Minecraft players compare Terraria

Terraria was officially released for PC on May 16 of this year.  As more and more Minecraft players have become aware of Terraria and started trying it out, more people have realized the many similarities between Minecraft and Terraria.

Just like in Minecraft, Terraria is a world consisting of blocks.  Players need to build sufficient shelters before night comes and monsters come out.  To any Minecraft player, that sounds terribly familiar.

But there are some key differences between Minecraft and Terraria.  The biggest difference is that Terraria is a two-dimensional, pixel-like game.  You can only move up and down on a randomly-generated landscape.

The other major difference is the mobiles.  There are no peaceful mobs in Terraria, like cows or pigs, but there are hostile ones.  There are still zombies and slimes like in Minecraft, but the slimes are everywhere at any time of day.  And there are even worse monsters than that.

Flying eyeballs come out at night, and fire snakes can attack at any time.  Terraria is more difficult than Minecraft because there are more hostile mobs, and not just at night.

Just like Minecraft, Terraria players must still mine and harvest blocks of raw materials in order to build and craft things.  But there is a far larger scale of craftable items in Terraria.  Players can make anything from a bathtub to a laser gun.

Some Minecraft mods include similar items to those players can craft in Terraria, but many cannot be found in the original Minecraft.

Despite these differences, players still can't help but notice the similarities between the two games.  As players dig down in Terraria, they discover natural caves and randomly generated dungeons.  They also find rare minerals and gems like iron ore and diamond ore.

All these things contribute to the feeling among gamers that Terraria is just a 2D version of Minecraft with some extra creatures.

However, Notch, the creator of Minecraft, doesn't seem to have any issues with the similarities between the games.  One of the things that contributed to Terraria's popularity was the fact that Notch tweeted the link to the game when it came out.

Terraria did not have any grand marketing plans, and their short trailer was barely watched.  Notch's tweet was possibly the biggest publicity the game got.  Still, Terraria downloads skyrocketed, and it gained more fame as more people played it.  Gaming commentators like the Yogscast played it and posted videos on YouTube.

As of July, 630,000 units had been sold, and that number continues to rise.  But will it ever come close to the 3.6 million Minecraft users?

You can check out Terraria here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/105600/