chopped up some trees to see what kind of items would pop up in my crafting menu. This is where the immersion kicked in. Having an inventory of wood had a purpose: wood gave me light to continue digging downward. Then, I found my first pre-dug tunnels and pots to break. These discoveries made me want to find more tunnels and start to dig in a horizontal fashion more often than vertical. Having a god-like side view of the

Fontenarosa 2 whole digging area worked into the games favor since it would tease me by showing a glimpse of tunnels revealed by both my torches radial light and faint flashing blinkroots. What really got me immersed was my slight obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) to make my tunnels nice and neat as I journey downwards into the earth. I spent more time rearranging dirt and stone than looking for treasure or fighting monsters. This got somewhat boring since the process of digging was the most time-consuming. This was the general mining process I performed: lay torch, dig, get torch (if I wanted to conserve my torches), reset torch, and dig some more. This process got redundant. The occasional monsters that got in my way of digging were just a little annoyance once I finally got the hang of things. The only frustrating parts of the game were getting used to the more frequent and stronger enemies the further I dug down and the occasional falling rock and bomb traps. I was generally confused the whole time even though I got the mechanics down with no help from the NPC guide. First off, the NPC that was supposed to teach me died the first game night. I didnt get to see him until after I decided to make a house and respawn him. I learned that I needed to build houses to prevent monsters from attacking me and the NPC during the night from the Terraria guides online. When I tried to get tips from the NPC, all he did was spout nonsense about things I was not even capable of doing yet one bubble balloon at a time instead of an organized tree menu of basic mechanics. This inconvenience forced me to use the Internet to help inform myself of things like ore and crafting. The whole experience was self-teaching after that point. Though I got used to it, the purpose of my journey seemed convoluted. The only point of digging downwards was to satisfy my curiosity. This one motive got disheartening as I felt like I was accomplishing nothing as I dug further down this virtual world. What was the point of

Fontenarosa 3 digging my own grave over and over? The monsters were clearly set there to demotivate me from venturing any further from the spawn point. With the absence of a story, I had to settle with the idea that digging was total nonsense; I was just killing some time in this sandbox game. The repetitive nonsensical action felt like it was numbing my brain. Despite having practically no purpose to dig, I did feel a sense of progress with the formation of my tunnels which I got to appreciate each time I died and journeyed back down. I had a sense of accomplishment when I saw an incredible increase in the distance I dug down since I last time I died giving me more motivation to make my tunnels longer and neater. If the game had any actual narrative, the openness of the game would not have felt as pointless. The art style uses simple 2D sprite graphics. Everything is distinguishable and kept my inventory easy on the eyes making it easy to organize and find things I needed. The sounds clearly alerted me if there were monsters nearby or if my character was getting hurt. However, once I journeyed further down to more monster-infested areas, the monsters were so frequent the warning sounds had no meaning anymore. The music has a retro bit style to it which made it enjoyable to listen to. However, the looping music did start to get annoying as I continued to dig for several hours. The monsters and the player character bursting into several bloody pieces when dying seemed unnecessary, but it was not too much of an eyesore. What made this game appealing was its combined idea of exploration and a heavy dosage of increasingly hard-to-defeat monsters. Though it is considered an RPG, the only important numbers I saw get crunch were the attacks made between me and the monsters, so worrying about whether Im a high enough level to get to a certain area was factored out. Unlike Minecraft, the game gives the player an omniscient view making it easier to explore.

Fontenarosa 4 Tom Mc Shea at Gamespot gave the game a score of 8.5 out of 10. Mc Shea says that Terraria, has a poor introductory experience where the player has a poor tutorial and no clear set goal established. In contrast, Mc Shea says that Terraria does provide a rich world that rewards exploration; as the player continues to progress through the game, the satisfaction of improving the player character and conquering challenges is satisfying enough. I do agree that with Mc Shea on the fact the game staves off new players more than entice them, but if players are willing to overlook that, the game does provide a rewarding experience based on the players willingness to keep on journeying. As the player ventures more often, the amount of abilities the player can perform increases along with the difficulty of the monsters he or she encounters. This reviewer balanced criticism with praised so he did not seem biased. Justin Clouse at The Escapist gave the game a score of 4.5 out of 5. Clouse described Terraria as a sandbox experience with an action similar to Castlevania or Metroid. Clouse did feel that the controls were a little finicky and there was no access to the game options during gameplay. Clouse likes the attention to detail like the specific ways to grow plants, the liquid mechanics, and the crafting system. Clouse notes the sense of progression with the crafting system since the player can make better armor with the material he or she finds. I agree with Clouse that the game provides a diverse crafting system; however, figuring out what makes what and finding the materials is guesswork making it time-consuming. Clouses review did seem a bit biased since he quickly passed over the games problems and paid more attention to what he liked about the game. Like Clouse, I would like to have access to the options menu in-game or at least a way to pause the game. Nathan Meunier at IGN gave the game a score of 9.0 out of 10. Meunier starts out with a comparison that Terraria borrows a lot of elements from Minecraft, but Meunier insists that

Fontenarosa 5 Terraria is not just another me too game. Meunier points out the games confusing start and that its easier to figure things out by going to the games Wiki page online. Meunier says that despite having no story elements, the sense to adventure is still attractive. Meunier then praises the day/night system, the village system, the gear-crafting system, and the boss fights. I have to disagree with Meunier that Terraria is not another me too game. From my observations of Minecraft and these reviews claiming Terraria is different, nothing makes it stand out entirely from getting compared to Minecraft other than its 2D perspective. Like Meunier says, it borrows so many ideas from Notchs game. It borrows things like house building, crafting, a sandbox environment, resource gathering, monsters, and the day/night system. Im surprised games can get away with borrowing so much from another game. Meunier is definitely biased in his review because he tries so hard to convince the reader that the game makes an innovative leap from its cousin Minecraft. In a Steam Addicts interview by Danny Scot, Terraria developers answered questions mostly concerned with the interactions between them and their fan base. Scot learns that the ReLogic crew tries to release stable patches at increasingly longer time periods away from each other to keep from re-teaching gamers the new game mechanics too often to avoid confusion. Answering Scots question, the developers also commented that they try their best to add ideas to the game that fans want which are often ideas the developers thought about already. Of course if theres a high demand for a certain idea, the less time it takes to get it added to the game (Scot). I think they reach their goal of satisfying their fans for each of their patches as they fix problems and add new content. However, the idea of adding new ideas based on what the community wants seems to tend toward the Wouldnt this be cool? attitude toward design. If the developers continue to cater to fan ideas, there may be so much content it would be

Fontenarosa 6 overwhelming. Remember, Terraria relies on wikis for its explanations rather than have the players discover mechanics by themselves. If the developers added any more to their already confusing game, it would be similar to an over-packed Swiss army pocket knife. I just would not know what to do with the library of tools without going online first; even then, I would probably just settle for the pick-axe.

Fontenarosa 7 Works Cited

Clouse, Justin. "Terraria Review." The Escapist. Themis Media, 06 Jul 2011. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/9005-TerrariaReview>. Intelligent Systems and Nintendo R&D1. Metroid. Nintendo, 6 Aug 1986. Nintendo Entertainment System. Konami. Castlevania. Konami and Nintendo, 26 Sep 1986. Nintendo Entertainment System. Mc Shea, Tom. "Terraria Review." Gamespot. CBS Interactive, 01 Jun 2011. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.gamespot.com/terraria/reviews/terraria-review-6316247/?page=2>. Meunier, Nathan. "Terraria Review." IGN Entertainment. News Corporation, 25 May 2011. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://pc.ign.com/articles/117/1170612p1.html>.

Mojang. Minecraft. Mojang, 18 Nov 2011. PC (Java). Re-Logic. Terraria. Re-Logic, 16 May 2011. Windows Vista. Scot, Danny. "Terraria Double Feature Interview." Steam Addicts. Steam Addicts, 25 May 2011. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://steamaddicts.com/2011/07/terraria-double-featureinterview/>.