games like terraria

Currently, our laptops, PCs, tablets and smartphones are so powerful that we can play any game we want. We mean hardware allows any heavy game to run smoothly. But people still like playing games like Minecraft and Metroid that can’t boast of high-definition graphics. One of such games is Terraria. It’s been around since 2011. It has sold over 30.3 million copies by 2020. In our guide today, you will discuss games like Terraria.

What is Terraria?

Terraria is an adventure game, which is full of mystery. In other words, it’s the name of land that’s yours to shape, defend, and enjoy. You have limitless options in Terraria. No matter what kind of games you like because in Terraria, you will become an action gamer with an itchy trigger finger, a master builder, a collector, an explorer, etc. We mean there’s something for everyone.

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You can start by building basic shelter, then dig for ore and other resources. It offers over 500 weapons of magic, ranged, melee and summon varieties, as well as armour. You should use them to battle hundreds of different enemies. Later, you will be going head-to-head with any of a dozen enormous bosses. Go fishing, ride amount, find Floating Islands, build Houses for helpful NPCs, and much, much more.

Well, we guess most of you have played this amazing game. So we decided to collect similar games and understand what they offer and what is the key to success for such games. Below are the most popular games like Terraria.

Best games like Terraria

Starbound

This is a fun sandbox game almost identical to Terraria. But it comes with more exploration, crafting of tools and building of structures. First, you have to choose one of the main races and travels around many different randomly-generated planets. As you understand, each of them has a prevalent biome (grassland, forest, arctic, ocean, desert). Also, you can make many customizations. Say, players can modify their spaceship and build houses, castles and bases around the universe, even their own space station eventually.

By the way, tone and visual design are lighter than Terraria. The latter puts more emphasis on horror. In Starbound, monsters are mostly non-threatening and cartoony in appearance.

This game has been developed from the ground up to be multiplayer and easily moddable. You have everything to change the universe in the way you want. You can add new races, biomes, dungeons, and quests, etc.

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Crea

Crea is a side-scrolling adventure game. Here, the worlds come in three sizes and are randomly generated. Say, the small worlds allow the player to experience different landscapes quickly. The larger worlds take longer to explore. Your character can be used in multiple worlds and retain their skills and inventory. However, initially, you begin with a few basic tools to explore the world and defend yourself. They include a simple wooden club for fighting, a fire spell for a ranged attack, a tool for gathering ore and wood, and a healing spell. The game’s highest priority is gathering materials for better gear.

In Crea, each enemy has unique attack patterns and defensive moves. This means that if anything has worked on one won’t work on the other. It’s a nice change of pace for the 2D side-scrolling genre.

However, one of the main reason why this game stands out is utterly crazy crafting/researching system. While your character levels up, your crafting and research abilities improve as well. It all acts seamlessly together to create a cohesive component to the game.

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Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley is not a regular adventure game. It’s much more than just running a farm and setting up a daily routine. During the first few days, you will build your own system: wake up, check the weather, think about whether or not you’re going to the mine, water your crops, tend to your animals, say hello to your neighbours, go fishing, hit some rocks, go to bed. Interestingly, there are some real-life limitations. Say, you can’t go to the store due to store hours or holidays that must be meticulously planned around. Or sometimes you have to visit someone for their birthday and give them a gift, every villager has his/her own unique schedule of places to be throughout the week, but every day is a labour-intensive checklist.

Generally, in Stardew Valley, you will be able to turn your overgrown field into a lively farm, improve your skills over time, become part of the local community, explore a vast, mysterious cave, breathe new life into the valley, court and marry a partner to share your life on the farm with, spend a relaxing afternoon at one of the local fishing spots, donate artefacts and minerals to the local museum, cook delicious meals and craft useful items to help you out, customize the appearance of your character and house, and many more.

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Ancient Domains Of Mystery

ADOM takes your character and asks them to save the land of Ancardia from the corrupting force of chaos. But the rest is up to you. We mean only you decide how it saves it. Only you decide how to complete quests, slay monsters, delve into dungeons, and find treasure.

There are 12 different fantasy races from classic mainstays like orcs and dwarves, to unique races like ratlings and four elf races. The same is true for the 22 different character classes; starting with the typical fighter, thief, and wizard, and newcomers such as the chaos knight, beastmaster, archer, and Elementalist.

Each of these races gives you different stat bonuses while each class has its own strengths and drawbacks. Depending on which game mode you’re playing, this doesn’t even touch on the point-based stat system, how to increase your skills through gameplay, or how different weapons and pieces of armour affect your characters movement and combat performance. Outside of the standard game mode, character customization can be daunting for the beginning player.

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Dig or Die

Terraria and games like Terraria were criticized and dismissed by many as being nothing more than a 2D Minecraft clone. Agree that for most of the mechanics of gathering materials in order to craft tools, items, and structures while fighting monsters are similar. However, we should also agree that Minecraft and Terraria are incredibly different games with very different focuses. In this regard, Dig or Die differs from the aforementioned games a lot.

In fact, there are many differences. But only a few of them worth to be noted. Say, we should focus on collecting materials with a sci-fi vacuum rather than a pickaxe, a strong emphasis on building a home security system rather than making do with any hole with a door, and each type of monster only storming your home at night after you’ve killed at least one of them in the wild.

When you start Dig or Die you get the majority of the story. You crash land on a planet, stuck with a piece of your original ship which acts as a crafting station, and are equipped with a magical/science grab all tool and a plasma/laser rifle. This is all very sci-fi and feels fair as your starting equipment. The weapon is especially important because this game is full of stuff that wants you dead. You are, of course, an alien in this land and should be murdered for entering this world without going through the proper… channels.

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Junk Jack

Playing Junk Jack, you may experience a strong sense of déjà vu. It’s one of the games like Terraria and Minecraft. But while there are tons of Terraria-like games, Junk Jack distinguishes itself in nearly every category.

One of Minecraft’s biggest weaknesses is its lack of direction, and Junk Jack takes that flaw and runs with it. Interestingly, Junk Jack is aggressive in its lack of assistance, leaving you without even a way to keep track of your craft notes until you find the right note for the job. But this shortcoming was fixed quickly.

While it isn’t the first 2D sandbox building game out there, it is a particularly attractive game, sporting crisp pixel art and gorgeous lighting effects. There’s the excellent chiptune soundtrack by Bright Primate. Combined, you get the sense that you’re building one of your favourite classic games.

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Epic Inventor

Epic Inventor is a free-to-play side scroller with a modicum of similarity to the boundlessly popular Terraria. As the name suggests, is all about inventions and contraptions. So we could describe as something like side-scrolling strategy. The game is a little rough, but it contains plans for you to be able to invent an entire town from the ground up, and gives you a robot to fight for you and to ride around on.

In the game, the player takes the role of an inventor who has the ability to create various items and buildings from various materials. The inventor can be accompanied by a robot that may serve as a bodyguard to attack any monster that comes close to the inventor.

All recipes are available by accessing the inventory. Items in my tools section are divided into placeables, items, attachments (to upgrade the robot), weapons, armour, and others. Selecting any particular item will reveal what materials are needed to create that item. Some items require an additional structure, such as workbench in addition to materials.

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Spelunky

Among the games like Terraria, Spelunky has a lot of charm. The latter refers to both cute visuals and nice music. The randomness can lead to funny things like tossing a damsel toward the exit only to have her eaten in one bite by a ravenous plant. Some items are quite fun too.

Despite the potential appeal, Spelunky is totally obnoxious, relying on cheap deaths, nonsensical randomness, and arbitrary design decisions. Sadly there isn’t much content in Spelunky. There are only a handful of level types, and if it wasn’t for the fiendish difficulty it would only take a few hours to see everything.

Spelunky is designed to make you die over and over. Moreover, it is random to a fault. Some levels are easy, but others are nightmarish. Gear is absolutely essential for surviving, but often it never spawns. You are at the whim of the randomness which is frustrating.

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At last, you can only carry one thing in your hands. This means you have to constantly be dropping and throwing your stuff. Get used to dropping your precious shotgun, saving the damsel, and then going back for your gun. And why can’t you put the key in your pocket? Because the game wants you to die.

By Argam Artashyan

Back in 2010, he was dismissed from his position as a lecturer at the university. This made him get another job at his friend’s digital marketing company as a blog writer. After a few years, when he was thinking the article writing is his mission, Google pushed the Panda update and affected the company and websites he was working at. (Un)fortunately and surprisingly, he got an offer to head a large knitting factory. In 2016, he got his Ph.D. and resumed teaching at the University … and writing tech-related articles following his passion.