Diggin' Deep.

A bit about Terraria. For those of you who played Minecraft, the general concept is going to be very familiar. You are in a massive world that is randomly generated and populated by creatures both good and bad, and you can both destroy and construct with and around the environment. Night is dangerous and means you really need to consider shelter, while day isn't 100% safe, but certainly safer then night.

The sun goes down and out comes THE HIDEOUS GIANT EYE OF DEATH!

After that, Terraria becomes a beast of its own. As you build your house, and your house becomes a town, NPCs will move in and offer services for money. Merchants will sell you things, a nurse will heal, and a demolitionist will give you all the means and opportunity to kill yourself you need for a nominal fee. The world is also more alive then in Minecraft, various environments offer unique enemies and drops, and you can also find and explore dungeons that hold amazing treasures. Equipment offers various stat boosts, and full armor sets get set bonuses, encouraging players to get enough materials for the whole collection. You can also equip various accessories, like rings of regeneration, grappling hooks, or mystical artifacts that protect you against fire.

You can also cast magic spells, which you find deep in the corrupted zones in shadowy orbs guarded by soul devourers. Thus far I have a magical vine spell that pierces enemies multiple times, and an orb of light that keeps the darkness at bay as I mine for hellstone in... well, hell. I then proceeded to flood hell with water out of spite.

WHATS WRONG HELL? TOO WET?!

Why do we need all this stuff? Well, that's the big difference between Minecraft and Terraria, in Terraria you can and WILL encounter massive bosses to defeat, or your home will be overrun with the living dead, or goblins will invade your kingdom. The world is alive with terrible and mystical threats, and you will not be able to meet them all and live unless you go out and "level up" your character.

Thus far I have built a few big castles/mansions/long houses with friends, battled massive eyeballs and world consuming worms, explored the corrupted lands and searched for meteor impacts, and tunneled into the very depths of hell. I am currently building a massive tower into the sky where I will mount a search for some of the forgotten cloud kingdom's floating islands, and I want to venture out and find the entrance to a dungeon and fight whatever horrors lurk within.

The game has the open world of Minecraft, where you are dropped wordlessly into a beautiful and foreign environment to forge your life in, but it has a unique life to it. You and your friends will create narratives as you defend your homes and explore the labyrinthine cave systems under the ground. You will retell stories of the time you made a massive underground city, only to break into the underside of a lava pool and watch it all sink under molten rock. I love this game because it marries Dwarf Fortress with Minecraft and the baby was adopted and raised by A Link to the Past.

It is very much worth your time.