Terraria Take Two
I decided to restart my single-player game as being too close to the Corruption meant I wasn’t going to get much time actually building, exploring, and making the awesome weapons I’d seen in multiplayer. With only Slimes and Zombies, and the occasional Demon Eye pestering me, building my first room was rather easy 🙂
This time, my Guide waited patiently on the hill, rather than running off into danger!
As in Minecraft, I soon went underground looking for resources.
I find myself getting mentally stuck on this kind of thing at times, feeling like I need to collect resources before I can get on with the rest of the game.. I think this could get a little obsessive..
I’m finding very few resources so far.. but I have been able to collect enough wood and stone to extend my house, and I’ve finally had a Merchant move in!
Terraria is also turning out to be rather a hit.. showing that indie developers can be very successful with the right idea at the right time. The game has been out for nine days and has sold 200,000 copies and has been at the top of the Steam sales charts.. a very good place to be! 🙂
Terraria
A new game appeared in my friends’ group over the weekend – Terraria. As I have a silly number of unplayed games in my collection, I was going to give it a miss.. but they kept talking about it with such obvious enthusiasm that I started to feel a bit left out..
Terraria is a 2D scrolling adventure game which has a few similarities to Minecraft.. you start in a randomly generated world, with trees and other resources to gather. Once you have collected enough goodies, you can craft items: weapons, building materials and decorative items.
There are monsters, ranging from coloured slime with little health, right up to some fairly tough bosses, which you can summon when you’re ready to take them on. Unlike in Minecraft, the appearance of monsters is not limited to the night-time.. so while you could build a shelter and hide, it’s far better to get out there and fight!
As you find better resources and loot, you can craft stronger weapons and armour.. you can also level your character up with items which increase your total health and add a mana pool.. and you will need to do this if you’re going to take on the bosses! 🙂
Another dissimilarity to Minecraft comes in the form of the NPCs you can attract, should you build shelter for them to live in, and met a few requirements. The merchant has a range of items for sale, the nurse can heal you, the Arms Dealer sells guns, and the Guide.. well..
The Guide got me into trouble.
I started out in the world knowing very little about the game, as I wanted to experience and learn as I went along.. and seeing the Guide, I expected I’d have to follow him along a little way before getting into the game properly.
However, he led me off the grass and onto a manky grey surface with spiky weeds.. Corruption, which I’m told is not normally this close to spawn. The spiky weeds hurt, so I decided to leave the Guide to his wandering and go back to the grass.. but before I got back I met my first monster, the Eater of Souls!
I found I could take one point of health from him with my pickaxe, but before he was dead another appeared.. this was too much to handle on top of the damage from the weeds in the Corruption, and I managed to die within one minute of spawning! So much for an easy game at lunch 😉
After respawning I tried to explore to the left, but met Slimes, as well as a rather high mountain.. then night came, bringing zombies, so I went to dig down and instead met some kind of worm.. more death!
Eventually I went after the Guide, hacking away the spiky parts of Corruption so I could walk there.. I found him trapped in water above his head, still alive apparently, and as soon as I’d made a path he headed back up the hill. I cut a path down into one of the caves, and trapped him there!
I was surprised how quickly the corruption spread across the dirt tiles.. I came to take screenshots at the end of play, and found it had grown like this.. 😮
Terraria also has a multiplayer mode, and after a friend set up a server I joined them. Multiplayer allows co-op and PvP, which you can toggle on individually.. you can also form teams which adds a little indicator to show which direction and how far away your friends are.
Both friends had played for a while already, and as characters keep all their equipment and resources when they enter a world, they already had some decent gear. As I was now on my home PC, and the game has no Steam cloud support, I had to start from scratch, but I didn’t mind as I’d barely collected or looted anything yet.
I was given a better pickaxe, as well as some bombs and some other random items.. I went exploring for resources while one friend built a large tower and filled it with rooms.. this meant the NPCs started to arrive, though till I’ve earnt more money I can’t buy from them. 😉
He also went and summoned the Eye of Cthulu.. I got killed trying to take a look at him the first time, but after being given hearts and levelling up somewhat, I was able to take part in the second fight! 🙂
We fought him from a platform, so there was plenty of room to avoid him as he swung past. As well as attacking you by himself, he fires little eyes at you.. the magic boomerang came in handy for those, killing them before they got too close 🙂
The Eye’s second phase was a little creepier, as the pupil and iris were replaced by a mouth full of sharp teeth..
It wasn’t too much longer before we killed him though.. the flaming arrows, magic boomerang and Undoer’s spiky ball of win made sure of that! 🙂
Cacti!
In an attempt to harvest more bones, I went out looking for skeletons..
I decided to try hiding out in the ‘Cactus Ranch’, hoping the mobs would hurt themselves on the cacti and save me some effort. Oh, and I enlarged the Ranch 😉
Killing mobs by having them walk into cacti works fairly well.. however, I found the loot was getting destroyed when it landed on the cacti 🙁
A better tactic for collecting bones seems to be hiding inside the ‘Church of Notch’, so that the mobs gather around it during the night and then burn when the sun rises! 🙂
More Wolves!
It was a friend’s birthday today, and another friend built him a massive cake in Minecraft..
After going to see it, I wandered back to base rather aimlessly.. until I came across a bone.
For the longest time bones had no real interest for me, even after they had been given a use in making things grow. Now, though, they can be used to tame wolves.. 😀
I went back to the “Breeding Ground” we discovered a few nights ago, and found just one lone wolf to start with, so I decided to set up camp overnight.
I then had a bit of fun with my shelter, as I was awoken by a skeleton who had clipped through the wall..
The wolf teleported into the room too, presumably because the skeleton had attacked me, and when he’d killed it I tried to sleep again.. which netted me another skeleton! Beds need to have space between them and the wall to prevent this happening, so I enlarged the shelter and was about to try again when a spider appeared in the middle of the room too. More torches!
The second day brought more wolves, with two of them being tamed for just one bone each..
I found a few more after this, but maybe making up for the two cheap wolves, one of these ate the remainder of my bones and still wasn’t tamed. Now.. where to get more bones…
Minecraft – Wolves
After playing Darkspore this evening, I joined a friend on our Minecraft server to see if we could find some wolves, which were added in the recent update. To get wolves to follow you around as pets, you need to tame them by feeding them bones until little hearts appear above their heads..:)
I love the sound they make as they shake the water from their fur.. 🙂
Wolves only spawn in forests or on snowy ground, so while we were in the forest, we grabbed all the wolves we saw.
Normally it takes just a few bones to tame a wolf.. but one wanted eight bones before he would come with me!
Wolves are liable to fall off ledges if mountaineering.. but they come to your assistance when fighting mobs: they will fight anything that attacks their owner, as well as protecting them.
I got myself killed when I accidentally hit my friend’s wolf.. then a little later we ended up with two wolves fighting to the death..
My friend tried to remove a sand block trapping my wolf, but this counted as a hit on the wolf. When he then tried to attack, my friend’s wolf defended him, resulting in the wolf-fight.
We now have the beginnings of a nice, safe path between our spawn area and the forest where we found the wolves.. aptly named “The Breeding Ground” 🙂
EscapeCraft 2
A friend of mine has been messing around with various fan-made adventure mods within Minecraft lately, one of which was EscapeCraft 2.
I have to admit that I wasn’t hugely interested in the mods, expecting them to be a series of jumping exercises which would frustrate me more than anything else, but after enough prodding I thought I should at least give it a go..
The game starts with a few instructions.. not to punch any blocks other than dirt, and to use Peaceful and Easy modes to prevent or allow mob spawning as puzzles require them. Of course you could ignore these and punch straight through the walls, but that would defeat the purpose of playing a puzzle game 😉
After receiving your instructions, you drop into the starting room – the scenario is that you’ve just awoken and are in some kind of testing facility.
In the next room, I was reminded of Portal’s Companion Cube, as I was asked to pull a lever on the wall and kill ‘Subject 1089’..
Killing the hapless test subject opened the door to the next area.. once through, I found out that there was another way to solve the puzzle.. a hidden forge in this room contains a lever which you can use to open the door without harming any animals!
The next room involved two waterfalls and a lot of lava.. after a few burnings I made it through. I should note that death results in the loss of items in your inventory.. this might not matter if it were random items of treasure, but if you lose an item needed to solve a puzzle, you’ll need to re-copy the world into your Minecraft folder and start over.
Following the waterfall and lava room came the obsidian and wool room.. and with the gift of gravel and iron I created fire!
The fire spread along the walls and to the roof; blocks then fell to create the stairs to the next area. Very nicely done 🙂
After fire came water.. which had to be poured into the right place to not set off the TNT which lined the room.
Again, no mishaps.. though I was tempted to set the TNT off for the chained explosions that would have resulted 😉
Following these successful levels, some GlaDOS style notices warned me of what was to come.. other.. subjects?
Zombies joined me in the puzzle that was to follow, and I managed to get myself killed when one dropped down beside me and made me jump.. I blindly lashed out with the sword and smashed the glass floor of the maze. Durrp.
After completing this level, I stopped the game on account of pub lunch 🙂
One conclusion though.. Minecraft mods are nowhere near the jumping-puzzle hell I expected, and the puzzles are actually quite clever..
Sparta-Holes
Minecraft is now in beta, with working health and mobs in multiplayer! Finally, we can kill creepers!
This meant a new map on our server, and new bases to build. We quickly had a nice new starting area, but then came across a massive hole in the map which we dubbed the sparta-hole, after one we created ourselves back on our old map. This one, however, was an unwanted hole where several chunks of the map had failed to render. At first we blamed the newly created map, and started again.. but then others appeared on the new map too.
These holes don’t appear for everyone, so sometimes you get to see a friend walking around in the air, with no mind to the infinite hole beneath their feet..
Although weird, logging back in fixes it, so it’s not too much of a problem. You can also use it to spot diamonds, but these forays into the depths have sometimes led to death by lava, maybe through taking too little care as you feel like you can see what you’re doing.
Aside from the Sparta-Holes, we have some rather nice bases going up.. our house has a rather nice fishing ledge and a dock, as well as underground mines. I rather like our lounge, with the roaring fire 🙂
Pictures still don’t work in multiplayer.. despite the one on the wall here, which was only visible directly after placing it, and sadly only to me. Portals to the Nether and associated fast-travel are also still not working in multiplayer.. I’m looking forward to them when they do arrive! 🙂
Minecraft
After watching friends playing at i40, I was tempted to give Minecraft another go.
I wasn’t too keen on buying a game which might only add to the pile of unplayed games here.. however, if I spent a full weekend playing, then it would have covered the fairly low cost. While I was debating whether to get it or not, Minecraft had become rather popular.. too popular for their servers, which fell over! In a fairly brilliant move, Notch, creator of the game, decided to give Minecraft a free weekend.
Can’t argue with free.. and if the game was still interesting after playing, then it’d get a sale.
So during the free weekend, I spent rather a lot of time on a multiplayer server with friends.. after lots of messing around with the teleport command, I was exiled from the mainland and so began building my own base out of sand.
Of course, I teleported my friends away when they came to look.. the whole point of exile is that you’re on your own 😉
My base was eventually dubbed “The Kitchen”, with somebody placing a little wooden sign on an outside wall.
Multiplayer, like the rest of the game, is still a work in progress.. for instance, health hasn’t been fully implemented. This means you can’t die, but also means you can’t kill zombies.
Damn.. just as I figured out how to create weapons too!
The server also became prone to crashes.. I don’t think it’ll be too long before an update fixes this though, as updates are frequent.
As we’ve not been able to get on the multiplayer server, I started another world at work.
Here, health is implemented, and I’ve been blown up by Creepers a good few times but also killed a good few zombies with my wooden sword 🙂
I also made a dodgy sandcastle, right next to my spawn point. I’m building a bigger, better base, and have linked the buildings up with ‘safe’ fenced off, well-lit areas. Monsters only spawn where it’s dark 🙂
I’m standing on what will eventually be my main building.
Yes, there are a lot of torches. I like my light! 🙂
i40, a little bit late
This post was supposed to make an appearance one week ago, after returning from i40.
However, we still have no internet at home (it’s coming up on four weeks now), and some personal stuff too which meant I wanted to spend the week curled in a small ball, not interacting with anything.
Enough of that, though – i40!
We arrived just before the rain.. a fantastic start to a weekend where the sleeping is mostly done outside 😉
That wasn’t the end of the ‘fantastic start’, however, as we were then excluded from taking our machines in till way after 6pm because the temporary structure wasn’t ready.. and then when we were finally able to get in, there was no internet. With no internet, there was also no Steam..
The first game played, then, was Warcraft III, as it was one of the few games available which didn’t need an internet connection or updates.
In amongst those games was a go at the “Run, Kitty, Run” map: you have to run along a spiral path to the centre, avoiding the ‘dogs’ which kill you on touch. It gets harder as you progress, as the paths are narrower, until there’s barely room to get past.. for the first time in many, many attempts, we actually managed to get to the end, where it seems the reward for success is.. to start again with even more dogs on the paths!
I was also introduced to Beat Hazard, thanks to another friend. This takes any music track you own and turns it into a simple space shooter, very like Geometry Wars.. and it makes very bright, pretty colours.. *gazes*
You start off with space-trash to shoot, but as the track progresses you face stronger enemies which shoot back. Fortunately, you collect power-ups as you go, which makes your weapons a little more useful.. as well as more colourful.. and there are also power-ups which increase the volume of the track too.
It’s another ‘unblinking’ game which probably shouldn’t be played in a dark room at LAN 😉
After playing this, Audiosurf made another appearance, and with it, a little competition going on in terms of the scoreboard.
Minecraft became a slight obsession for one friend.. this is a 3D sandbox crafting game, with a variety of types of block: wood, coal, etc, and strange blocky life-forms, the most interesting being zombies! I had a brief go at the game a while back, but after spending two day cycles building, and two night cycles hiding in my buildings from the zombies, I then found my trial of the game didn’t have zombies.. durrrp!
It was admittedly quite fun watching huge piles of TNT go up, though, especially when it resulted in framerates of 1 or 2, or crashed the PC :3
In the run-up to i40, we picked up Borderlands, thanks to another Steam offer. Oh, Steam.. what would I do with all my money if not for you?
Borderlands has 4 player co-op, which is great as I do like playing with friends.. but I have to say that I found myself confused by the weapons, as per usual in this type of game. Having to pick up ammo for the weapon I was using, while leaving other ammo for my team just added another layer of trouble.. if I don’t know the guns, I’m really not going to know what ammo they use.
Despite this, I love the game, though I want to complete the game in single-player so I know what I’m doing, and don’t feel like I’m holding my friends back next time.
We also got a couple of games of Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising in.. trying out the Free-For-All mode which I really enjoyed, especially with high resources allowing me to just pump out units. I think I’m improving on my tactics now, using the Techmarine to fit with my defensive playstyle. FFA made a nice change, but I think co-op is still going to remain my favourite.
The last night of i40 turned into an all-nighter, with a foxy puppet, fits of giggles, a brief foray onto the rather disappointing Omegle, and later fits of shivers.. the temporary structure really wasn’t draught-proof and by 4am I was glad of fleecy blankets and two friends to hide between for warmth. Next time I think I’ll be voting for a warmer and quieter hall, maybe in with the WoW players.. lalala 😉
LAN wouldn’t be LAN without a massive TF2 battle between CantFitMyN and Crazy/Inv, and so on the last morning we duly had our game, though there was no victory for CFMN this time. Next time, maybe! 🙂