While not as huge as Minecraft yet, Terraria is catching up fast. Over 1 million sales in a few short months, compared to Minecraft’s 4 million over several years – it’s a definite contender for indie megahit of the year. It’s hard to believe that it was rushed out early to help fund repairs on the developers car, and that the previous release by the developer was Super Mario Bros X, a Mario fan-game. Rags to riches indeed. ReLogic haven’t been squandering their newfound fortune, either. Released today is an update for Terraria so huge that it effectively doubles the size of the game. Trailer and (update) release change-log after the break.

In any other case, this would be sold as a full expansion, or at least a large DLC pack. The ’1.1′ designation sells the sheer weight of new content short. What we’re looking at is a major engine upgrade and an approximate doubling of the raw content of the game in the form of a free update. With a whole second set of bosses, mounds of new enemies, tons of new items and armor-sets and a Diablo-esque random item stat system, meaning that each player will likely have their own truly unique set of gear. The world generator has been bulked up, with more varied environments to explore, and the construction UI has been completely redesigned in order to make building houses and stationing the various NPC allies you’ll recruit a much smoother process.

While some have described Terraria as ‘Minecraft in 2D’, that title really does sell the concept short. While there is a strong element of mining blocks, building stuff with them and using ores to construct better gear, the actual core platforming and combat owe more than a little to classic Metroidvania design. A recent playthrough of Castlevania HD on the PS3 reminded me more than anything of Terraria, minus the construction elements. You level up, you fight monsters, you get loot, you take on huge multi-stage bosses and you gradually ascend from a helpless nobody with a wooden stick to a techno-magical titan, rocket-jumping your way across the land and blowing holes in the undead with a laser rifle.

That feeling of progression and escalation is going to be further bolstered by this update, as apparently defeating the new ‘final’ boss (the Wall Of Flesh, guardian of hell itself) will activate Hard mode, introducing a whole new range of high-level threats to the world, including revived and upgraded versions of earlier bosses, such as the rather deadly-looking Skeletron Prime, as seen in the trailer above. I know where a lot of my weekend is going. What about the rest of you? Rolling a new character and generating a fresh 16-bit world to plunder? Here’s the full list of updates in V1.1 – be warned; It’s a bit of a read.

NPC’s
- There are thirty-six new monsters!
- The underworld has a new master, the Wall of Flesh. Defeating him will unlock new challenges for your world.
- There are three harder versions of the older bosses.
- There are now three new friendly NPC’s that can be rescued after specific conditions are met.
- The Dryad will now tell you the percentage of Corruption vs. Hallow in the world.
- Made several small changes to allow for better underground cities:
- New NPCs will spawn in their homes underground, instead of on the surface.
- Worms will no longer spawn when near a friendly NPC.
- Underground towns will now reduce, and eventually stop, enemy spawning.

Items
- Added thirty-nine statues that are scattered around the world. Some of them do special things when activated with mechanics!
- Star Cannon : Shoots faster.
- Sandgun : Sand shot from it does more damage, and it shoots faster.
- Blowpipe : Now listed as ranged.
- Goblins no longer drop rocket boots during an invasion. Instead they are sold by a new NPC that can be rescued underground after the player has defeated the Goblin Army.
- Boomerang type weapons are listed as melee.
- Added four new armor sets. Each set has different helms that give bonuses to melee, ranged, or magic, respectively.
- There are twenty-one new accessories.
- Weapons and accessories can now have random conditions that modify their stats. These conditions can be changed for a price by visiting a new NPC.
- The crafting requirements for Molten and Jungle gear have been reduced.
- Some accessories can now be combined at a Tinkerer’s Workshop.
- Colored Torches can now be crafted out of Gems and Torches.
- Added Mannequins that are crafted out of wood. Place armor on them for decoration/storage.
- Added the Wrench to place wires.
- Added Wire Cutters to remove wires.
- Added Pressure Plates, Switches, and Timers to activate devices.
- Added Music Boxes that record and play in-game music.
- Added Pumps to transport liquids.
- Added loads of other new items and weapons waiting to be found!
- Putting the Guide Voodoo Doll in lava is now a bad idea…or is it?

Lighting / Display
- Terraria now has smooth, colored lighting! You can toggle between the four lighting modes: Color, White, Retro, and Trippy in the Options Menu or by pressing F7.
- Made several lighting and display optimizations to increase game performance.
- Added automatic graphic quality adjustment based on the game’s frame rate. This setting can be toggled in the Options Menu.

Multiplayer
- Fixed a problem with item syncing for newly connected players.
- Fixed a bug that caused graphical issues for player’s using automatic weapons.
- Added a limit to how often the server can broadcast NPC update packets. This prevents NPC’s from trying to update every cycle which would cause massive amounts of lag.
- Reduced the amount of data needed to transmit tiles down to 25%.
- The server now only broadcasts tile data to the players who need it.
- The server now withholds some NPC, player, and projectile packets based on player distance from them.
- Fixed a bug where water is consumed when a player cures Corruption with Purification Powder while standing in water.

World
- Above ground tunnels may now be created during world gen.
- Smashing Demon Altars with a special item will cause new ore to appear around the world.
- Defeating the hell boss will now increase the difficulty of the world. Harder monsters will spawn, and the Corruption’s rate of spread will be greatly increased.
- Defeating the hell boss will allow the Corruption to spread underground, over sand, stone, and Sunflowers, and through Jungles, destroying them if you let it!
- There is a new biome, The Hallow, that will be created when the hell boss is defeated.
- Removed obsolete lighting code, reducing both RAM usage and world save file sizes.
- Added several small features to world gen.
- Tweaked the way and amount of Underground Mushroom biome spawn.
- Demon Torches now appear in shelters generated in the underworld.
- Underground cabins may randomly spawn around chests.
- Different styles of wall can now be placed next to one another without showing the background between them, allowing for more creative building.
- When nearing the top of the world, the player will now leave the atmosphere and be less affected by gravity.
- There are now three types of traps that are generated underground. Watch your step!
- Cacti no longer damage players.

Game Interface
- Items being held by the mouse will now be used by left clicking. This allows the player to place objects without putting them on the hotbar. Right clicking will now drop the item.
- Placing objects on grass will now destroy the grass.
- The crafting menu now scales to fit the size of the screen.
- When the inventory is open, the number of the selected item in the hotbar will appear in green.
- There is a new NPC housing interface that can be used to assign living areas to NPC’s. This interface will also tell you if a room is missing any requirements.

Misc
- There is a new music track for The Hallow biome.
- Underground Corruption has its own music track.
- Underground Hallow has its own music track.
- There are two new boss music tracks.
- Greatly reduced world save file sizes.
- Decreased tile frame detection time by 15%.
- Your trash can is now emptied when you die.
- Added an auto select hotkey that will pick a tool from the player’s inventory based on what their mouse is hovering over. This defaults to Left Shift.
- All players will now leave behind tombstones when killed.
- There is now a random option in the player creation menu.
- Female players now have separate armor graphics.
- Added a new mechanical system! Holding a mechanical item will display the wire grid to create interesting new devices.
- There are new overworld backgrounds for each biome!

Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that would cause the server to think a player is dead if he/she reaches 1 HP without dying.
- Fixed a bug that wouldn’t allow players to craft from the ammo slot.
- Fixed a bug that would crash the game when player tried to draw water outside the bounds of the world.
- Fixed a bug that would cause mana regen to ignore stat bonuses given by armor or accessories
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause the game to crash when growing Underground Jungle grass.
- Wooden Platforms no longer attach to non-solid objects.
- Placing and removing items during the placing animation will no longer destroy the item when it is collected.
- Fixed a bug that would cause graphical abnormalities when the lighting changes dramatically.
- The FPS display (F10) shows the correct number.
- Fixed a bug that swapped the lighting of players pants and head armor.
- Fixed a problem that would cause water to settle in strange positions.
- Fixed a problem that caused objects with transparency to appear darker than they should.

Also, Terraria is today’s Steam daily deal, at a massive 75% Off. Know someone who hasn’t got it yet? It’s the gift that (if this update is to be believed) keeps on giving.

[Terraria]

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