Hello Terrarians! The 1.4 Journey's End update has been out in your hands for a bit now, and since you've had a chance to play through and experience most of the new, exciting changes and additions, we thought it would be fun to give you a chance to ask some behind the scenes questions of the skilled programmers and gifted artists of Re-Logic that spent their time working on this update. Best of all, just for joining in you may even win a prize!
THESE TALENTED INDIVIDUALS ARE PART OF RE-LOGIC, THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM BRINGING YOU TERRARIA ON PC, AND AS SUCH, DO NOT HAVE ANY INFORMATION OR ANSWERS TO GIVE IN REGARDS TO TERRARIA ON CONSOLE OR MOBILE.
Now's your chance to ask those burning questions, such as what was the hardest thing to code, how do the artists get inspired to create a new item, what goes into the balancing of a new weapon, etc. You can ask your question to the group in general, or if you want to ask a specific Terraria dev, here's who will be joining us in this Q&A event:
- Ask your questions in this thread, starting now until Tuesday, January 19 at 10:00 PM EST. Answers will be posted at a later date compiled together.
- One post per member. No placeholder posts. You can ask as many questions as you want, but please keep them in one post. You may edit your post anytime.
- Please keep questions reasonable and do not spam.
- Some questions will be chosen and answered (not all of them).
- Every member that asks a question will automatically be entered into a raffle.
- You can ask as many questions as you want, but it won't increase your chance of winning. One raffle entry per qualifying member.
- Raffle winner will be chosen by random draw and will win a prize of $50 Steam money. The winner will be announced with the answers.
That wraps it up for now Terrarians. Have fun with this opportunity and let the questions begin!
A quick reminder - this is for the PC dev team. Please don't ask questions about Console or Mobile.
• UPDATE: The Programmers and Artists have answered TONS of questions •
You can read Yoraiz0r's post within this thread HERE or read the answers in the spoiler below:
1. I can only speak for Duke Fishron, Cultist, Moon Lord & Empress, but generally speaking:
- We look at areas of the game (spatially, and progress-wise) that would benefit most from a new boss installment.
- We discuss the spot and matching themes & references for it, passing through multiple iterations until we conclude what's most fun to and experience
- We decide on the technical bits (sprite sizes, whether to sprite parts for a composition, what projectile art would we need) so the artists can get rolling and simultanously-
- We start implementing the bosses with temporary art, adjusting attacks and patterns until they feel great, and finally-
- We implement the art and iterate on (change, adjust) the boss's art to make sure it matches the gameplay, or vice versa (within feelsgood territory)
3. Pink paint, on almost anything - but particularly trees! I love getting pink colored leaves on everything!
4. Empress of Light
5. Last Prism & Terraprisma, respectively
6. If the training dummies count, let's go with those! Otherwise - blue jellyfish & zombies! They're my favorite test subjects! (Fun fact, zombies are ID 3, Blue Jellyfish is ID 63, Empress is ID 636, and the Princess is ID 663, all are favorites of mine!)
7. Chocolate shards/shavings!
I've responded on enemies above, as for features: The bestiary is something I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did, and I'm very glad with how it turned out!
1. During 1.0.5 I modded a giant green pickaxe that covered half the tiny screen I had, does this count?
2. So rather than list a feature here, I'm going to point out that no one likes long generation times! one of the parts we struggled with the most is reducing the world generation time while keeping the features we wanted to have, bless profilers for that optimization process!
Assuming we're speaking of town NPCs - The Princess! I'm grateful that Red & Cenx allowed me to design her theme and personality, and I think she turned out absolutely adorable!
I really wanted to add dimensions to Terraria for a long time - however, it is not a reasonable time investment. Terraria was originally programmed with a single world in mind, and many systems check for that world's progress, facts, and other values repeatedly. As much as I want to advocate for dimensions, the amount of work to get them running would be quite significant, bordering on that of rewriting the entire game.
I joined on January 2014, after the team was already formed! I also met Grox, Skiphs, Ark before they joined Re-Logic! we all met way back in the early days of Terraria modding, under tConfig.
Speaking only for PC items: All of those were originally intended to be put into the game, but as we iterated, we came to agree they either were not satisfying to use and would be a poor use of development time to improve on, or their purpose ended up moot due to game design changes.
Does the codebase count? There are many things you only realize would have been better done differently in hindsight. Early decisions that stop you from making new exciting features in the future can be hurtful!
If it does not count, I'd have loved to redesign the combat to allow more advanced choices, such as giving more weapons a secondary feature or allow dual wielding. I've added dual wielding as a mod to every version of terraria from 1.1 to 1.3.5, but have never invested enough time to let it reach its full potential.
1. We've all had multiple playthrough of Terraria, together, alone, and under different difficulties and classes. I've played modded Terraria numerous times through Terraria's history, but as of 1.3.5 I did not have a modded run reach endgame. I am grateful that Terraria is blessed with so many talent-packed mods that I can get lost in a biome I did not have a hand in making for an hour, wondering what the heck is going on with my inventory space!
2. Tea. Or more specifically, I reject these options and pull out a mug of hot chocolate milk!
1. As a programmer & game designer - Getting to make sure things feel fun and thoughtful! I love analyzing what makes certain games feel better than others when there are common elements and tasks, and I love applying those insights to Terraria! As a programmer on a team - I love that my work can be passed down and evolved by others, and I love writing code that's easy for the team and modders to interact with. I may not have much time to assist the modding community, but I'm very grateful that I have the opportunity to.
2. Other games, Anime, Light Novels, and Tabletops all inspire the content I work with. I love analyzing power fantasies of certain heroes and implementing those fantasies into Terraria items. Back in 1.3 I presented many different weapons to Redigit based on such ideas. Content creep? pfffff
3. Smart Cursor.
1. As a member of the team, no! I'm very grateful that I got the opportunity to impact how everyone plays Terraria through the years! Working at Re-Logic was my first-time-ever job, so I did not know what to expect - and I turned out to be very lucky! The team is incredibly kind and unified on trying to respect the players and their time. love hearing of people enjoying the content I help put out, but I try my best to to listen to complaints and improve on things - kind of like trying to get better high scores for every feature.
2. The crossover actually happened because at the time, we were hooked on Dungeon Defenders 2, playing lots, daily. All of Re-Logic loved Dungeon Defenders 1, and Trendy Entertainment held live developer streams for DunDef2. We ended up becoming friends - and the stars aligned for us both liking the idea of the crossover. At the time, Terraria Otherworld was still in development, and we used the opportunity to try and learn of tower defenses more, as well!
3. I think I'm blessed to be a part of it! I don't talk as much these days, but I love seeing how everyone helps each other. Lurking in tModLoader's discord in particular, I appreciate everyone guiding each other out a lot. The peace with the Minecraft gang has been great as well!
4. 1.5 is a thing, right? right??? @Redigit back me up here! ;-; In all seriousness though, I request to add Valentines content to the game yearly. It's just never a good time in development to work on that, but I love adorable heartwarming & romantic heart-themed content and chocolates and all that!
5. ...fully unlocked Journey menu. Checkmate!
6. Some items are as simple as dragging some art into a window and populating a few lines of text. Others can border on writing an entire new feature. Bosses are NPCs, and NPCs in general tend to want unique animation code and attack patterns. The difficulty isn't usually on the hard side, but the workload piles up. The Empress of light, in particular, has had many projectiles with many iterations, to make sure she's easy to dodge for beginners, and engaging for multiple players when in co-op.
1. Loki's set, I love the menacing aura it emits and how strong the colors came out.
2. For inspiration I tend to turn to action RPGs, for eye candy I turn towards fluffy adorable Anime. I'd say imagining power fantasies is what drives me to make new items the most, and I drag the artists with me for a ride every time!
First Fractal was the temporary name for what would soon be the Zenith, and it was its first iteration. First Fractal wasn't added because as a melee weapon it did not feel melee, endgame, or clean enough. The player silhouettes ended up being confusing to some because they're dependent on the player's looks, and there was not a good enough clear line of action. I think that Zenith executes as a final sword better than First Fractal.
(Incidentally, First Fractal was actually a name for a weapon concept that didn't make it in at 1.3, to be a sword as a pair to Last Prism's magic, an alpha & omega of sorts)
So, whenever discuss bosses, we all pull in our ideas based on the theme the current one should fill. At the time, that theme was the ocean biome + fishing, with a potential for being a mushroom biome boss instead. People bring in references to match what they think it should be. I don't remember that well since it is back to 2014, but I think someone brought up the concept of a big fish that would snatch up a bait in one swoop, and someone joked about pigrons and truffles... , the angler's development was in full force at the time, and we were turning a lot of game content to fish. And a pigron turning to a fish - Something clicked there!
1. Empress of Light theme, I played it on loop for hours, now.
2. Her main inspirations were the sentence 'a beautiful bullet hell', 'beginner friendly', and as for references: Touhou's Flandre, Dark Cloud 2's Rainbow butterfly, and a few others! (It's amazing how many retro games used rainbow palettes for their final bosses!)
3. Assuming technical limitations aren't a thing, I'd love having some deep magical forest filled with adorable critters and glowing lights - arcane secrets!
Lovely! It's amazing to see how things are from the developer end! And even more amazing that I get to make it easier for others to mod stuff! I was very humbled when I got to join the team initially, and there was some adjusting time to understand how to work with the vanilla edition of Terraria, as well as being responsible for bug fixing a whole lot and making things more generally-user-accessible, and I love all of it! One of the most interesting experiences with that transition is that now I get questions from modders on why things are done in a certain way when another may be better, and it tends to bring to self improvement and cleaner code for us since we can directly execute on it! We don't get to work on modder requests on the work hours, but I do keep a request list and notes so I can give back to the modding community when I have time and energy to.
If I can't say 'all of it' I guess my biggest priority would be isolating classes and at the very least move all of Main's static fields into instanced stuff, leading into a cleaner way to add Dimensions.
Right now everything can query 'the world' because there is only one of it, but I'd love to make worlds instanced so that we can run multiple ones at once! (alas... muda muda muda muda muda... mudaaa! )
I do sometimes take a look at mods, but have not drawn any direct inspirations. Most of my memories of modded playthroughs come from older versions of Terraria (1.1's tConfig, and 1.2's tAPI which I was directly involved with) and most of my methodology to adding content is based on 'how can it be the best it is' instead of 'how others did it'. Also - prior to the very recent tModLoader on Steam era, modded content tended to cater to players with more experience, and less aimed at newcomers. When you're working on content for someone who may not be used to rough edges, or know what your game is about - it impacts the design process. At the end of the day, the most important part of Terraria is its player!
1. See the answers above, and in a more silly sense, I'd love to have more cute and frilly content in the game. If I could have adjusted character's visuals to be more slim, perharps it would have been easier to get those frills!
2. Endgame projectiles are my jam!
3. Assuming tModLoader itself does not count - Jopojelly's entire signature's worth of mods because I love the quality of life! They're extremely well executed! Also Blushiemagic's Magic Storage! Amazing time saver!
4. I want to say Strawberries & Grapes, though I haven't had any in a long while now.... Tomatoes?!
1. I guess that would be whether to have Journey & Bestiary progress shared between players, or between worlds.
2. The mode was mainly oriented around being an easy mode for people who wanted a more pastoral experience, but we didn't want the game to be skipped over. Most decisions were derived from those two sentences, and we looked into adding things to compliment them both. For example, the starter wings make building much easier off the bat, as well as the powers to go with it - giving an almost 'creative mode' feel!
3. Journey's difficulty slider was hands down one of the worst parts to implement. We had to look up many hardcoded damage values, and other behaviors that checked whether you're in expert mode or not, and adjust them. In a game with over 500 NPCs and their hundred or so projectile attacks, this was a great challenge. I am very thankful for our lovely QA team going through all of this multiple times and getting things under the radar!
So let's answer this a bit out of order: For my personal experience, Terraria is the first game I professionally worked on. I've collected quite a bit of experience in my free time since having started, so I'll do my best to summarize the lessons I've learned in regards to giving advice.
Code we write is a part of a 'solution' since we're trying to solve a problem. When making a game, your solution to not having it, is having it - how you reach that solution is up to you. When writing code, no one wants to reinvent the wheel - there is no value in it, and it is wasted time. (aside a leisure curiosity filling experience) Libraries for different things are available to prevent that reinvention of the wheel, and at the time of Terraria's initial development, XNA 4 just came out - it was fresh for use. Not having to spend more time writing redundant code to try loading a file and rendering it to a screen, means you get to spend more of that time making your actual desired solution - the game. XNA filled that gap and allowed Terraria to get made more quickly, much like functionalities available in Godot, or the other, more popular game engines - Unity3D & Unreal Engine.
When you're asking if to stick with Godot when learning, you're mostly asking if you should skip understanding those fundamental 'wheel writing' portions. Depending on your role - that may not be a bad idea, but if you don't have prior 'fresh program' writing knowledge, you might be setting yourself up for a rough difficulty spike in the future.
XNA is not something I'd recommend using in this day and age, as it is deprecated - only officially made to install on Visual Studio 2010 and the installer is so old it no longer works properly!
You generally want to look for an actively developed engine so that you can get live support from either its' developers or its' community. Godot is actively developed, so I think you're safe to run with it for the time being.
I implore you to remember that before everything, it's just a tool with code that someone else wrote for you to deal with common problems of its time, and it's not some magic - you CAN go in there and modify things, or even write your own solution, if they don't work out for you!
Good luck on your career development!
Well, your other questions are being discussed in dev chat as we speak... but for this particular one - you mostly have the right idea, except for the fact that manually editing a projectile's flags after having spawned it, does not sync those changes in multiplayer. In particular, if the shot is to be enchanted visually (such as the case of frost armor) it would not show up for other players, nor would its calculations include the modifications if calculated on the server's side. We generally try to not mess with these flags on a per-spawn basis, and instead opt to just duplicate a projectile and adjust. As for why it wasn't done here - Thank you for the bug report! =p
1. I'd say bunnies, though I've never actually owned one! If that is a pre-requisite, then cats! Even though I had two dogs and numerous cats in my lifetime, there was one particular silver cat who was very dear to me. If we're discussing the non-existent fantasy options, then floating cloud bunnies, and zelda-styled pixies!
3. That part went through a few iterations, but the short list of values that led up to the celestial towers was: We wanted to give the feeling that your world is being taken over - such as new biomes appearing, we didn't want to actually destroy your built houses with block conversion - so we couldn't use blocks for those biomes, and we wanted to have a fierce fight against those biomes, but they needed an anchor - so the towers were used, and for the shields - we didn't want you to just shoot the towers from far away, so the shields that require beating the enemies (which would only spawn near the tower) were used.
4. Love it. Had a recent playthrough with friends in late 2020, and I ended up spending most of my time making a giant 'holy sugar cane' piston machine that generated exp for my heavy enchantments addiction. (then I lost all my equipment to one miserable fall in the End)
5. Witch's Broom! I specifically requested to add this so I can fulfill my cute witch theme fun!
1. In terms of hardest things that we actually did ship in 1.4, I'd say Bestiary and everything associated to it was quite a process. At the time of deciding to make it, NPCs could only draw when in the world, and their loot drops and information was not easily accessible without actually spawning them! We had to change all the code so that NPCs could be drawn without actually being in the world to show them in the bestiary, and rewrite all the code for their 1000+ drops in a new way so that we can poll those drops for information, and then we even had to spend time manually adjusting every NPC in the Bestiary to show up nicely! It was a massive internal overhaul, all to get this interface running!
2. The short answer is it started before my time, and we never had the time to go back and undo those monoliths. The long answer is - Time you spend making code happier for yourself is time you're not shipping content and you starve your artists from things to work on, sadly. In recent Terraria versions, we've opted to try and put everything new out of the monoliths, such as all the new game events, interface related code, biome generation, and drops. We also slowly refactored many pieces of the monoliths out of Main, such as the entirety of the asset loading, the tile, wall, liquid rendering, the paint system, and more!
1. See answers above.
2. Bestiary had me firing on all cylinders on the technical satisfaction end, but as for a favorite piece of content - I'd say the Princess & Empress of light are my two favorites!
3. Depends on the idea's size and and whether I am allowed to pursue it. On certain days, I invest some free time in pursuing an idea and then share the implementation with Redigit - sometimes it gets added in, such Stellar Tune, and the Whips! If I recall, the first whip specifically took only 3 hours, but after approval turned to a whole weapons galore!
4. See the above answer regarding game engine usage, and also - be mindful of what you spend time on. Game development - the development of making a game, revolves around making a good game. A game is a program designed for entertainment, so keep in mind that everything you do should serve to increase that entertainment; I find that many forget of that fact. With every product, your user matters most, and if your product is entertainment, then maximize the user entertainment, please! Anything you do that does not pursue this end goal, does not deliver as much value to the user - and so does not deliver as much value to you!
5. Early hardmode, once Hallow appears. I love surrounding myself with it, and having access to all the new glowy weaponry!
6. Pretty great! I've been messing with Unity in my free time a lot over the past 6 years, myself. I heavily recommend it for prototyping stuff! Just be mindful of 'The Unity Experience:tm:'
7. Thank you! please have a lovely year!
1. Ranged
2. I don't actively use pets, but I'd say Celestial Wand's Estee is my favorite!
3. See answers above
4. See answers above
5. The name Zenith was decided by Redigit and the design of Zenith was by me, after numerous iterations of trying to achieve a good melee weapon - a final sword, that captures your experience through the entire game, full of energy and power fantasy, and easy to use.
6. All the Dungeon Defenders sets are hybrids of Summoner and another class. Summoners aren't meant to be be doing the dirty work, and as such their armors don't need to boast as much defense. Not being a pure summoner, other armors fully deserve that adjustment.
1. Touhou, Touhou, and more Touhou. Just pull up MinusT's videos on Youtube - I can't recommend those enough!
2. There were other suggestions, but we opted to keep things simple and clean.
3. 05162020 is Journey's End's Release date. The other two were circumstantially made at Redigit's whims!
1. Gamepad support, and smart-interact with projectiles (and potion of return!) are probably some of the 'most dev time spent, least value' efforts I've chased, personally.
2. Adding furniture sets. Definitely furniture sets. 30 items all hopping around the code attending their tiny little adjustments, adding specifically colored lights. It's all trivial but a ton of routine work.
3. Projectiles with fancy features such as afterimages and homing patterns, visually fancy item features such as animated fluffy rabbit perches and minecarts with rainbow trails.
4. Back in 1.3's release Stardust dragon did not like keeping itself together, and its segments ended up having various.... issues.
5. I got Terraprisma 5 times consistently without cheats and being undergeared before I allowed others to test it, one of the detriments of being a boss's developers is that you know the ins and outs and can naturally dodge it with your eyes closed, and without many utilities - even more so because the Empress of Light is fully deterministic in her attacks.
6. How dare you make me choose?! I'd say I have the most experience with the Player class, but it is far from being 'likable'. A class I almost never spend time with, but appreciate a whole lot, is the BitsByte class. A recent new favorite of mine, albeit for a short while, was the ItemDropRule class. It was satisfying to finally clean up the mess that was NPCLoot method, and making it easier for others to add to.
7. ...Six, If I'm counting right? One more if you account for the Social library you run with (nothing for GOG, Steam for well... Steam)
1. Eater of Worlds has been through many bug reports, far more than any other boss, I believe. A lot of them were 'hell' tier and I'm pretty certain some are still open for work. It's loot often gets stuck in walls, and some pieces always want to run away. As much as it is fun to see loads of damage numbers while beating it up, I let a grim expression show on my face when I fight it.
2. Recently I've been hooked to Honkai Impact, the v4.6 teaser dropped today has me hyping all over! I've also been itching to play Mary Skelter: Finale, that has not yet been translated - the series is great! Also, I'm eagerly waiting for VVVTunia of the Neptunia series, I love the franchise as a whole! And whenever Kingdom Hearts: Nomura gonna NOMORE edition drops you can count on me to be there - I love Kingdom Hearts 2 (and 3 + Re:Mind, but 2 is the best) and can praise it for hours.
4. I'd have wanted to adjust the AI a whole lot, and add matching extreme loot for it, but we had a deadline going. Though I will say that against adding new moves, there is a certain amount of punishment people can take before they decide they're not having fun, and we definitely didn't want to reach that with the already extreme damage output.
5. That was just a technical showcase funny moment. Previously, Mannequins did not draw armor like a player would, resulting in many visual issues. We wanted to overhaul them so that they would draw like a player...and the most reasonable solution was to actually make a player be drawn there! so we made a 'mannequin' player 'skin'. Just like the boys and girls of Terraria, you too can be a Mannequin if you just adjust that one pesky byte!
Legacy interface, and code flow in the Main class. There are many systems that assume that because they're in a certain point in the update loop, they can do certain things even though reading the code in an isolated fashion makes no sense. I've been working to slowly fix those mishaps and refactor many components out of Main. Legacy interface has many hardcoded numbers, and it has many abbreviated shared variable names, through giant methods.
2. So that's a bit of a curveball but Minecarts rotate the player - but not its particle effects. This became a problem when we wanted to add stuff like the confetti cart, and determining the proper position for the particles was a Pandora's box that I spent way more time than I'd have liked to make convenient to mess with.
1. Depends on the game, and Terraria's role there - I don't get to make those calls! (NekoPara crossover when)
3. They didn't, but I did try to carry their will a bit. I've explained more on her design in the answers above. As for my opinions on the patterns from the many mods - I think they don't focus on readability enough, and some seem to not care for creating unsolvable situations, which I don't appreciate - the quality varies wildly from fight to fight, but there are fantastic gems there as well! I appreciate the efforts and love seeing when a player has things going on all cylinders dodging a barrage of bullets, and a giant boss, and yet more projectiles that wonder around, all in a tiny cage, and having fun!
4. Wasn't 1.4 the last update, or something?...
5. Keyboard all the way. Part of the work hazards of making gamepad support is that I now dread using gamepad and find flaws in gamepad implementations in every single gamepad game I play. It is frustrating. Keyboards forever.
6. We're not the first to do something like this, actually! Look up Skyrim's Script Extender (SKSE) on Steam! We're a much smaller team and focusing on vanilla content means we don't have the time to also make support and adjustments that are tightly based on community request in regards to allow the making of more content, easily. I think that letting those things be community driven has massive value - mainly to let things be done as the modders themselves prefer it be done, since they're the ones making the content that mod users will experience, at the end of the day. I do try to help when I can, and we do adjust the vanilla code to assist in that goal.
Gamepad Support. Trying to retroactively add it 5 years after the game's been made and all the UI is hardcoded and there's a ton of buttons to be used can send me ranting off for hours.
1. Yes. Let's just say there was a whole lot.
2. Yes. In vanilla Terraria we do a lot of things directly to how the code runs to facilitate features - but that happens through multiple files. tModLoader plays a part of making things simpler and cleaner - more user friendly to add things. They put the plumbing so that you can create content with cleaner files, albeit at a slightly more limited potential, unless you're an expert. (They're doing an amazing work in creating ease of use and showing examples, bless TML)
Yes! Onyx Blaster's purple eye is actually directly inspired from Monobear's evil eye side! When I pitched adding a new dark shard weapon, I imagined that dark colored guns aren't automatically evil, but evil was the aura I was going for, so Monobear menacing side and his twisted lighting-esque eye came to mind! Terraria's color to signal the corruption is purple, which is why Onyx Blaster's is purple as well!
1. I'm a big fan of how Terraprisma's AI turned out, as well Empress Of Light's! If we're going with older creations, then the Lunar Portal staff was visually one of my favorites, along with Betsy!1. Which AI in your opinion was the most fun to program?
2. Were hoiks intentional, and what's your thoughts on it?
3. What's your favourite Blood Moon enemy?
4. What's your favourite dye (including hair)?
5. Chocolate or vanilla ice cream?
2. They were not intentional, and my thought is - they're a feature!
3. The Bride! Mainly because finding her means I get cute vanity!
4. Pink Dye! and Party Hair Dye! Although I should actually say Hair Dye Remover here!
5. Why not both?! Throw in some strawberry flavor and you have a lovely Neapolitan icecream!
2. See answers above! (about making things feel fun, and refactors along making Bestiary)
4. The Pixel Block was an attempt at a single-block light that would be easier to use to make things light up or not, but it ended up not satisfactory. I've elaborated on the other items in the answers above!
5. I do work on many other projects in my spare time, yes! I've modded Skyrim, Starbound, Minecraft, Fallout 4, Risk of Rain 2, Hades, and more! I also spend a ridiculous amount of time in Unity3D making prototypes of many things I'd find fun or cute! I also read many a programming related material and listen to GDC talks daily!
So I want to say this question legitimately gave me a catastrophic existential crisis on defining what catastrophic means - what entails the title of that. After some deliberation I decided I'd answer for multiple categories!
Oops wise: On 1.3's release day I was really stressed since the update took over a year to get ready and it was the first time I've been involved on something of this scale. I was beat up by the endless bugs and features to tune to the deadline, and thinking we're ready... the Update pushed to steam, 1 minute passed - and apparently every person who opened the game immediately got two achievements! I put a typo in on the last 2 hours before the update rolled and it caused that, I remember having a very strong panic attack over it thinking I screwed up massively, but it ended up not being a big deal. (the achievements were the ones for using a heart and mana crystal, respectively)
Also, There was this one time where everything was spiders! Not even kidding, Everything had spider AI!
Oh god wise: During 1.4, the Willow & Sakura trees were added pretty late into the update, after the deadline was decided. Shortly after, they had a bug where they did not react to paint properly. Further exploration revealed that all the basic paints had a hardcoded value for dirt in them, and only some of the colors for the willow and the sakura tree reacted. We couldn't solve this by adding more paints and making those trees use that other paint... And the gem trees apparently also exhibited this bug to a limited extent! and then I found out even the corrupt trees did! So I suddenly had to rewrite the entire paint system so that they can all appear properly, and it was a big spaghetti mess.
No hope wise: PewDiePie wanted to stream Terraria, and we were getting very excited to watch. over 100,000 people were waiting for it - he enters the game aaaand.... he can't move?! We didn't know why it was happening, we never had a report like that before, and it was happening live in front of everyone. He couldn't move for 20 minutes and we were all panicking trying to figure out why and what can be done and if we can even get to him to try and offer a solution, I don't think I ever had a more panicked session of "try to figure out why code that always ran right for 9 years would screw up now and just for one person".
1. Stardust Dragon. Keeping its segments together in multiplayer proved to be a very difficult challenge.
2. Ask Redigit!
3. Ask Redigit!
4. I personally do not feel a need to add that achievement. While I think it is noteworthy to get the Terraprisma, I do not promote suffering. Not everyone is comfortable with exceedingly difficult challenges and repeated failure, with no measurable progress.
5. Ask Redigit!
6. C# (C Sharp), using the XNA4 Framework, which is now deprecated.
I watch a whole lot of anime - so picking a favorite single one is difficult, some are difficult to compare due to the genres being so wildly different!
The anime that changed my life for the better the most is Yuuki Yuuna is a hero! I absolutely recommend it!
The most satisfying 50+ episodes animes I've watched include Code Geass & Shakugan No Shana.
The most recently adored animes I've had the pleasure of sitting through are Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, and Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear - which I've read the light novel of!
For game related anime, I'd turn to 'The hero is overpowered, but overly cautious!' , which had a fantastic & accurate anime adaptation!
Lastly, for an anime about cute game development, check 'New Game!'
1. I've answered above in regards to Terraria, but out of Terraria - I'd say my proudest creation is actually a little dressup game I've been making in unity, where the character model, animations, textures, advanced shaders, and UI are all made by me. I've not shared it with anyone, but I am very satisfied with it, and it was a fantastic learning experience! I still enjoy running around with that character, weekly!
1. I honestly wanted to add more player-involved summoner content, but time for balancing and production just wasn't there! I sadly cannot elaborate on the ideas!
2. There would have been another boss, on the same tier as Empress, it would have been male and match her theme. I've shared the name jokingly in Discord before!
3. I don't know, but since we're talking about someone new... The Challenger?!
4. Ask Redigit!
Mainly because of technical and game balance reasons. Enemies don't appear on your screen and instead only appear from the edges of the 'maximum allowed resolution', if we had made it too large you would end up having to walk and wait a lot to find new enemies, and adjusting it ended up being quite an endeavor. That said,I did try making it exceedingly easy to unlock the resolution scaling with mods!...
1. ItemDropRules, Bestiary!
2. B - I'd love to see a corrupt jungle and unique enemies and loot for it! Or even better, infect it with the hallow!
3. Uhm, The system itself was actually pretty simple, but there were a lot of iterations on the functionality and extra features surrounding them... if we include everything... I'd say two weeks, ish?
1. Kind of! I wanted a weapon with a lot of visual variety and unique features, so both iterations had quite a bit of plumbing done behind them. The Zenith uses Vertex Streams which haven't been used before 1.4, and First Fractal made code to render whole temporary players with every instance of the attack!
2. I wasn't there for the original creation! I assume C# was intentionally picked for ease of use, though!
3. Are you trying to get me fired?! Honestly, I'd love to try and work at MiHoYo, I'm in absolute love with their combat design and dedication to anime elements and feelsgood gameplay! BUT I won't trade Re-Logic for the world!
7. I'm not sure, I kind of have this conflicting set of feelings on the matter, I don't like publishing a mod that I won't be around to update as TML versions go up, and I don't tend to make simple mods, which usually means my code isn't compatible with other complex mods (not that it can't be, but that requires more elaborate setups for supporting other mods as issues rise up, which ties back to staying around and supporting it), I've had this situation before, with the TML version of Dual Wielding, so we'll see...
We completely understand the criticism against Terraria's code, but at the end of the day, it did get us results, and it did get us Terraria. It can definitely be improved, but that improvement means spent time on no content for the game, and due to the sheer size, that would be a lot of time to clean up and remake.
2. A common difficulty for most programmers would be to estimate how long tasks can take, and the complexity involved. You don't know things until you know them, so naturally some errors can be made on predictions, but most programmers tend to be optimists on time needed, and that may result in scheduling failures - so be wary of that!
3. See the answers above! Also - your wording makes me think you're thinking about programming patterns! Do not get obsessed with those, please! Patterns are good but they're a means to solve a specific type of problem, each! A common pitfall many junior programmers make is that they'd choose a pattern to use before even considering what problem they're trying to solve, and they end up boxing themselves into a problem they previously didn't have, and one that their chosen pattern does not solve! Also, the best code is the shortest, most easily replaced code that you fully understand, so be mindful of that when working on your projects!
4. See answers above!
1. I want people to have fun, so whether they choose to stay close to vanilla or not is none of my business - please pick whatever your heart desires! enjoy!
2. There are not. We all pool in our ideas, and whoever knows best on a topic will often make the calls and the others will support them. Every one of us got into this career because we had a lot of ideas, so a person dedicated to getting ideas is all of us!
3. Many quality of life mods seem very desirable to add, but sometimes they're out of specs for us (for example, since vanilla has gamepad support, every mod that we'd want to add has to support that gamepad, which gets particularly problematic for UI mods)
4. One of my favorite parts on Terraria is that it delivers on strong power fantasy and player customization. You can look how you want, wear whatever ridiculous and pretty combinations you desire, and kick butts with an insane variety of weapons, and do it with your friends! I love it when I get to play something cute but still be effective, so many games fail me on that department, but in Terraria I can have a pretty pink dress and a balloon while fighting a worldly menace - it's great!
5. I'd say the latter, but I am somewhat biased. Having worked on Terraria since 2014, there are so many things I want to add, but technical complications are in the way.
6. Lots, with all the other emotions as well! Thank you for asking, it's really nice when someone cares for your emotions! Please have a lovely year!
Yes, many. Particularly an NPC related to the Princess and a boss related to the Empress of Light.
I've commented on this above, but it's definitely an enjoyable experience to modify existing bosses and twisting them. I did in fact have plans to implement an expert (and even master mode) changes to every boss, but we've scrapped the master ones, and ended up having no time for some of the expert ones (particularly around the mech bosses)
On Empress of Light, see the answers above - she's actually deterministic and pretty easy to deal with if you try to calm down, step away, and understand how she aims every attack, and how she repeats her attacks in a specific pattern!
Being praised by Redigit in person for my work in front of the team was one of the most validating and happy moments in my life! I've gone across a continent to meet the team, and it got me really emotional!What was the most memorable or meaningful moment you had while working on Terraria?
Thank you all for the support and interest in Terraria, and in us! I hope my answers satisfied your curiosity! please have a lovely healthy and heartwarming year!
You can read Leinfors' post within this thread HERE or read the answers in the spoiler below:
Hey guys! For those who don't know me, I'm Leinfors, and I primarily work on Quality Assurance for Terraria! However, in the past 2 years, I've begun doing programming work, and though I'm still the least skilled coder on the team, I've been involved in a lot of the content added in 1.4!
I typically don't do spritework, and I only joined the team during 1.3.1's development, so I'll probably skip questions that either I don't know the answers for or don't apply to me.
For sake of easy organization, I've condensed all of my answers into nested spoiler tags! If I responded to your question(s), they will be in their own dedicated spoiler button, so check out the spoiler button below and find your name!
I also should say . . . many hours into this QnA post, my power went out. And I lost over four hours of questions. I've gone back and tried to fill out all of the questions as well as I did in the first place, but this killed a considerable amount of my steam, and I apologize if some of the answers have suffered for it. This was a very long write-up, and losing so much progress was tough.
Whew! That was a lot!
Thank you guys so much for all of the questions! It was a long, but fun, time filling them out! I'm also always available for more chatting here on the forums, or in the Terraria Discord server, so hit me up!
I typically don't do spritework, and I only joined the team during 1.3.1's development, so I'll probably skip questions that either I don't know the answers for or don't apply to me.
For sake of easy organization, I've condensed all of my answers into nested spoiler tags! If I responded to your question(s), they will be in their own dedicated spoiler button, so check out the spoiler button below and find your name!
I also should say . . . many hours into this QnA post, my power went out. And I lost over four hours of questions. I've gone back and tried to fill out all of the questions as well as I did in the first place, but this killed a considerable amount of my steam, and I apologize if some of the answers have suffered for it. This was a very long write-up, and losing so much progress was tough.
I've divided up all of the questions I answered by the page they were posted on, pick a page!
1. I was only personally involved with the creation of Empress of Light and Queen Slime, but most of Empress' attacks were designed by Yorai. However, I had a lot of input on the design of the Queen Slime and her minions and how they attacked; ultimately, my suggestions for them were what we ended up using. I wanted to imagine 3 different types of attacks that could all pose a threat of some sort to a Hardmode player, but also took something from the Slime/Hallow theme. The Heavenly Slimes represented the flight-risk, and were intended to basically be the Hallowed equivalent of Slimers. The Crystal Slimes used the behavior of Spiked Slimes, but they shot Crystals, drawing from the Crystal theme of the Hallow biome, a close range threat. And the Bouncy Slime's bouncy projectile was intended to reflect Pinky and the bouncy nature of Pink Gel, and adding some wild chaos to the battlefield. All three of them were intentionally designed to use the three main colors of the Hallow as well. The fact that Queen Slime grew wings in the middle of the fight was something that came to me to sort of take the player off-guard . . . you are sitting there, flying above her with your new-found Hardmode wings, and thinking "Pfft, she's just like King Slime, she can't get me", and halfway through she suddenly takes flight and comes after you, which would play off your expectations based on King Slime. I thought it would be a kinda cool shock/reveal moment the first time you fought her, and I'm glad we ended up going with that design.
2. <insert witty math response>
3. I don't mess around with paint all too much, but I found that Negative Paint on Sandstone Slab Walls makes for a really cool dark blue brick with white outlines!
4. It used to be Duke Fishron, but I've got to say Empress of Light these days.
5. Vampire Knives and Sanguine Staff. Clearly, I have a type.
6. Pirate Crossbower is tremendously underrated.
7. Sweet and Sour Sauce.
1. Definitely the Bestiary! I wanted to see it for years, and I was absolutely stoked that we added it in the end.
1. Red and I had a late night talk about it one time . . . Yorai had been adding Whips, but they had been Melee weapons originally. Red and I were both inspired by the character Rydia from Final Fantasy, one of the most famous Summoners from the franchise, who also used Whips as a main weapon. We had been trying to look into ways to expand the Summoner class's repertoire, and the idea just clicked and felt right to us. The rest is history.
2. The first item I added was also my first pet project, from start to finish. I added (and sprited) the Gold Goldfish and its Goldfish Bowl entirely by myself, which was a substantial challenge at the time! It was also a test: I was only allowed to add it if I was capable of doing it on my own. Happy to say it was a success.
3. I've worked on very little worldgen, actually, but the closest thing to worldgen related code I've done that was a challenge was making a bunch of previously Clentaminator-immune walls be able to be Clentaminated/Infected. There were some 20-30 back walls that were added in 1.3 representing Stone, Corrupt, Crimson, Hallow, and Jungle, and maybe due to time constraints or whatever, they weren't susceptible to Clentaminator/Infection. They really stood out like a sore thumb if an area's biome changed, so I set about making a system where they could all be interchangeably infected. It was surprisingly complex, since it was a big flow chart of dozens of different transformation possibilities, and that was really difficult for me at the time (I was very new to coding then)
4. As mentioned above, I did the (admittedly simple) Gold Goldfish and Gold Goldfish Bowl sprites!
1. Most of the NPCs in the game were actually already in the game by the time I joined ReLogic, but my favorite from the ones I did work on was the Zoologist. She's tied up with my favorite pet project (the Bestiary), and her transformation state seemed really unique and different to me.
1. During 1.4, we discussed making localized a Storm/Lightning when fighting Duke Fishron. It probably wasn't impossible, but as I understand it, based on the way the weather system worked, it was not a simple process to make the weather localized (instead of world-wide), and we didn't end up being able to add it.
1. Muramasa has been in the game since 1.0, pre-dating the Breaker Blade.
1. I was a moderator for these forums, and through that connection, eventually became a Beta tester. I did enough testing that I was eventually hired full time! I was hired in December of 2015!
1. In my experience, a lot of the unimplemented content ended up in the game accidentally by being added in a big batch of art all at once. Sometimes it turns out a specific item isn't actually needed, but its MUCH harder to "remove" an item after its been added to the game's code, so it usually just ends up staying. So an artist might make like, 50 items, a coder will add all 50 items, and then later on, we find out a couple of those items weren't needed after all.
So for example: What became of the Cultist, Dark Mage and Ogre Bags? We didn't need them. There was no purpose in making them fully functional because they served no purpose, but because the spritework was done all at once for them, they had been added into the code ahead of time. At that point, it was not time-effective to fully remove their assets from the game's code, so they are just unused, because there is no need for them.
1. I don't want to speak for the rest of the team, but the overhaul to how the player's torso/arms animate ended up being an absolutely tremendous task for a large number of people on the team, especially Artists and QA. While it paid off heavily in how it allowed custom hand movement for interacting with various objects (Golf Clubs, Food, certain mounts, etc), it remains in my mind as one of the tasks which took a surprising amount of time, and probably had the highest bug count of any single feature we added in the entirety of 1.4, because it impacted literally every armor/vanity set in the game.
1. I'd love to totally rebalance/redesign most of the invasions in the game (Goblin, Pirate, Martians, and even Frost Legion). I really like the strategic aspect to it, and I would want to expand on making them better at bypassing defenses.
1. I mean, it was kind of like a dream come true. No inspiration needed. I leapt at the opportunity!
2. Sausage.
1. Baby Dino and Alien Skater Boi
2. It is a degenerate taco
1. I don't really know what makes it feel Calamity-ish, I haven't played Calamity.
2. Just to see what happened.
3. It was great!
4. It was originally envisioned as a simple stat boost, with minimal bells and whistles. That I'm aware of, it was never intended to be the same level of complexity as Expert. If we had envisioned it as an Expert 2 from the start, I'm sure we could have found the time to do so, but that was never the plan. And if we had done that, I suspect the time would have come out of other projects (such as Empress of Light, Bestiary, or Journey Mode).
1. Many times. I'm a bit of a completionist, so a "full" playthrough means collecting everything, including all banners. However, I do not play mods.
2. I really don't like coffee at all, so tea, though I'm not a huge tea drinker.
1. I'm not aware of anything for the Ice biome. The Underworld is always subject to brainstorming for potential expansions, but there was never anything specific that we had to cut, only ideas that never got off the ground.
2. I'd love to see a Deep Ocean sort of biome, I'm a huge fan of underwater content.
1. Pretty much all of it. Any time I get to make a permanent impact on the game, or see something that was my idea make it into the game itself, it has such a tremendous positive impact on me.
2. With over 5000 items and dozens of bosses, it comes from all over. Only a small number of the items were my ideas though, so I'm not the best person to really say!
3. I don't care what anyone says, Cobalt/Ankh Shield is an absolute must for me. Not having one equipped is so frustrating.
1. In my assessment, Otherworld wasn't canceled because there wasn't enough time, but rather, that it wasn't turning out the right way. However, it would not be my call whether or not to go back to it. If Redigit and Cenx told me to do so, then I would, because that is my job. They are the final decision makers!
1. I suppose everything has to come to an end eventually, and as Terraria's engine ages, it gets harder and harder to include more content/features in a way that doesn't break things.
1. As I understand it, cross-play is very difficult to implement, especially with Consoles, so I really couldn't say. Its not my area of expertise.
1. As someone who spent 4 years being a "Terraria fan" before I was a member of ReLogic, I never thought I would end up where I am today. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and its a literal dream come true. And I'm absolutely proud of it.
2. I'll let Yoraiz0r field this one
3. I wasn't part of the team back then, but I think it was ONLY meant for the devs to use. Back then, the dev builds the team had access to could allow them to be used without the negative debuffs. But modding/hacking meant it was really simple to just deactivate those debuffs, so they were just added for everyone eventually.
4. think its pretty awesome! I say that as someone who was part of the community first!
5. I don't think I could pick any one single thing, I like to think in more broad strokes, like new invasions, biomes, or bosses.
6. Vampire Knives, because I could use them to heal my own wounds!
7. A lot of items are really easy, especially simple stuff like basic furniture (Chairs, Tables), certain vanity outfits, and things like food. Other items are quite difficult. Bosses and NPCs are much harder, and I've never added either of them.
1. Redigit's is pretty fantastic, but I think Safeman's set is really unique and adorable.
1. Throwing Class was never originally meant to be a "full" class. It was originally meant to be a temporary side class that people eventually outgrew, as Ranged/Magic became more available. However, this didn't seem to fit right for the playerbase . . . it was perceived as incomplete. Ultimately, the "temporary side class" experiment was kinda deemed to be not a success, and Throwing was merged into Ranged. IMO, its better this way.
1. Summoners were always designed to use any weapon they wanted, along with the Minions (which were their "primary" weapon). Whips were only added at a much later date, but Summoners were not originally intended to have a dedicated personal weapon.
2. Whips were not added until quite late in 1.4, and were not planned to be Summoner weapons until late 2019.
1. I think Empress of Light and Underground Desert are my favorites.
2. Deep Oceans
1. Nimbus Rod. Rather, its not underrated, but its actually insanely useful and powerful all the way until the end of the game and most people don't utilize it as such.
2. Bug fixes and Steam Workshop are our big Terraria focuses, but the team is spending some time learning Unity recently!
3. Whisked until I was super smooth, poured into a pan, and cooked without stirring, so I came out as like a sort of egg-based tortilla.
1. I'd say the one single item that was the most prone to bugs was the Hat Rack. It didn't have the most bugs of any single project in 1.4, but it had the most bugs for a single item.
2. Probably not, I think I'd blow my 4 more items on a couple more Summon items to round things out, and maybe Jungle Solution for the Clentaminator.
1. Red never got his promised $15! It was not we who broke the contract
2. Chlorophyte does add resistance to conversion, though this doesn't apply to the surface, admittedly.
1. As someone who doesn't play any mods, none of my idea contributions have been from mods. Any similarities are just parallel thinking. I wouldn't even know what is even in most of the mods.
1. I mentioned before, I would love to do some reworking on the Invasions to update them to be a bit more dynamic!
2. I love programming in new music boxes for new tracks! Pretty easy to do, but I take huge satisfaction in it.
3. As specified previously, I don't actually play mods. Vanilla life for me!
4. Strawberries!
1 & 2. Both of these can probably be answered in the same response. I want to preface this by saying this wasn't specifically my design decision, though I took part in the discussions, but the decision on how to do Journey mode was a tricky one. We knew going in that a game mode like this would immediately be compared to Minecraft's Creative mode . . . simply by existing, people would go into Journey mode expecting something like Creative mode. However, it was never the intention to make an actual Creative mode specifically, although we knew the comparisons would be unavoidable. We wanted Journey mode to still be an actual game, with progression and unlocking of content, but offering powerful options to players. It combines the strengths of a "Creative" mode with the normal challenges and engagement of a more traditional Terraria experience, and I think that's a fantastic combination.
3. Probably getting all of the Journey powers probably synchronizing in Multiplayer. I didn't do any of the coding for it specifically, but I processed/handled the bug reporting for it, and it took a lot of iterations.
1. Hard to tell what the future may bring!
2. Well, we've established that Steam Workshop support will be a thing, and it is quite possible this will require a version bump up to 1.4.2, but the current plan Cenx and Redigit have expressed is that this the last update . . . for now(???)
3. No, the Arkhalis (created by the now retired dev of the same name) was inspired by the Crissaegrim from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
4. Chaos Elemental or Pirate Crossbower
5. I wasn't around back then, but I guess there just didn't need to be one. Normally, I pose scenarios like this not as "Why isn't there X?", but "Why should there be X?"
6. Vampire Knives
7. This thread explains why fairly clearly:
forums.terraria.org
8. No!
1. I wasn't part of the company when the Crimson was implemented, but I like both options, they each bring something unique! Crimson still feels "new" to me, even though its rather old now at this point.
1. This is actually a bug/oversight! The stacking of the Frog legs used to stack for every single one of them, and the results were insane (pre-Hardmode jumping could go higher than most wings). Looks like Amphibian Boots snuck through though.
1. Ferrets
2. I guess Mothrons are prone to breaking the swords of heroes. And then keeping them. I have no idea.
3. Pretty fun game! I'm glad they are getting more content additions lately!
4. Lil Dukey
1. I've never played any mods, so I don't really know much about the things that are in them. So I couldn't draw any inspiration there.
1. Baby Dino/Alien Skater Boi, and Suspicious Tentacle
1. I'm not a very skilled coder, so this is really "what was one of the hardest things for ME to work on", but I'll admit I really struggled to wrap my mind around coding proper animation loops for some of the Pet Cages. It was really hard to juggle all of the different animation paths and loops that could happen. It was also one of the first times I worked on something where quality mattered. To explain a bit better . . . most of the stuff I work on "either works, or it doesn't work". Pass/fail. If it works, it works perfectly, if it doesn't, it doesn't work at all. All I need to do is get it working, and its fine.
This was not the case with Pet Cage animation code. For once, I could MAKE it work, but the end result was "poor". And I realized that instead of just fiddling with it until it worked, it was actually a direct reflection of my coding skill, and that if I just got it to "working level", the end result would be an inferior animation. I ended up handing off the task to Grox, so that his more capable hands could handle the issue and make sure the animations were spot on.
1. I love the creativity of the community! I'm especially a big fan of art work, though I'll admit, I don't watch much youtube/videos in general (not just Terraria), so this isn't something I know much about.
1. Duke Fishron is an optional boss with boosted difficulty. You don't have to fight him, but if you do, he's more difficult, and then gives pretty decent rewards if you do. Lunatic Cultist is more of a red herring boss, and doesn't necessarily need to be a huge challenge on its own.
1. As I understand it (I'm not a Console or Mobile dev), crossplay is really difficult to add, so its hard to say.
1. I'd love to have seen some Deep Ocean biome of some sort!
2. Easily the Bestiary!
3. Some new ideas take months to implement, from start to finish, if you include all of the art, coding, and testing time.
4. Learn valuable skills (art and/or programming) and be able to create standalone content on your own so that you can provide a portfolio of creations that you share as needed.
5. Probably the pre-Hardmode ore stages, I love the progression there!
6. Pretty fun, but intimidating! As a novice coder, its a lot to take in!
1. Summoner!
2. Baby Dino/Alien Skater Boi
3. I'll leave that for Yorai and Crowno who had more direct involvement there
4. There was no reason to implement it, as he doesn't really drop anything
5. I believe the design was Yoraiz0r, and the name was from Redigit. I'm not aware of it was a reference to anything.
6. Monk Armor is a Melee/Summoner hybrid armor, and because its not pure Summoner, would naturally be tankier, especially since "Sentry" armors do not fit the standard mold of Summoner armors.
7. Yeah, but it would also be a nightmare to code, as I am led to understand
1. Probably one of the first ones that I got in, the flavor text on Rainbow Crystal Staff. Also, the name/reference on the Bloody Tear item!
2. If you are referring to the Discord events, that is because they are specifically for Discord, which is run by a different group of people than the forums.
1. I think so. They weren't actually that obscure, they had become heavily popularized, and were not intentional. Reaver Shark completely broke Hellstone gear's tiering, which had subsequent impacts on the entire balancing of everything pre-Hardmode. Fishing Crates-ore skip was literally a way to skip the game, and while its unfortunate that you perceive these parts of the game as boring, but the intention was never for them to be "skipped".
1. View attachment 305452
I mean, hair and outfits don't need to match. Was I supposed to have a luxurious blonde dev set? That would just be weird.
Blonde hair and awesome purple, they complement each other!
1. I'd say this is rather unlikely, both because the implementation of a character class is a massive undertaking that usually takes years to fully complete (see: Summoner gear) and also because primary development on Terraria is coming to a close.
1. Every final update is planned to be the final update. It wouldn't be a final update if we planned to add more. And yet . . . they keep coming . . . hard to say
2. Would be a cute idea, I miss that dude!
1. I'd say Empress of Light and Underground Desert
1. Initially, we only had Dogs and Cats, but Bunnies came later. So I'd say "yes, it was bunnies".
2. Those are Red's creatures, I can't explain the genius going through his brain!
3. Because the Nintendo Zapper it was inspired by had 2 version.
1. I wouldn't say it was tremendously hard for me, as the hardest work was done by people like the artists and more-skilled programmers than myself. I had a really good time working on it, and while its a challenging job, its always one I love doing!
2. Probably Gamepad, as it continues to be one of the features that requires the most upkeep and adjustments to make sure it continues functioning with the game. Just about ANY kind of UI change you make in Terraria means you have to go back and rework Gamepad to support it as well. Its a permanent time-consuming addition, and its more difficult because Terraria was never designed for Gamepad from the ground up. For something that doesn't actually change the game itself, it is one of the most time intensive features to date (in my opinion).
3. I don't think a game as large as Terraria (5000+ items, 500+ enemies, etc) can ever be perfect. You can only strive to improve to the best you can make it!
1, 2 & 3. Sorry, these are all questions that I think only Red could answer if he chose to. I'm not sure there even are answers to them!
1. Gamepad functionality and multiplayer syncing. Multiplayer functionality requires loads of work, and people often don't realize that virtually any new kind of mechanic needs to be specially adjusted to work in multiplayer (sometimes taking longer than it took to make it work in single player).
2. I don't normally find programming tasks boring, but probably the worst I had to do was some manual formatting for several thousand text entries. There was just no way I was aware of to automate the process (our automation tools wouldn't work for the process IIRC), and it took a couple of hours of me just clicking through a list and copy/pasting some punctuation into it.
3. I absolutely love adding new Music Boxes to the game!
4. This might not have been the hardest, but there was a minor bug where, if you were riding an infinite flight mount, and you "moved left or right off of some blocks, and then tried to move back onto them", the collision detection would not let you. Attempting to fix it ended up breaking the functionality of almost every mount in the game and required many, many hours of continued adjustment to make it actually work properly. It was so bad that it almost would have been better to just undo everything and keep the original bug.
5. I have!
1. I don't know about least favorite, but Fungi Bulbs are a huge pain! Their ability to hit you from off screen with tracking projectiles that shoot through blocks is frustrating.
2. Final Fantasy 1 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are my favorite older games.
Newer games I like are Subnautica, Factorio, and 7 Days to Die.
3. In the sense that Master mode was always meant to be exactly how it currently is, I think I'm okay with it. I'd personally rather return to Expert mode and finish off the last remaining bosses that didn't have special Expert mechanics, rather than adjusting Master more.
4. It "exists" and is complete. Its just not something players can use. This was actually back-end functionality required to make the upgraded mannequins function properly.
1. I like early game content, but I was particularly interested in balancing mid-to-late game content.
2. I feel like "there is always more that you could add to Terraria", but due to engine limitations, its becoming harder and harder to do. Its bittersweet, but for the best.
3. Well, as the person who was behind several HUNDRED balance changes in 1.4 and 1.4.1, I'd say that I have no excuse to be more choosy about this, I already got to change so many things. But if I was given full authority to overhaul something entirely, it would be the three main invasions (Goblin, Pirate, and Martians).
4. If there were, I dunno if I'd say so!
1. As a relatively inexperienced coder, I find it challenging to take on Terraria's code because there is just so much of it. I can spend months learning and still there are entire areas of code I know nothing about. Its difficult to start as a new coder on a project already so established.
2. Hat Racks. These were an idea I personally came up with, and (I'm so sorry Yorai) ended up being a huge pain to code. I'm not sure I've seen people talk about them much at all, and given how many issues they caused that Yorai had to fix, I somewhat regret suggesting it.
1. I'm not sure, but I think we'd be excited about the possibility!
2 & 3. I don't really play mods so I don't have an opinion here.
4. I'm a Console player at heart, but I think Terraria is played best on Keyboard and Mouse.
5. I think it was the best middle ground for us as a team. Other companies might have implemented their OWN official modding support, but we are a small team and it would not have been feasible. And yet, not offering any modding support at all was, IMO, doing a disservice to the potential of the modding community. I think this was the best of both worlds!
1. Well, I think Redigit just felt that was an appropriate price for the game, and we didn't really believe in increasing the price later. So it just stayed where it is!
1. There are items/features that are difficult to add, but I don't really know of any that were particularly hard to add BECAUSE of Terraria's code.
1. My set was primarily inspired by Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with a hint of Vampire Hunter D.
2. The Digging Molecart, as a single item, was probably one of the most complicated/difficult items to implement. Ultimately, its functionality had to be limited somewhat because it was just so difficult to make it properly work with minecart track code properly.
3. I have no idea, maybe Cactus Toilet.
1. I wouldn't say it ever even made it to "cutting room floor" level, but I had some ideas for expanding the Pylon system that we never ended up being able to implement. I think the concept has a lot of potential.
1. Easily hundreds, potentially thousands.
2. This might not count, but I personally found that balancing Whips (raw damage + special functions + tag damage + minion damage for the total damage potential) to be an extremely difficult balancing act.
3. Learn valuable skills (art and/or programming) and be able to create standalone content on your own so that you can provide a portfolio of creations that you share as needed.
4. Final Fantasy 1 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are my favorite older games.
Newer games I like are Subnautica, Factorio, and 7 Days to Die.
1. Well, its awesome to feel like we've released 1.4.1, but we are still doing some work on Terraria for Steam Workshop support and probably a small number of bug fixes, so I don't really feel like we've moved on quite yet.
2. Empress of Light!
1. You know, I'm not really one for bugs, especially not ones that feel like cheating to me. This makes sense, I'm QA, its my job to find and fix bugs.
However, if I had one bug that I thought was kinda fun and didn't really impact things much, it was a weird bug where, if you were deep Underground, and you alt+tabbed out the game while holding a Rod of Discord, and kept "swinging it", the game would do this weird thing where it teleported you to the upper left corner of the world in the Sky.
I didn't mind that it was being fixed, and I wouldn't bring it back.
1. Hoiks were not intentional, but we've "intentionally" allowed them to stay in the game, to the extent that we now make sure they are still working. But they were definitely an unintended bug.
2. Hemogoblin Shark
3. Phase Dye
4. Probably vanilla
1. I really don't know! Would be neat if it were Scott Lloyd Shelly, but its definitely not my call.
1. Scott is not actually a member of ReLogic, and I can't say I've had the honor of interacting with him directly, so I don't know how he creates the music specifically.
Empress of Light and Underground Desert are my favorite tracks now.
1. It was impossible not to make Terraria
2. I think there are ALWAYS more ideas and plans than we are able to implement. Terraria is a game that lends itself towards tons of potential, and there is just only so much time in the day.
3. No, anyone who has actually played the two games would know that the two have very little in common.
1. I had the most fun working on the Bestiary, it was my dream project for the game, and I was so excited to get it in. As for the longest . . . not sure, some things are worked on-and-off over a long period of time so its hard to say. Journey mode, Golf, and Bestiary all took a good while.
2.
As I said before, there's really always more stuff we could add, but there's just not enough time for everything. There are usually more ideas we want than we actually are able to add.
Cenx says: "Red's sister has been begging for pewp for 8 years now. That is poop and puke made into a napalm explosive."
3. Gotta be honest here, I wrote up a pretty comprehensive explanation behind virtually all of the unobtainable items in the game. But I had a power outage and lost 40% of my entire post, almost 5 hours of work, and this is literally the first question I lost. I don't really have the enthusiasm to spend 15 minutes writing them all up again. But to briefly summarize:
- There is no real special or mysterious back story. Most of these were accidentally added sprites that were not approved, things we didn't end up needing/wanting to add, or stuff like that. 95% of the items that are unobtainable can be summarize as "we added it accidentally, or we decided we just didn't want to use it". Pixel Block is the biggest real exception there: it didn't work right and we didn't have an easy way to make it work, so its effectively a broken item, so it was removed. Don't worry, you aren't missing out.
1. This isn't actually that catastrophic, because its really easy to fix, but any time when I'm adding text to the game, its EXTREMELY easy to break all of the text in the game with just a single punctuation mark out of place. It happens all the time. Its the most weirdly delicate part of the code, because if you mess up something else, it will give you an error or fail to launch, but if you mess up the text, it launches perfectly fine . . . except all of the text is broken.
1. We have a couple that have been very hard to track down, or they like to come back months later despite being fixed, like:
- Really tall hats showing stray pixels below the player
- Worm enemies having their heads detach from their body
- A second track playing quietly along with the current music track, usually after teleporting
2.
3. Vampire Knives
1. Summoner
2. I don't have one
3. Empress of Light
1. The Digging Molecart, as a single item, was probably one of the most complicated/difficult items to implement. Ultimately, its functionality had to be limited somewhat because it was just so difficult to make it properly work with minecart track code properly.
2. Well we can't really add achievements for everything, I think we are pretty happy with the current achievement list!
3. The Vanity contest was really fun! But development on Terraria is coming to a close, so it seems unlikely we would have a similar contest for adding stuff to the game as a result.
4. C#
1. Cenx came up with the original concept, Jim did the sprite work and visual design, and Grox and I came up with and implemented the Golem Head furniture item
1. Impossible to say for sure now, but we'll be sure to share more as we've made decisions!
2. Well I know its not that simple of a thing to do due to legal issues relating to other companies. Its hard to say, and I'm not sure what Redigit's current intentions are.
3. I mean, there are mountains of them. Generally speaking, MOST of our ideas aren't implemented into the game. We are never short on ideas we want to see.
1. I find this to be a deeply philosophical question, and I am concerned that by providing an answer, it would be irresponsibly infringing on the freedom of others to form their own opinions without influence on such a sensitive subject
1. Cartoon: Castlevania
2. Anime: Ranma 1/2
3. Movie: Willow
1. Jungle Mimics weren't needed because the Jungle is already fairly full of content, and we didn't have any items we we wanted for them to drop (HM Jungle also presents some challenging balancing concerns)
Cultist Bags were also not needed because the Cultist doesn't really drop anything that would need a boss bag.
1. I would say that because there was no real need to implement three additional colors of cactus blocks just to reflect that, especially since the Desert is already full of tons of infected variants of sand. On top of that, if we added infected Cactus tiles, then I think people would expected to have infected Cactus furniture, and that means 3 more complete furniture sets just using variation of Cactus, and that would probably be pretty boring.
1. Definitely the Bestiary!
2. I like a lot modern sandbox games, but as a kid, I played a lot of RPGs.
3. Cactus Toilet makes you really think about your decisions. Do I really NEED to go to the bathroom?
1. I'm not sure what you mean by Finch Staff being the future of the Summoner class. Its just another summon that we added.
As for Whips, Redigit and I discussed it and we ended up really liking whips for Summoner. If it hadn't been whips, there would not have been anything else instead.
2. I don't think we had another third boss high on our list of planned additions, but typically, we don't really consider post-Moon Lord to be a thing. Moon Lord is the final boss.
3. Princess was "the another NPC". We weren't going to add any others, but we did decide to add her at the last minute.
I don't think a Lumberjack NPC ever came up, I'm not sure what purpose one would serve.
1. Wind actually ended up impacting a lot of mechanics, and so took more time than a lot of people may have expected. Things like kites, sky-background details, swaying furniture/grass/trees, the enemies, all of them in total added up to quite a while.
For me personally, I didn't work on much Wind related content, but swaying furniture all had to be manually adjusted based on their appearance to swing properly in the wind, and that was an interesting, time consuming experience.
2. Red's mind works in mysterious ways!
3. I pretty much like most of Terraria, there's no specific part.
4. Any chest with items inside of it is, so that you don't lose your chests full of stuff.
1. I'm a little confused by this question, and I'm almost curious if its a trick question. Do you mean like, adding something via an automated system that didn't really require manual input? Because I can't really think of a way to add something to the game without any coding/art/QA at all . . . even the most minimal change requires some form of coding.
2. I think for what it is, a crossover event from a fully 3D game that is a different genre of game than Terraria, with pre-established lore, characters, and combat abilities, its a pretty significant success. That was a very challenging task to adapt it, and while it may not be perfect, I'm pretty happy with it, aside from some difficulty issues.
3. It was just a bow we were halfway into adding to be a "Bone themed bow", and then people remembered we already had Marrow, and then there was no real reason to add it.
4. I suppose that's a possible opinion, but I would say it depends on the circumstances!
1. 1.4 wasn't originally meant to be 1.4, but was planned as a much smaller 1.3.6. But as time went on, we spent more time working on mechanics and features, but we ran into this issue where . . . we had an update that was way too big, and taking way too long to be a "1.3.6" update, but didn't really have enough new exciting content to be a 1.4. But the process of adding that sort of new content (typically new biomes/bosses/events) would take so much time that it would only stretch out the release date for 1.4 even further, which would further increase expectations. So we had this sort of catch-22 situation where the longer we spent trying to make sure the update had enough content, the higher we raised the bar on people's expectations of how much content the update we had. This all stemmed from the fact that the first year or so was spent working on some nice quality of life features and fixing hundreds and hundreds of bugs . . . all WORTHY things, but not "worth making a 1.4" about. And this sorta put us behind on the whole process.
2.
A. A Deep Ocean biome
B. A mid-to-late Hardmode Underworld expansion, focusing on the far left/right sides of the Underworld where people don't often explore
C. Maybe a new alternative biome for the Hallow
1. Terraria was designed with only a certain amount of game space being visible on screen at a certain time, with quite a few major mechanics relying on that maximum range. Although we added higher zoom support, this does not mean we were able to rewrite these code limitations, and so 4k support has a maximum zoom out cap.
1. Ever since 1.0, I loved seeing the NPCs in Terraria, and I've loved seeing more and more move in over the years. I'm so happy looking back at our huge collection of NPCs now! Truffle, however, was before my time, so I can't comment there!
1. I don't believe it was intentionally fixed, but rather, fixed as a side effect of resolving some other water duplication issues that would happen "naturally" in the world and cause significant performance impacts. However, I don't believe that 1.4 era water duplication is necessary anymore, due to the addition of better liquid sources like Bottomless Buckets and Liquid Bombs/Rockets.
2. We actually did entirely overhaul the backend of the item drop system in 1.4! It just doesn't show up too much player-side, but the code system is much cleaner and consistent now.
1. For me, its about learning code syntax. I can work with pre-existing code, but I'm not very good as creating brand new code.
2. Can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to weeks, it really depends on the thing being sprited.
3. Could you trust whatever I say to be the truth?
1. We do not have an exact number, because it depends on how you define what items you want to count. There are a lot of items which are not implemented, and I don't think its fair to count them, but the very last item added is Item #5087. There are also things like Hearts and Mana Stars, which are technically items, but can never be in your inventory. There aren't 87 non-accessible items, so its safe to say its more than 5000 but less than 5087, with the exact number being somewhere in between there, depending on your criteria.
1. I love it all, but I think the part that I love the most is any time a change or idea of mine ends up in game.
2. As someone who was a member of the community before I was a member of ReLogic, I think I love how ReLogic is made up mostly of members OF the community! Terraria literally wouldn't be where it is today without the community itself!
3. It must be genetic!
1. I did a LOT of support work on the Bestiary, and while I'm not nearly code-capable enough to have been the one to do the Bestiary, I loved being able to work on it and make it better!
2. I'd go with D) make a Jungle Solution!
3. I really couldn't say in terms of hours, but I think it took Yorai about a week to get the base functionality in. I added the rest of the Pylons and that took me about a day, and then there were bug fixes for them (which is expected for any new system). I'd say it probably took about two work weeks of time altogether, to implement, test, and bug fix. There was also the spriting time. This is actually a pretty quick addition of a new system, and it was fairly bug free.
1. Almost always, the the visual design is created first, and the mechanics come after.
2. Just about everything, its a dream job!
1. Well, it depends. If you are talking about visual quality, that's highly subjective. I don't think there is a strict documented standard, but rather, if there is any team feedback or objections to the art, we will bring it up for discussion.
As for functional standards, as well as whether its visually buggy or not, I have a checklist that every item/tile/enemy goes through before it can pass, and included in that is a bunch of various functionality criteria, including not having buggy visuals. Every one of the 1000+ items in 1.4 went through this checklist, and any issues we encountered had to be fixed before release!
1. Well, I started as a forum member of the old forums (TO), and when they announced the new forums (TCF), I volunteered to test it. I suppose I did a good job testing, because Loki approached me to take on a moderator position on TCF when it launched. Through the moderator position, I was also invited to be a tester. After a year of testing, I became so involved in the process (and apparently did a good job) that Cenx approached me and hired me in December 2015!
2. Summoner!
1. I didn't personally add/code any of the interesting weapons, but I did have a lot of fun testing out the Terraprisma!
2. Generally speaking, coding brand new mechanics is usually the hardest, rather than bosses/events. Some bugs are also incredibly difficult to fix as well. Bosses "take a while", but usually aren't as complex as, say, Journey mode powers or Golf.
3. I think one of the single most difficult sticking points we had, that took months of discussion to decide on, was the name for Journey mode!
4. Have mentioned before, but I had some ideas for expansions to the Pylon system that just never got around to the design stage. Pylons came VERY late in 1.4's development (in the last 10-15% of the dev cycle), and there wasn't really time to go back and revisit it for expansion.
5. Wind mechanics originally had a lot more impact on game mechanics. However, in practice, these almost exclusively came out not so great, and so ultimately, wind ended up being a primarily aesthetic/ambient effect.
1. I don't see any reason I'd want to move to a larger company, as I understand the industry, it would likely be worse than ReLogic.
2. Oddly enough, I don't think we are actually sure that Marco created Ocram at all. We know there was a Marco at Engine, but I don't believe any of us knew him at all, and the "Marco created Ocram" thing might just be an urban legend.
1. Approximately when its done!
1. Well, let me start by saying, I'm a beginner coder, and I'm honestly not even skilled enough to be able to TELL that the code is bad or not.
However, one has to remember that Terraria was coded as a personal project by one self-taught coder about ten years ago now, and was never really intended to become what it is today. The foundations were just sort of stuck that way. As I understand it, it would not be realistic at all to rewrite all the code, it would probably take longer than just making a brand new game.
1. Well, its hard to measure which parts took the longest, as we have several programmers and artists, but generally speaking, the amount of programming time is a bit higher than the art time. But it could easily swing the other way, if we hired another Yoraizor-tier coder, we could end up with artists falling behind. Hard to say.
2. I don't think its realistic to balance all of those factors into a ratio. Making a game is complex, I couldn't distill it down into a simple ratio like that.
3. I don't think we typically underestimate the work. However, sometimes a specific bug will turn out to be way harder to fix than anticipated. A lot of bugs are a 15 minute fix, but some of them surprise you and can take more than a week.
4. Implementing an armor set is not usually too time consuming, unless it has entirely unique mechanics or visuals. For instance, if I needed to implement a new ore tier armor that had standard visuals and didn't have any unique crazy set bonuses, I could probably do the code work/implementation for it in less than an hour. Actually spriting the armor takes longer. However, unique mechanics can take longer, especially if they have fancy visuals. Things like the Titanium Armor Shards, or the Forbidden Armor Tornado/Floating Ring would definitely take a lot more time.
5. No two weapons are alike when adding them. If someone asked me to add a new early game ore-tier sword with no bells and whistles, I could probably do the code work for it in less than half an hour. On the other hand, something like Celebration Mk2 or Terraprisma could take several days, maybe even a week if you include bug fix time. One size does not fit all, when predicting weapon development time.
6. Well, you also need to do balancing and testing. This also ranges considerably. Balancing a basic sword can be pretty simple, just compare its stats to equivalent level swords, and test it out some. Balancing/testing minions or whips can take many hours, especially since they are so complex in different scenarios.
Question for you: are you secretly auditing our work hours to make sure we are being productive? WHO HIRED YOU?!
1. For the Worthy was a last minute project Red added in his free time towards the end of the update. However, none of the features in it were originally going to be in Master mode. Master mode was never intended to be more complex than it currently is.
1. I've responded to many variants of this question throughout this, but the answer is usually the same . . . we ALWAYS have more ideas than we are able to implement. Sometimes, stuff just doesn't seem as important anymore while working on newer features, and sometimes time is tight, and sometimes you realize that its just time to move on to a different task. Are there things that we didn't get to add? Definitely. Hundreds. Thousands.
1. Maybe meteorite doesn't make for a good pickaxe material!
1. Earlier in this QnA, I had typed up an EXTENSIVE discussion of this, over a half hour of typing about them, and then I had a power outage and lost over 4 hours of answers. I don't have the heart to type it up again. However, as summarize in that question . . . its usually just not very interesting. Almost all of them can be summarized as "We added it by accident, wasn't meant to be in the game", or "We didn't need it".
2. I'd say hundreds, if not thousands, of sprites have been reworked, mabe even in 1.4 alone. Whether or not they are better is a subjective call, and with 500-1000 updates, its certain there could be a couple misses. But I think on the whole, the vast majority are an improvement.
3. Not too many, just had to go through the process of adding it. There were a few swords that weren't in it originally, and a few swords that WERE in it that were removed, but that's about it.
4. Nope
1. To guard the Temple!
2. J what now?
3. Somewhere between "Possible" and "Impossible"
4. Does it? I wasn't aware
5. No thank you
6. When the Tmodloader team (who are not ReLogic) are done with it!
1. As I understand it, crossplay is very difficult to implement for a number of reasons, including getting the companies behind Consoles/Mobile devices to cooperate. Which is usually quite difficult!
1. I'll preface this by saying that I only started being involved in the balance of Terraria about a year ago. Prior to this we did not have any strict standards of balance, and the balancing was done by just about whoever worked on it at the time.
Since late 2019, I've been reviewing balance and balancing new items being added, and my general policy looks something like this:
A. Weapons within the same tier should generally be roughly equivalent in potency to other weapons within the same tier
B. The rarity, or difficulty of obtaining, a weapon may influence the potency of a weapon, but generally not so much that it becomes superior to weapons in the next tier, or inferior to weapons in the previous tier
C. While inter-class balance is ideal (melee being balanced versus ranged), the balance on these has been skewed for years, and may not always possible. Thus, I strive to focus mostly on intra-class balance (melee being balanced against other melee). I'm going to worry a lot less about how Starlight fares versus Eventide, than I am going to be comparing Starlight versus Flairon.
D. There are many factors in determining the potency of a weapon, and its not always about DPS. There is range, ease of use, accuracy, "effective DPS" (how easily a weapon achieves its potential DPS), group damage, richochet or bonus projectiles, debuffs, mana cost, and many more. A weapon can deal less damage if it hits many targets at a distance, and still be balanced versus a short range, high damage weapon.
There are more considerations here, but this is a broad overview of my general philosophy. A game like Terraria has hundreds of weapons, and given my time frame, there was only so much that could be done. I know there will always be some issues with certain items standing out as underpowered, or overpowered, but I like to think that the literal hundreds of balance changes I made over the last year have had a positive impact overall!
2. I'm glad you think the quality has gone up! However, I'm not aware of any specific change in policy that resulted in such a shift. Maybe just chalk it up to practice over the years!
1. It allowed for some new traps and also hidden corridors that required a bit more investigation to discover!
1. A book system? Do you mean like, being able to write down stuff in game? I guess that could be neat, though it wouldn't impact much except perhaps Adventure maps.
1. I never had any doubts about pylons, I was confident that they were something I would use, and I trusted in that instinct.
1. This was the intention behind Master mode from the beginning, a simple, increased difficulty mode.
2. We did not. We added several desert entrance variants, and one of them is no entrance at all.
3. I don't believe it does override ALL other music tracks, bosses/invasions should still override. I suppose its because Towns are generally safer, and we wanted the music to reflect the different tone of that.
4. To me, I guess its because . . . what's the point of making houses for the benefit of having NPCs if all you do is stick them in wood squares? Its too easy, for a ton of reward. Of course, you can still do this now, its perfectly viable, but there is now an incentive to diversify this approach.
5. Red's mind works in mysterious ways.
6. Because they are all very powerful items that should not be common. Slime Staff in particular is more of an easter egg than "part of summoner progression". The biome keys are only rare if you look at the raw numbers, but when you realize its kills of ANY enemy in those biomes, you can see that thousands of kills is not that uncommon at all.
7. Its undeniable that alt ores are stronger than their counterparts, and I suppose this was so that they weren't simple resprites.
However, I'm not aware of any systematic rule that Crimson was intended to be more powerful than Corruption overall, even if it may be the case. I think its just how the dice fell.
8. I guess I see it differently; these things ARE the reward for fishing. Fishing is a major part of the game, involving a lot of content, and while none of it is strictly necessary, much of it is useful. You do not need to fish, but by fishing, you gain access to a lot of features. One could say the same for virtually every source of items in the game . . . shopping, enemy drops, crafting, etc.
9. Summoners are like mages, but even more reliant on their minions to protect them. They shouldn't be on the front lines, and are uniquely suited to staying at a distance while others fight for them. They SHOULD have the least defense of any class.
10. Because Block Swap is meant to be a tool of convenience, not one of power. Sand is considered a hazard, and lava even moreso. It was not intended to bypass these. However, we HAVE changed it so that by hardmode, you can blockswap sand and other falling materials. Also, you should not be able to block swap under Trees and Cacti because they are not meant to be on any other substrate. That's intentional design.
11. Lets break down Melee and Ranged weapons, especially at the early game:
Melee Weapons:
- They are usually still in your hand when used to strike an enemy at close range
- Their range is usually limited, unless they fire projectiles, like the Ice Blade, or they are Boomerang-type items
- They are not consumed on use
Ranged Weapons:
- They are weapons which propel ammunition of some sort at an enemy. You do not hit the enemy with what is in your hand, but with the ammo.
- They are typically long range weapons, almost exclusively featuring projectiles
- They consume ammo on use
And now lets look at Thrown Weapons . . .
- They are ammunition which are thrown at an enemy. You do not hit an enemy with something in your hand, but with the thrown consumable ammo.
- They are typically long range weapons, exclusively featuring projectiles.
- They are consumed on use
The only appreciable difference between Ranged and Thrown is that Thrown weapons are thrown "by hand" and consumed directly, while Ranged weapons are shot from a weapon, and only the ammo is consumed. Its clear to me that Thrown is a cousin of Ranged, and has virtually nothing in common with Melee. Even Boomerang-type items have less in common with Thrown items than Thrown items have in common with Ranged items.
12. I believe because fossils are fragile, so they could break while mining
13. They don't, its a crumbling/sifting sound
14. I think thinking of vanity/pet/aesthetic content as "useless" is really missing the mark entirely. Vanity content is an important part of the game, and people utilize it regularly. It just doesn't impact combat. And if anything, that's the perfect combination . . . people have a lot of extra money at the end of the game, and the Traveling Merchant offers a way to spend it, and its mostly on aesthetic stuff. This means we don't lock you out of high end gear with extremely high price tags (though there are some exceptions, it is not typical).
15. I'm not 100% sure, but perhaps its to require some effort to obtain the music boxes!
16. They aren't very rare. However, if they were much more common, then they would be excessively spammy.
17. Some stuff is exclusive, I don't think there has ever been a rule against that! And with the addition of the Dryad's Graveyard seeds, alt-world evils aren't exclusive anymore.
18. Probably because they are pretty fancy sets and just giving them out for farming EoC repeatedly seems too easy to me.
19. I think the Lucky Horseshoe was a pretty underwhelming reward for the Floating Island tier . . . lets be real, most people opened them for the Balloon and the Starfury, and Horseshoes were stuck in a chest somewhere (unless they went on a balloon). However, at the Underground Ore tier, this sort of protection would be invaluable, and there would still be accessory slots available and in less demand for using on the Horseshoe. It also freed up a slot for the relatively-similar-but-more-powerful Fledglign Wings to be put in the Floating Island tier. I think it was a good solution overall.
1. I don't think so. A Mechanical Brain of Cthulhu would probably be okay, if only for the symmetry. But meching all of the bosses just sounds like it would be boring and uninspired. The original three mechs were alright, but its definitely not something that should just be done for all of the bosses.
1. I think that they are meant to be challenging, and since you typically only fight one at a time, it would be too easy to knockback spam them and stay away.
2. Those bosses, as well as Ocram, were created by Engine and Codeglue, and were never ReLogic characters. As such, it would be highly unlikely they ever would have been on PC for 1.4. As we've moved towards a more consistent experience across platforms, the exclusive content has been removed over time, not added back in. I think adding these bosses back in would just be taking a step backwards.
3. If anything, I think it might be the opposite. We had so much we wanted to add to Journey's End, we actually needed a good reason to stop, as we were just continuing to come up with new ideas with every passing month. The timing of COVID actually led to us setting a deadline and releasing to give people something to play during quarantine, which I believe was the best decision.
4. Of course I play Terraria! And Summoner is my favorite
5. All of our music is done by Scott Lloyd Shelly, who is tremendously talented. I don't think anyone at ReLogic tried any, except for some very early pre 1.0 tracks Red made (and that aren't used).
6. Mountain Dew Baja Blast (Zero Calorie)
7. My favorite animals are ferrets. At the time of 1.4, I did not have any pets at all, and had not had any in over 10 years. However, I did just recently get a new kitten! But not in time to make any impact on Terraria.
8. I tend towards Creation, but its a bit of both. I like to conquer a hostile landscape (destruction) and then create a fortress/base of operations in the midsts of it (creation).
1. Personally? I don't have very much creative control, as the creative directors for Terraria are Redigit, Cenx, and Yoraiz0r. However, they've recently trusted me with taking the lead on balance concerns, subject to their approval. Occasionally, I'll have a personal idea that gets approved, and they'll let me handle the specifics, but this is not the standard.
2. I actually have a Master's degree in Counseling, and I was going to be a therapist.
3. The decision to continue working on Terraria (and when to end it) is a really high level decision made between Redigit, Cenx, and Yoraiz0r. Its really not something I have much say on, nor really something I should have much say on, though my input is listened to on the matter. For what its worth, I do agree with the decision . . . Terraria could get new content forever, but its simply not realistic to keep doing so.
4. I'm not going anywhere, I want to stick with ReLogic as long as they will have me!
1. For me, its being part of getting the Bestiary added to the game, and all of the work I did supporting that project!
2.
#1. Empress of Light
#2 Duke Fishron
#3. Moon Lord
1. Underground Mushroom Biome!
2. Some blue sausage from Duke Fishron might be nice
3. Blue Starry Blocks or Crystal Blocks
1. For me, its learning code syntax. I can read code much better than I can write it . . . I struggle to remember how you write various commands, unless I have a reference sheet.
2. I've learned a lot from taking online courses, youtube videos and the like. However, if you have the opportunity to receive a formal education in programming, I recommend doing that!
1. Probably because it would also mean we likely needed a Crimson and a Hallow Jungle, and this is equivalent to adding three entirely new biomes that are just derived from the HM Jungle. The Jungle is already one of the most complex and content-filled biomes in the entire game, and we'd have to make at least tile/wall/background variations for all three, not to mention the probable need for new enemies to match each one, and probably loot. I just don't think the Jungle needs that.
2. Because there was no Brain of Cthulhu when the Mech bosses were added.
3. Blue Starry Blocks or Crystal Blocks
4. I might have to say Cell Phone, just for all of the value you get out of one item
5. I don't think I've really worked on any enemies directly, actually. Just balancing on 1.4 stuff . . . so if I had to go by that, probably Hemogoblin Shark.
6. Empress of Light, I just think its a really engaging and interesting fight with great music
7. Empress of Light's track! Followed by Underground Desert
8. Underground Hallow probably!
9. I'd say learning to code, which I'm still not so great at, but I'm still learning!
10. A lot of pet/mount buff icons had cute or funny flavor text that often goes unnoticed!
1. We generally get along fairly well, and don't have many conflicts. In the event that something should happen along those lines, where we can't agree on something, we will normally ask for Red/Cenx to make a final call, and then we respect that decision!
2. Well, I think modding as a whole is good for the community. However, I don't personally like to mod any games, Terraria or otherwise. So I don't personally "encourage" or "discourage" modding, because I think its a personal choice, but I'm definitely in support of anyone who chooses to do so!
3. Typically, "idea guy" is not a viable role in a company our size. Everyone needs to be able to carry their own weight and contribute to the game directly. Every single one of us comes up with ideas all the time, there is no need for someone who's only job is to make ideas. We were never short on those.
4. I like pretty much all of the game, I don't really have a favorite, though I'm partial to the early game ore-tiers. I'm a bit of a memer, so I like funny item flavor texts that reference things.
5. Terraria is the kind of game where you can ALWAYS add more. But its also important to know when to call it a day.
6. Work on Terraria is stopping across the entire company, not just Redigit. We wouldn't really be allowed to continue working on it on our own unless Red/Cenx approved it, and then we'd just be back to business as usual (working on Terraria). Redigit/Cenx are the ones who own Terraria, we can't just keep developing it without their permission.
7. Red is really the only one who can dictate anything about the lore, and the lore was a compilation of things that he felt about the game. Some of it has been around a long time, some of it he thought about more recently.
8. To answer the specific question "is it in your best interest", I don't think so. T:OW was canceled for a reason, going back to it would probably be unwise.
9. Not that I'm aware of, why would we change Empress of Light? We are very happy with her design.
10. The numbers don't really carry any relevance, its just how many major updates/minor updates we add. Deliberately adding 4 or 5 more minor updates (which usually take several months to make) just to make the numbers have a fake pattern is kinda . . . you know . . . not a very high priority
11. Absolutely!
1. This was never considered for Master Mode. I'm not aware of anything ever being scrapped from Master Mode.
2. Ice Biome getting more content is popular feedback these days, but I actually think the Ice Biome is fine. Before we expanded the Desert, people said the opposite: "The ice biome has tons of content, and the desert doesn't have any!". Well, then we added more desert content, and now people want more ice biome content. Its sort of an endless loop. I don't think the Ice biome would be a high priority target for new content, if I were to personally be in charge of adding more.
3. Well, it was in 1.4 that we MADE the change to vanity slots, so I don't see us having a reason to go back on that now.
The size restriction on texture packs is there for mechanical reasons to prevent bugs with the game, so its there for a purpose.
1. The Lightning themed Desert content was always envisioned specifically for the Desert, it was not scrapped Storm content. In fact, the Storm weather event came much later than those weapons.
There was never actually any specific plan to add any enemies or drops to the Storm event, though I'm certain it would be a great idea. But nothing was ever scrapped, it simply wasn't something we focused on.
1. Final Fantasy 1!
1. Phase Dye
2. My set was primarily inspired by Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with a hint of Vampire Hunter D
3. It was a good idea.
4. I don't wear hats or headgear IRL
5. Ironically, not the Leinfors Hat. I don't wear a hat in game, I use the Familiar Wig.
6. No strong opinion on the matter.
7. As an agent of chaos, I prefer to never put the toilet paper on the holder, and just leave it laying upright on the sink counter top.
1. Lunatic Cultist is not a typical boss, and has never really had a role as a loot provider. His defeat unlocks the Celestial Event, which provides a ton of loot. You might consider the two one and the same.
Moon Lord has extra drops because he's the final boss, he's special.
1. I was introduced to coding by Yoraiz0r while I already worked on Terraria, using C#
2. Well, I was already doing QA for Terraria, but I felt limited, as if I wasn't doing enough. Coding gave me an opportunity to do more!
1. Oh of course, there are dozens if not hundreds of things I'd personally want to add to Terraria.
1. Why wouldn't we like the best color?!
1. I guess this wasn't my "least favorite", because there isn't any code work I actively dislike, but one thing that came at the end of the dev cycle that was really frustrating was assigning Journey Mode Research tiers. Every Journey Mode item has a specific number of that item required to research it, and because there are over 5000 items in the game, every single item had to be manually reviewed for the appropriate amount of items that needed to be sacrificed. This was a very lengthy process, which required multiple review passes and testing to make sure it was internally consistent with itself. Furthermore, because of the code system we used to implement these tier counts, every additional item we added AFTER that, I had to manually go back to the file and update it with a new entry at the end, with a newly assigned tier. This was very easy to forget, and I definitely did forget it multiple times. There wasn't much we could do to automate the process, and assigning and keeping track of 5000 different variables is not an easy or quick task.
1. I love adding new Music Boxes!
2. I didn't create Terraria, and I didn't really join until quite a few years in, but I'm not someone who really feels "inspiration". I simply want to see the game be as enjoyable as possible to me, and I base that on what I personally want to see in the game.
3. The first programming task I ever did was to increase the sell value of the Super Healing Potion, because it was too low. This was a good practice task for me as a new coder.
1. Cenx was heavily involved in the concepts behind both of Hallow bosses, so I really couldn't answer for her. Crowno did the direct art on Empress of Light, and Lazure did Queen Slime. Yoraiz0r created the attacks for Empress of Light, and Grox did most of the Queen Slime attacks, though I contributed some on the combat design for Queen Slime. Since I only directly contributed on Queen Slime's attacks, I'll say I thought of it from a "How does the King Slime fight go, and how would I scale that up for a Hardmode player who can now fly, especially one who went into the fight expecting King Slime 2?". That was, for me, the central guiding philosophy for Queen Slime attacks.
1. I've always wanted to make games since I was 3 years old. I just didn't know it was possible until Cenx hired me!
2. It depends on the focus of that day, whether I'm on QA duty or Programming duty. When I'm working QA, I'm typically reviewing new content, cataloguing lists of their functionality/issues, testing for bugs, retesting fixed bugs, and other things like that. I also gather bug reports from the forums or Discord.
If its Programming duty, I usually work on "easy" tasks, or time-consuming-but-simple tasks, to free up coding time from the more skilled programmers. Its not efficient to have Yoraiz0r spend 10 hours on some task that any novice coder can do. So I try to work on those, so that they can work on the harder stuff. This usually involves adding simple items/furniture, adjusting stats, adding drop sources or recipes, and virtually anything involving text, dialogue, or item tooltips.
3. For programming, Visual Studio
4. I prefer Light mode
5. I'm not sure I could pinpoint it. I think its a combination of many factors all in combination. Fun combat, nice sandbox gameplay, interesting enemies/characters/weapons/biomes, great music . . . any one of these things could be bad and the game would suffer tremendously for it.
6. Hundreds of them. And because there are ALWAYS more ideas than there is time to add ideas.
1. Modding is VERY difficult to do on Consoles, period. There are only a handful of video games on Consoles that can be modded, and they are not like PC modding at all.
1. I have no idea, I've never played Stardew Valley!
2. I'm not something as simple as coloring your equipment really needs a source of inspiration, it just seems like a basic gameplay addition for aesthetics.
3. In the ENTIRE game, I'd be inclined to say Gamepad support. It was a massive undertaking to add it from the ground up (its easier to add in the beginning, when you are making the game), and it requires constant maintenance, updates, and bug fixes with every new feature and UI system we add. There are probably very few other mechanics that require so much upkeep, for something that had such a low impact on the game itself.
4. Fortunately, it wasn't difficult. We never had issues where hoiking accidentally broke. But it is a thing we have to look out for.
5. I can't think of a specific dye that is popular among the whole team. I'm a personal fan of Phase Dye, and I don't know anyone else who likes it all that much.
6. I wouldn't say "hated" but Eater of Worlds has a lot of technical issues and is prone to bugs in a way that can be hard to fix.
1. Adding Music Boxes is my favorite thing to add!
2. Hmm . . . difficult. I'd have to go with Cloud in a Bottle, because Hermes Boots is an item of convenience usually, but Cloud in a Bottle dramatically improves cave navigation.
3. Before 1.4, it would have been Titanium. After 1.4? I'm a big fan of Orichalcum, I love its set bonus. Not a common opinion though.
4. It would have to be easily in the thousands, as I've added hundreds of items, and each item, at minimum, usually has a dozen or so lines of code. I've also added hundreds of lines of dialogue, as well as the entire bestiary text entry collection, and that would be several hundred as well. I really have no idea specifically how much though.
I've only added a handful of sprites of my own, a quick review indicates I've done 9 sprites in total which are currently in the game.
5. I don't feel any particular attachment to strings of code themselves. Its too abstract for me to relate to that way.
6. I've played most of the Final Fantasy games up to 9, and Final Fantasy 1 is my favorite game of all time. I'm retired from the series, however.
7. The first thing I programmed at all was a change to the Super Healing Potion's sell value, and the first sprite I made were all of the Gold Goldfish sprites.
8. Add a new painting!
1. Adding Storm effects to Duke Fishron's boss fight, the way the lightning/rain system was set up, it didn't really work for making JUST the Ocean have weather.
2. There isn't much I specifically regret adding, but there were some things we added (or bugs we fixed) that took WAY longer than they should have, and in hindsight, it would have been more efficient not to work on them at all. The Hat Rack furniture item was more trouble than it was worth, and I regret suggesting it.
3. Didn't really impact us at all, as we already worked from home!
4. Definitely!
1. Well, it doesn't feel like much of a change, because I'm still with ReLogic, and I love being here, so it just feels like a transition!
2. We can't say!
3. That's not my call to make, but it would be cool!
4. 1.4 was NOT intended, and was originally 1.3.6. It simply did get too big to continue calling it 1.3.6, as some other 1.3.X updates had 100 items or less, and 1.3.6 had several hundred already.
5. Nothing specific to me, no.
6. They are definitely my primary social circle and friends!
7. I think the whole team is ready for something new.
1. What's the First Fractal?
1. I couldn't pick just one, we come up with tons of concepts all the time that aren't used.
2. I suppose just none came up for discussion. Daybreak is something like an evolution of the spear though.
3. No particular reason
4. I'm not sure, as I wasn't around at the time, but XNA was a valid and thriving framework at the time of Terraria's creation. It was an entirely reasonable choice, at the time.
5. I recall that Betsy and the Ogre sprites took quite a while.
6. I think the idea has come up, but was not considered because it would just be power bloat. Its just making the player stronger with no downsides, and then that makes the game easier for no real reason.
1. No, this never part of the plans for Master Mode
2. I would have liked to see special Expert behavior for the Mech bosses and Golem.
3. I mean . . . max damage hits will do that for you.
1. I think being a Terraria dev is my greatest achievement, truly!
1. Good Question Chippy!
- There are too many to list . . . but the moment Cenx approached me and asked if I wanted to be a member of ReLogic. It was a lifelong dream come true to work on video games. Completely changed my life.
- The first time I met the team IRL in 2018, seeing Redigit, Cenx, Yoraiz0r, Loki, D-Town, FoodBarbarian, Safeman, 0x33, and Arkhayla, that was an amazing trip. Didn't want to go home!
- When I showed Redigit my Bestiary mockup for the first time. And then about a year later, they were like "So, lets do Bestiary!". It was my biggest suggestion implemented into the game, and my favorite thing in 1.4.
So many amazing memories!
1. There were some combat inspirations from bullet-hell games, and her music was also vaguely inspired by the fast paced music tracks of that genre, but visually, I believe she was from scratch.
2. We didn't. We just rearranged them. Arkhalis is now dropped with the Arkhalis dev set.
3. Because none of the recipes felt quite right, and they had balance impacts on the Terra Blade that made it underpowered. Even the current one isn't perfect, but I think its the best fit currently possible.
4. I assume Red came up with the idea. However, the sprites were all done by the spriters, but different spriters did different sets. Mine was done by Crowno, for instance, but some were done by other spriters.
5. Unfortunately for me, all of the events were in the game already when I was hired. The only ones I worked on were Sandstorm and Old One's Army, but those were both pretty fun!
6. I don't think as a team we could agree on a favorite vanity set
If not my own vanity set, I like using Familiar Wig with my long blonde hair, Reflective Obsidian-dyed Solar Armor Chestplate, and Reflective Obsidian Dyed Djinn's Curse, for aesthetics.
7. I don't really have a least favorite weapon, and I didn't really do code work on many weapons, they are normally a bit too advanced for me.
8. Came before my time, I don't know!
9. I think Summoner is the only real answer to this, as it gained the most content in 1.4, and it fleshed it out in a way that it has needed for a long time.
10. I mean, I've always wanted to do game design, and I can't imagine leaving.
11. Definitely. We all want the game to be as good as it possible can!
12. Aside from chatting with each other and some gaming? Don't think so, we live all around the world!
13. There were concerns that 1.4 didn't have enough content to warrant being called 1.4, namely because it doesn't add any new major biomes or progression past Moon Lord. But that's also intentional . . . Moon Lord is intended to be the final boss. Even so, while we added tons of items, its a little light on combat content, and we knew that would be noticed, but its simply how the update went.
14. Safeman or Jim
15. Loki!
16. I aspired to work on video games, but I didn't know the form that it would take
17. There was an idea about making underground towns a viable thing, as can be seen from the addition of the Gem Critters. The Gem Trees went along with that.
18. I mean, it happens all the time, but you catch it when it happens almost instantly. I've "completely broken" all the text in the game dozens of times, but I also noticed it right away. That's what testing is for!
19. What I'd REALLY want to see is an Item Blacklist, where you could flag specific items to either not be picked up, or be automatically trashed. Anyone who's dug through the Jungle and quickly filled their inventory with junk knows my pain.
20. Terraria has dozens of items and enemies that were inspired by things from video games, movies, anime, etc.
21. Well, I typically look at the tier of the weapon, and then I evaluate all nearby similar weapons. So for instance, when adding Starlight to the Empress of Light, I take into consideration all like-tier Melee weapons (North Pole, Christmas Tree Sword, Flairon, Flying Dragon, Sky Dragon's Fury) and I try to aim for a roughly similar level of overall power, depending on the unique mechanics of the weapon. I also try to make sure that the weapon doesn't invalidate later tier weapons (like Meowmere), and also that the weapon is stronger than earlier tier weapons (like Possessed Hatchet). And if possible, try to predict if the weapon has any exploits that would make it abusable. When we reworked the Proximity Mine Launcher, we accidentally gave it a fairly abusable system that had to be reworked, for instance, and one of our testers caught it.
22. Red wanted to have a more difficult mode, and AI changes/extensive overhauls take a lot of time. It was intended to just be a simple difficulty increase.
23. Never!
24. Yes! Except for when my power outage erased everything from page 6 through page 10 and I had to spend 5 hours doing them again.
1. I was only personally involved with the creation of Empress of Light and Queen Slime, but most of Empress' attacks were designed by Yorai. However, I had a lot of input on the design of the Queen Slime and her minions and how they attacked; ultimately, my suggestions for them were what we ended up using. I wanted to imagine 3 different types of attacks that could all pose a threat of some sort to a Hardmode player, but also took something from the Slime/Hallow theme. The Heavenly Slimes represented the flight-risk, and were intended to basically be the Hallowed equivalent of Slimers. The Crystal Slimes used the behavior of Spiked Slimes, but they shot Crystals, drawing from the Crystal theme of the Hallow biome, a close range threat. And the Bouncy Slime's bouncy projectile was intended to reflect Pinky and the bouncy nature of Pink Gel, and adding some wild chaos to the battlefield. All three of them were intentionally designed to use the three main colors of the Hallow as well. The fact that Queen Slime grew wings in the middle of the fight was something that came to me to sort of take the player off-guard . . . you are sitting there, flying above her with your new-found Hardmode wings, and thinking "Pfft, she's just like King Slime, she can't get me", and halfway through she suddenly takes flight and comes after you, which would play off your expectations based on King Slime. I thought it would be a kinda cool shock/reveal moment the first time you fought her, and I'm glad we ended up going with that design.
2. <insert witty math response>
3. I don't mess around with paint all too much, but I found that Negative Paint on Sandstone Slab Walls makes for a really cool dark blue brick with white outlines!
4. It used to be Duke Fishron, but I've got to say Empress of Light these days.
5. Vampire Knives and Sanguine Staff. Clearly, I have a type.
6. Pirate Crossbower is tremendously underrated.
7. Sweet and Sour Sauce.
1. Definitely the Bestiary! I wanted to see it for years, and I was absolutely stoked that we added it in the end.
1. Red and I had a late night talk about it one time . . . Yorai had been adding Whips, but they had been Melee weapons originally. Red and I were both inspired by the character Rydia from Final Fantasy, one of the most famous Summoners from the franchise, who also used Whips as a main weapon. We had been trying to look into ways to expand the Summoner class's repertoire, and the idea just clicked and felt right to us. The rest is history.
2. The first item I added was also my first pet project, from start to finish. I added (and sprited) the Gold Goldfish and its Goldfish Bowl entirely by myself, which was a substantial challenge at the time! It was also a test: I was only allowed to add it if I was capable of doing it on my own. Happy to say it was a success.
3. I've worked on very little worldgen, actually, but the closest thing to worldgen related code I've done that was a challenge was making a bunch of previously Clentaminator-immune walls be able to be Clentaminated/Infected. There were some 20-30 back walls that were added in 1.3 representing Stone, Corrupt, Crimson, Hallow, and Jungle, and maybe due to time constraints or whatever, they weren't susceptible to Clentaminator/Infection. They really stood out like a sore thumb if an area's biome changed, so I set about making a system where they could all be interchangeably infected. It was surprisingly complex, since it was a big flow chart of dozens of different transformation possibilities, and that was really difficult for me at the time (I was very new to coding then)
4. As mentioned above, I did the (admittedly simple) Gold Goldfish and Gold Goldfish Bowl sprites!
1. Most of the NPCs in the game were actually already in the game by the time I joined ReLogic, but my favorite from the ones I did work on was the Zoologist. She's tied up with my favorite pet project (the Bestiary), and her transformation state seemed really unique and different to me.
1. During 1.4, we discussed making localized a Storm/Lightning when fighting Duke Fishron. It probably wasn't impossible, but as I understand it, based on the way the weather system worked, it was not a simple process to make the weather localized (instead of world-wide), and we didn't end up being able to add it.
1. Muramasa has been in the game since 1.0, pre-dating the Breaker Blade.
1. I was a moderator for these forums, and through that connection, eventually became a Beta tester. I did enough testing that I was eventually hired full time! I was hired in December of 2015!
1. In my experience, a lot of the unimplemented content ended up in the game accidentally by being added in a big batch of art all at once. Sometimes it turns out a specific item isn't actually needed, but its MUCH harder to "remove" an item after its been added to the game's code, so it usually just ends up staying. So an artist might make like, 50 items, a coder will add all 50 items, and then later on, we find out a couple of those items weren't needed after all.
So for example: What became of the Cultist, Dark Mage and Ogre Bags? We didn't need them. There was no purpose in making them fully functional because they served no purpose, but because the spritework was done all at once for them, they had been added into the code ahead of time. At that point, it was not time-effective to fully remove their assets from the game's code, so they are just unused, because there is no need for them.
1. I don't want to speak for the rest of the team, but the overhaul to how the player's torso/arms animate ended up being an absolutely tremendous task for a large number of people on the team, especially Artists and QA. While it paid off heavily in how it allowed custom hand movement for interacting with various objects (Golf Clubs, Food, certain mounts, etc), it remains in my mind as one of the tasks which took a surprising amount of time, and probably had the highest bug count of any single feature we added in the entirety of 1.4, because it impacted literally every armor/vanity set in the game.
1. I'd love to totally rebalance/redesign most of the invasions in the game (Goblin, Pirate, Martians, and even Frost Legion). I really like the strategic aspect to it, and I would want to expand on making them better at bypassing defenses.
1. I mean, it was kind of like a dream come true. No inspiration needed. I leapt at the opportunity!
2. Sausage.
1. Baby Dino and Alien Skater Boi
2. It is a degenerate taco
1. I don't really know what makes it feel Calamity-ish, I haven't played Calamity.
2. Just to see what happened.
3. It was great!
4. It was originally envisioned as a simple stat boost, with minimal bells and whistles. That I'm aware of, it was never intended to be the same level of complexity as Expert. If we had envisioned it as an Expert 2 from the start, I'm sure we could have found the time to do so, but that was never the plan. And if we had done that, I suspect the time would have come out of other projects (such as Empress of Light, Bestiary, or Journey Mode).
1. Many times. I'm a bit of a completionist, so a "full" playthrough means collecting everything, including all banners. However, I do not play mods.
2. I really don't like coffee at all, so tea, though I'm not a huge tea drinker.
1. I'm not aware of anything for the Ice biome. The Underworld is always subject to brainstorming for potential expansions, but there was never anything specific that we had to cut, only ideas that never got off the ground.
2. I'd love to see a Deep Ocean sort of biome, I'm a huge fan of underwater content.
1. Pretty much all of it. Any time I get to make a permanent impact on the game, or see something that was my idea make it into the game itself, it has such a tremendous positive impact on me.
2. With over 5000 items and dozens of bosses, it comes from all over. Only a small number of the items were my ideas though, so I'm not the best person to really say!
3. I don't care what anyone says, Cobalt/Ankh Shield is an absolute must for me. Not having one equipped is so frustrating.
1. In my assessment, Otherworld wasn't canceled because there wasn't enough time, but rather, that it wasn't turning out the right way. However, it would not be my call whether or not to go back to it. If Redigit and Cenx told me to do so, then I would, because that is my job. They are the final decision makers!
1. I suppose everything has to come to an end eventually, and as Terraria's engine ages, it gets harder and harder to include more content/features in a way that doesn't break things.
1. As I understand it, cross-play is very difficult to implement, especially with Consoles, so I really couldn't say. Its not my area of expertise.
1. As someone who spent 4 years being a "Terraria fan" before I was a member of ReLogic, I never thought I would end up where I am today. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and its a literal dream come true. And I'm absolutely proud of it.
2. I'll let Yoraiz0r field this one
3. I wasn't part of the team back then, but I think it was ONLY meant for the devs to use. Back then, the dev builds the team had access to could allow them to be used without the negative debuffs. But modding/hacking meant it was really simple to just deactivate those debuffs, so they were just added for everyone eventually.
4. think its pretty awesome! I say that as someone who was part of the community first!
5. I don't think I could pick any one single thing, I like to think in more broad strokes, like new invasions, biomes, or bosses.
6. Vampire Knives, because I could use them to heal my own wounds!
7. A lot of items are really easy, especially simple stuff like basic furniture (Chairs, Tables), certain vanity outfits, and things like food. Other items are quite difficult. Bosses and NPCs are much harder, and I've never added either of them.
1. Redigit's is pretty fantastic, but I think Safeman's set is really unique and adorable.
1. Throwing Class was never originally meant to be a "full" class. It was originally meant to be a temporary side class that people eventually outgrew, as Ranged/Magic became more available. However, this didn't seem to fit right for the playerbase . . . it was perceived as incomplete. Ultimately, the "temporary side class" experiment was kinda deemed to be not a success, and Throwing was merged into Ranged. IMO, its better this way.
1. Summoners were always designed to use any weapon they wanted, along with the Minions (which were their "primary" weapon). Whips were only added at a much later date, but Summoners were not originally intended to have a dedicated personal weapon.
2. Whips were not added until quite late in 1.4, and were not planned to be Summoner weapons until late 2019.
1. I think Empress of Light and Underground Desert are my favorites.
2. Deep Oceans
1. Nimbus Rod. Rather, its not underrated, but its actually insanely useful and powerful all the way until the end of the game and most people don't utilize it as such.
2. Bug fixes and Steam Workshop are our big Terraria focuses, but the team is spending some time learning Unity recently!
3. Whisked until I was super smooth, poured into a pan, and cooked without stirring, so I came out as like a sort of egg-based tortilla.
1. I'd say the one single item that was the most prone to bugs was the Hat Rack. It didn't have the most bugs of any single project in 1.4, but it had the most bugs for a single item.
2. Probably not, I think I'd blow my 4 more items on a couple more Summon items to round things out, and maybe Jungle Solution for the Clentaminator.
1. Red never got his promised $15! It was not we who broke the contract
2. Chlorophyte does add resistance to conversion, though this doesn't apply to the surface, admittedly.
1. As someone who doesn't play any mods, none of my idea contributions have been from mods. Any similarities are just parallel thinking. I wouldn't even know what is even in most of the mods.
1. I mentioned before, I would love to do some reworking on the Invasions to update them to be a bit more dynamic!
2. I love programming in new music boxes for new tracks! Pretty easy to do, but I take huge satisfaction in it.
3. As specified previously, I don't actually play mods. Vanilla life for me!
4. Strawberries!
1 & 2. Both of these can probably be answered in the same response. I want to preface this by saying this wasn't specifically my design decision, though I took part in the discussions, but the decision on how to do Journey mode was a tricky one. We knew going in that a game mode like this would immediately be compared to Minecraft's Creative mode . . . simply by existing, people would go into Journey mode expecting something like Creative mode. However, it was never the intention to make an actual Creative mode specifically, although we knew the comparisons would be unavoidable. We wanted Journey mode to still be an actual game, with progression and unlocking of content, but offering powerful options to players. It combines the strengths of a "Creative" mode with the normal challenges and engagement of a more traditional Terraria experience, and I think that's a fantastic combination.
3. Probably getting all of the Journey powers probably synchronizing in Multiplayer. I didn't do any of the coding for it specifically, but I processed/handled the bug reporting for it, and it took a lot of iterations.
1. Will terraria ever have a sequel
2. Was 1.4 actually terraria last update
3. Was the arkhalis design choice based off the diamond sword from minecraft
4. What is your favorite enemy in terraria.
5. Why is there no halloween exclusive npc
6. What is your favorite weapon
7. Why was terraria otherworld cancelled
8. Will you respond to this
1. Hard to tell what the future may bring!
2. Well, we've established that Steam Workshop support will be a thing, and it is quite possible this will require a version bump up to 1.4.2, but the current plan Cenx and Redigit have expressed is that this the last update . . . for now(???)
3. No, the Arkhalis (created by the now retired dev of the same name) was inspired by the Crissaegrim from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
4. Chaos Elemental or Pirate Crossbower
5. I wasn't around back then, but I guess there just didn't need to be one. Normally, I pose scenarios like this not as "Why isn't there X?", but "Why should there be X?"
6. Vampire Knives
7. This thread explains why fairly clearly:
Terraria: Otherworld - This is the End: Otherworld Development Cancelled
Good Day, Terrarians- We wanted to take a few moments to share some important news with you all in regards to the status of Terraria: Otherworld. As you all know from when we first announced the game a long while ago – and as we repeated in our subsequent posts - Re-Logic’s focus has and...
8. No!
1. I wasn't part of the company when the Crimson was implemented, but I like both options, they each bring something unique! Crimson still feels "new" to me, even though its rather old now at this point.
1. This is actually a bug/oversight! The stacking of the Frog legs used to stack for every single one of them, and the results were insane (pre-Hardmode jumping could go higher than most wings). Looks like Amphibian Boots snuck through though.
1. Ferrets
2. I guess Mothrons are prone to breaking the swords of heroes. And then keeping them. I have no idea.
3. Pretty fun game! I'm glad they are getting more content additions lately!
4. Lil Dukey
1. I've never played any mods, so I don't really know much about the things that are in them. So I couldn't draw any inspiration there.
1. Baby Dino/Alien Skater Boi, and Suspicious Tentacle
1. I'm not a very skilled coder, so this is really "what was one of the hardest things for ME to work on", but I'll admit I really struggled to wrap my mind around coding proper animation loops for some of the Pet Cages. It was really hard to juggle all of the different animation paths and loops that could happen. It was also one of the first times I worked on something where quality mattered. To explain a bit better . . . most of the stuff I work on "either works, or it doesn't work". Pass/fail. If it works, it works perfectly, if it doesn't, it doesn't work at all. All I need to do is get it working, and its fine.
This was not the case with Pet Cage animation code. For once, I could MAKE it work, but the end result was "poor". And I realized that instead of just fiddling with it until it worked, it was actually a direct reflection of my coding skill, and that if I just got it to "working level", the end result would be an inferior animation. I ended up handing off the task to Grox, so that his more capable hands could handle the issue and make sure the animations were spot on.
1. I love the creativity of the community! I'm especially a big fan of art work, though I'll admit, I don't watch much youtube/videos in general (not just Terraria), so this isn't something I know much about.
1. Duke Fishron is an optional boss with boosted difficulty. You don't have to fight him, but if you do, he's more difficult, and then gives pretty decent rewards if you do. Lunatic Cultist is more of a red herring boss, and doesn't necessarily need to be a huge challenge on its own.
1. Greetings, dear developers. In advance I would like to apologize for the possible difficult understanding of this text. I just live in Russia, so I have to use a translator, but it is very inaccurate
1. As I understand it (I'm not a Console or Mobile dev), crossplay is really difficult to add, so its hard to say.
1. I'd love to have seen some Deep Ocean biome of some sort!
2. Easily the Bestiary!
3. Some new ideas take months to implement, from start to finish, if you include all of the art, coding, and testing time.
4. Learn valuable skills (art and/or programming) and be able to create standalone content on your own so that you can provide a portfolio of creations that you share as needed.
5. Probably the pre-Hardmode ore stages, I love the progression there!
6. Pretty fun, but intimidating! As a novice coder, its a lot to take in!
1. Summoner!
2. Baby Dino/Alien Skater Boi
3. I'll leave that for Yorai and Crowno who had more direct involvement there
4. There was no reason to implement it, as he doesn't really drop anything
5. I believe the design was Yoraiz0r, and the name was from Redigit. I'm not aware of it was a reference to anything.
6. Monk Armor is a Melee/Summoner hybrid armor, and because its not pure Summoner, would naturally be tankier, especially since "Sentry" armors do not fit the standard mold of Summoner armors.
7. Yeah, but it would also be a nightmare to code, as I am led to understand
1. Probably one of the first ones that I got in, the flavor text on Rainbow Crystal Staff. Also, the name/reference on the Bloody Tear item!
2. If you are referring to the Discord events, that is because they are specifically for Discord, which is run by a different group of people than the forums.
1. I think so. They weren't actually that obscure, they had become heavily popularized, and were not intentional. Reaver Shark completely broke Hellstone gear's tiering, which had subsequent impacts on the entire balancing of everything pre-Hardmode. Fishing Crates-ore skip was literally a way to skip the game, and while its unfortunate that you perceive these parts of the game as boring, but the intention was never for them to be "skipped".
1. View attachment 305452
I mean, hair and outfits don't need to match. Was I supposed to have a luxurious blonde dev set? That would just be weird.
Blonde hair and awesome purple, they complement each other!
1. I'd say this is rather unlikely, both because the implementation of a character class is a massive undertaking that usually takes years to fully complete (see: Summoner gear) and also because primary development on Terraria is coming to a close.
1. Every final update is planned to be the final update. It wouldn't be a final update if we planned to add more. And yet . . . they keep coming . . . hard to say
2. Would be a cute idea, I miss that dude!
1. I'd say Empress of Light and Underground Desert
1. Initially, we only had Dogs and Cats, but Bunnies came later. So I'd say "yes, it was bunnies".
2. Those are Red's creatures, I can't explain the genius going through his brain!
3. Because the Nintendo Zapper it was inspired by had 2 version.
1. I wouldn't say it was tremendously hard for me, as the hardest work was done by people like the artists and more-skilled programmers than myself. I had a really good time working on it, and while its a challenging job, its always one I love doing!
2. Probably Gamepad, as it continues to be one of the features that requires the most upkeep and adjustments to make sure it continues functioning with the game. Just about ANY kind of UI change you make in Terraria means you have to go back and rework Gamepad to support it as well. Its a permanent time-consuming addition, and its more difficult because Terraria was never designed for Gamepad from the ground up. For something that doesn't actually change the game itself, it is one of the most time intensive features to date (in my opinion).
3. I don't think a game as large as Terraria (5000+ items, 500+ enemies, etc) can ever be perfect. You can only strive to improve to the best you can make it!
1, 2 & 3. Sorry, these are all questions that I think only Red could answer if he chose to. I'm not sure there even are answers to them!
1. Gamepad functionality and multiplayer syncing. Multiplayer functionality requires loads of work, and people often don't realize that virtually any new kind of mechanic needs to be specially adjusted to work in multiplayer (sometimes taking longer than it took to make it work in single player).
2. I don't normally find programming tasks boring, but probably the worst I had to do was some manual formatting for several thousand text entries. There was just no way I was aware of to automate the process (our automation tools wouldn't work for the process IIRC), and it took a couple of hours of me just clicking through a list and copy/pasting some punctuation into it.
3. I absolutely love adding new Music Boxes to the game!
4. This might not have been the hardest, but there was a minor bug where, if you were riding an infinite flight mount, and you "moved left or right off of some blocks, and then tried to move back onto them", the collision detection would not let you. Attempting to fix it ended up breaking the functionality of almost every mount in the game and required many, many hours of continued adjustment to make it actually work properly. It was so bad that it almost would have been better to just undo everything and keep the original bug.
5. I have!
1. I don't know about least favorite, but Fungi Bulbs are a huge pain! Their ability to hit you from off screen with tracking projectiles that shoot through blocks is frustrating.
2. Final Fantasy 1 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are my favorite older games.
Newer games I like are Subnautica, Factorio, and 7 Days to Die.
3. In the sense that Master mode was always meant to be exactly how it currently is, I think I'm okay with it. I'd personally rather return to Expert mode and finish off the last remaining bosses that didn't have special Expert mechanics, rather than adjusting Master more.
4. It "exists" and is complete. Its just not something players can use. This was actually back-end functionality required to make the upgraded mannequins function properly.
1. I like early game content, but I was particularly interested in balancing mid-to-late game content.
2. I feel like "there is always more that you could add to Terraria", but due to engine limitations, its becoming harder and harder to do. Its bittersweet, but for the best.
3. Well, as the person who was behind several HUNDRED balance changes in 1.4 and 1.4.1, I'd say that I have no excuse to be more choosy about this, I already got to change so many things. But if I was given full authority to overhaul something entirely, it would be the three main invasions (Goblin, Pirate, and Martians).
4. If there were, I dunno if I'd say so!
1. As a relatively inexperienced coder, I find it challenging to take on Terraria's code because there is just so much of it. I can spend months learning and still there are entire areas of code I know nothing about. Its difficult to start as a new coder on a project already so established.
2. Hat Racks. These were an idea I personally came up with, and (I'm so sorry Yorai) ended up being a huge pain to code. I'm not sure I've seen people talk about them much at all, and given how many issues they caused that Yorai had to fix, I somewhat regret suggesting it.
1. I'm not sure, but I think we'd be excited about the possibility!
2 & 3. I don't really play mods so I don't have an opinion here.
4. I'm a Console player at heart, but I think Terraria is played best on Keyboard and Mouse.
5. I think it was the best middle ground for us as a team. Other companies might have implemented their OWN official modding support, but we are a small team and it would not have been feasible. And yet, not offering any modding support at all was, IMO, doing a disservice to the potential of the modding community. I think this was the best of both worlds!
1. Well, I think Redigit just felt that was an appropriate price for the game, and we didn't really believe in increasing the price later. So it just stayed where it is!
1. There are items/features that are difficult to add, but I don't really know of any that were particularly hard to add BECAUSE of Terraria's code.
1. My set was primarily inspired by Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with a hint of Vampire Hunter D.
2. The Digging Molecart, as a single item, was probably one of the most complicated/difficult items to implement. Ultimately, its functionality had to be limited somewhat because it was just so difficult to make it properly work with minecart track code properly.
3. I have no idea, maybe Cactus Toilet.
1. I wouldn't say it ever even made it to "cutting room floor" level, but I had some ideas for expanding the Pylon system that we never ended up being able to implement. I think the concept has a lot of potential.
1. Easily hundreds, potentially thousands.
2. This might not count, but I personally found that balancing Whips (raw damage + special functions + tag damage + minion damage for the total damage potential) to be an extremely difficult balancing act.
3. Learn valuable skills (art and/or programming) and be able to create standalone content on your own so that you can provide a portfolio of creations that you share as needed.
4. Final Fantasy 1 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are my favorite older games.
Newer games I like are Subnautica, Factorio, and 7 Days to Die.
1. Well, its awesome to feel like we've released 1.4.1, but we are still doing some work on Terraria for Steam Workshop support and probably a small number of bug fixes, so I don't really feel like we've moved on quite yet.
2. Empress of Light!
1. You know, I'm not really one for bugs, especially not ones that feel like cheating to me. This makes sense, I'm QA, its my job to find and fix bugs.
However, if I had one bug that I thought was kinda fun and didn't really impact things much, it was a weird bug where, if you were deep Underground, and you alt+tabbed out the game while holding a Rod of Discord, and kept "swinging it", the game would do this weird thing where it teleported you to the upper left corner of the world in the Sky.
I didn't mind that it was being fixed, and I wouldn't bring it back.
1. Were hoiks intentional, and what's your thoughts on it?
2. What's your favourite Blood Moon enemy?
3. What's your favourite dye (including hair)?
4. Chocolate or vanilla ice cream?
1. Hoiks were not intentional, but we've "intentionally" allowed them to stay in the game, to the extent that we now make sure they are still working. But they were definitely an unintended bug.
2. Hemogoblin Shark
3. Phase Dye
4. Probably vanilla
1. I really don't know! Would be neat if it were Scott Lloyd Shelly, but its definitely not my call.
1. Scott is not actually a member of ReLogic, and I can't say I've had the honor of interacting with him directly, so I don't know how he creates the music specifically.
Empress of Light and Underground Desert are my favorite tracks now.
1. It was impossible not to make Terraria
2. I think there are ALWAYS more ideas and plans than we are able to implement. Terraria is a game that lends itself towards tons of potential, and there is just only so much time in the day.
3. No, anyone who has actually played the two games would know that the two have very little in common.
1. I had the most fun working on the Bestiary, it was my dream project for the game, and I was so excited to get it in. As for the longest . . . not sure, some things are worked on-and-off over a long period of time so its hard to say. Journey mode, Golf, and Bestiary all took a good while.
2.
As I said before, there's really always more stuff we could add, but there's just not enough time for everything. There are usually more ideas we want than we actually are able to add.
Cenx says: "Red's sister has been begging for pewp for 8 years now. That is poop and puke made into a napalm explosive."
3. Gotta be honest here, I wrote up a pretty comprehensive explanation behind virtually all of the unobtainable items in the game. But I had a power outage and lost 40% of my entire post, almost 5 hours of work, and this is literally the first question I lost. I don't really have the enthusiasm to spend 15 minutes writing them all up again. But to briefly summarize:
- There is no real special or mysterious back story. Most of these were accidentally added sprites that were not approved, things we didn't end up needing/wanting to add, or stuff like that. 95% of the items that are unobtainable can be summarize as "we added it accidentally, or we decided we just didn't want to use it". Pixel Block is the biggest real exception there: it didn't work right and we didn't have an easy way to make it work, so its effectively a broken item, so it was removed. Don't worry, you aren't missing out.
1. This isn't actually that catastrophic, because its really easy to fix, but any time when I'm adding text to the game, its EXTREMELY easy to break all of the text in the game with just a single punctuation mark out of place. It happens all the time. Its the most weirdly delicate part of the code, because if you mess up something else, it will give you an error or fail to launch, but if you mess up the text, it launches perfectly fine . . . except all of the text is broken.
1. We have a couple that have been very hard to track down, or they like to come back months later despite being fixed, like:
- Really tall hats showing stray pixels below the player
- Worm enemies having their heads detach from their body
- A second track playing quietly along with the current music track, usually after teleporting
2.
3. Vampire Knives
1. Summoner
2. I don't have one
3. Empress of Light
1. The Digging Molecart, as a single item, was probably one of the most complicated/difficult items to implement. Ultimately, its functionality had to be limited somewhat because it was just so difficult to make it properly work with minecart track code properly.
2. Well we can't really add achievements for everything, I think we are pretty happy with the current achievement list!
3. The Vanity contest was really fun! But development on Terraria is coming to a close, so it seems unlikely we would have a similar contest for adding stuff to the game as a result.
4. C#
1. Cenx came up with the original concept, Jim did the sprite work and visual design, and Grox and I came up with and implemented the Golem Head furniture item
1. Impossible to say for sure now, but we'll be sure to share more as we've made decisions!
2. Well I know its not that simple of a thing to do due to legal issues relating to other companies. Its hard to say, and I'm not sure what Redigit's current intentions are.
3. I mean, there are mountains of them. Generally speaking, MOST of our ideas aren't implemented into the game. We are never short on ideas we want to see.
1. I find this to be a deeply philosophical question, and I am concerned that by providing an answer, it would be irresponsibly infringing on the freedom of others to form their own opinions without influence on such a sensitive subject
1. Cartoon: Castlevania
2. Anime: Ranma 1/2
3. Movie: Willow
1. Jungle Mimics weren't needed because the Jungle is already fairly full of content, and we didn't have any items we we wanted for them to drop (HM Jungle also presents some challenging balancing concerns)
Cultist Bags were also not needed because the Cultist doesn't really drop anything that would need a boss bag.
1. I would say that because there was no real need to implement three additional colors of cactus blocks just to reflect that, especially since the Desert is already full of tons of infected variants of sand. On top of that, if we added infected Cactus tiles, then I think people would expected to have infected Cactus furniture, and that means 3 more complete furniture sets just using variation of Cactus, and that would probably be pretty boring.
1. Definitely the Bestiary!
2. I like a lot modern sandbox games, but as a kid, I played a lot of RPGs.
3. Cactus Toilet makes you really think about your decisions. Do I really NEED to go to the bathroom?
1. I'm not sure what you mean by Finch Staff being the future of the Summoner class. Its just another summon that we added.
As for Whips, Redigit and I discussed it and we ended up really liking whips for Summoner. If it hadn't been whips, there would not have been anything else instead.
2. I don't think we had another third boss high on our list of planned additions, but typically, we don't really consider post-Moon Lord to be a thing. Moon Lord is the final boss.
3. Princess was "the another NPC". We weren't going to add any others, but we did decide to add her at the last minute.
I don't think a Lumberjack NPC ever came up, I'm not sure what purpose one would serve.
1. Wind actually ended up impacting a lot of mechanics, and so took more time than a lot of people may have expected. Things like kites, sky-background details, swaying furniture/grass/trees, the enemies, all of them in total added up to quite a while.
For me personally, I didn't work on much Wind related content, but swaying furniture all had to be manually adjusted based on their appearance to swing properly in the wind, and that was an interesting, time consuming experience.
2. Red's mind works in mysterious ways!
3. I pretty much like most of Terraria, there's no specific part.
4. Any chest with items inside of it is, so that you don't lose your chests full of stuff.
1. I'm a little confused by this question, and I'm almost curious if its a trick question. Do you mean like, adding something via an automated system that didn't really require manual input? Because I can't really think of a way to add something to the game without any coding/art/QA at all . . . even the most minimal change requires some form of coding.
2. I think for what it is, a crossover event from a fully 3D game that is a different genre of game than Terraria, with pre-established lore, characters, and combat abilities, its a pretty significant success. That was a very challenging task to adapt it, and while it may not be perfect, I'm pretty happy with it, aside from some difficulty issues.
3. It was just a bow we were halfway into adding to be a "Bone themed bow", and then people remembered we already had Marrow, and then there was no real reason to add it.
4. I suppose that's a possible opinion, but I would say it depends on the circumstances!
1. 1.4 wasn't originally meant to be 1.4, but was planned as a much smaller 1.3.6. But as time went on, we spent more time working on mechanics and features, but we ran into this issue where . . . we had an update that was way too big, and taking way too long to be a "1.3.6" update, but didn't really have enough new exciting content to be a 1.4. But the process of adding that sort of new content (typically new biomes/bosses/events) would take so much time that it would only stretch out the release date for 1.4 even further, which would further increase expectations. So we had this sort of catch-22 situation where the longer we spent trying to make sure the update had enough content, the higher we raised the bar on people's expectations of how much content the update we had. This all stemmed from the fact that the first year or so was spent working on some nice quality of life features and fixing hundreds and hundreds of bugs . . . all WORTHY things, but not "worth making a 1.4" about. And this sorta put us behind on the whole process.
2.
A. A Deep Ocean biome
B. A mid-to-late Hardmode Underworld expansion, focusing on the far left/right sides of the Underworld where people don't often explore
C. Maybe a new alternative biome for the Hallow
1. Terraria was designed with only a certain amount of game space being visible on screen at a certain time, with quite a few major mechanics relying on that maximum range. Although we added higher zoom support, this does not mean we were able to rewrite these code limitations, and so 4k support has a maximum zoom out cap.
1. Ever since 1.0, I loved seeing the NPCs in Terraria, and I've loved seeing more and more move in over the years. I'm so happy looking back at our huge collection of NPCs now! Truffle, however, was before my time, so I can't comment there!
1. I don't believe it was intentionally fixed, but rather, fixed as a side effect of resolving some other water duplication issues that would happen "naturally" in the world and cause significant performance impacts. However, I don't believe that 1.4 era water duplication is necessary anymore, due to the addition of better liquid sources like Bottomless Buckets and Liquid Bombs/Rockets.
2. We actually did entirely overhaul the backend of the item drop system in 1.4! It just doesn't show up too much player-side, but the code system is much cleaner and consistent now.
1. For me, its about learning code syntax. I can work with pre-existing code, but I'm not very good as creating brand new code.
2. Can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to weeks, it really depends on the thing being sprited.
3. Could you trust whatever I say to be the truth?
1. My question is how many items there are in terraria 1.4 i want exact number
1. We do not have an exact number, because it depends on how you define what items you want to count. There are a lot of items which are not implemented, and I don't think its fair to count them, but the very last item added is Item #5087. There are also things like Hearts and Mana Stars, which are technically items, but can never be in your inventory. There aren't 87 non-accessible items, so its safe to say its more than 5000 but less than 5087, with the exact number being somewhere in between there, depending on your criteria.
1. What is your favorite part of working at Re-logic?
2. What is your favorite part of the Terraria community?
3. Why is Red such a troll? (In a good way of course!
1. I love it all, but I think the part that I love the most is any time a change or idea of mine ends up in game.
2. As someone who was a member of the community before I was a member of ReLogic, I think I love how ReLogic is made up mostly of members OF the community! Terraria literally wouldn't be where it is today without the community itself!
3. It must be genetic!
1. I did a LOT of support work on the Bestiary, and while I'm not nearly code-capable enough to have been the one to do the Bestiary, I loved being able to work on it and make it better!
2. I'd go with D) make a Jungle Solution!
3. I really couldn't say in terms of hours, but I think it took Yorai about a week to get the base functionality in. I added the rest of the Pylons and that took me about a day, and then there were bug fixes for them (which is expected for any new system). I'd say it probably took about two work weeks of time altogether, to implement, test, and bug fix. There was also the spriting time. This is actually a pretty quick addition of a new system, and it was fairly bug free.
1. Almost always, the the visual design is created first, and the mechanics come after.
2. Just about everything, its a dream job!
1. Well, it depends. If you are talking about visual quality, that's highly subjective. I don't think there is a strict documented standard, but rather, if there is any team feedback or objections to the art, we will bring it up for discussion.
As for functional standards, as well as whether its visually buggy or not, I have a checklist that every item/tile/enemy goes through before it can pass, and included in that is a bunch of various functionality criteria, including not having buggy visuals. Every one of the 1000+ items in 1.4 went through this checklist, and any issues we encountered had to be fixed before release!
1. Well, I started as a forum member of the old forums (TO), and when they announced the new forums (TCF), I volunteered to test it. I suppose I did a good job testing, because Loki approached me to take on a moderator position on TCF when it launched. Through the moderator position, I was also invited to be a tester. After a year of testing, I became so involved in the process (and apparently did a good job) that Cenx approached me and hired me in December 2015!
2. Summoner!
1. I didn't personally add/code any of the interesting weapons, but I did have a lot of fun testing out the Terraprisma!
2. Generally speaking, coding brand new mechanics is usually the hardest, rather than bosses/events. Some bugs are also incredibly difficult to fix as well. Bosses "take a while", but usually aren't as complex as, say, Journey mode powers or Golf.
3. I think one of the single most difficult sticking points we had, that took months of discussion to decide on, was the name for Journey mode!
4. Have mentioned before, but I had some ideas for expansions to the Pylon system that just never got around to the design stage. Pylons came VERY late in 1.4's development (in the last 10-15% of the dev cycle), and there wasn't really time to go back and revisit it for expansion.
5. Wind mechanics originally had a lot more impact on game mechanics. However, in practice, these almost exclusively came out not so great, and so ultimately, wind ended up being a primarily aesthetic/ambient effect.
1. I don't see any reason I'd want to move to a larger company, as I understand the industry, it would likely be worse than ReLogic.
2. Oddly enough, I don't think we are actually sure that Marco created Ocram at all. We know there was a Marco at Engine, but I don't believe any of us knew him at all, and the "Marco created Ocram" thing might just be an urban legend.
1. Approximately when its done!
1. Well, let me start by saying, I'm a beginner coder, and I'm honestly not even skilled enough to be able to TELL that the code is bad or not.
However, one has to remember that Terraria was coded as a personal project by one self-taught coder about ten years ago now, and was never really intended to become what it is today. The foundations were just sort of stuck that way. As I understand it, it would not be realistic at all to rewrite all the code, it would probably take longer than just making a brand new game.
1. Well, its hard to measure which parts took the longest, as we have several programmers and artists, but generally speaking, the amount of programming time is a bit higher than the art time. But it could easily swing the other way, if we hired another Yoraizor-tier coder, we could end up with artists falling behind. Hard to say.
2. I don't think its realistic to balance all of those factors into a ratio. Making a game is complex, I couldn't distill it down into a simple ratio like that.
3. I don't think we typically underestimate the work. However, sometimes a specific bug will turn out to be way harder to fix than anticipated. A lot of bugs are a 15 minute fix, but some of them surprise you and can take more than a week.
4. Implementing an armor set is not usually too time consuming, unless it has entirely unique mechanics or visuals. For instance, if I needed to implement a new ore tier armor that had standard visuals and didn't have any unique crazy set bonuses, I could probably do the code work/implementation for it in less than an hour. Actually spriting the armor takes longer. However, unique mechanics can take longer, especially if they have fancy visuals. Things like the Titanium Armor Shards, or the Forbidden Armor Tornado/Floating Ring would definitely take a lot more time.
5. No two weapons are alike when adding them. If someone asked me to add a new early game ore-tier sword with no bells and whistles, I could probably do the code work for it in less than half an hour. On the other hand, something like Celebration Mk2 or Terraprisma could take several days, maybe even a week if you include bug fix time. One size does not fit all, when predicting weapon development time.
6. Well, you also need to do balancing and testing. This also ranges considerably. Balancing a basic sword can be pretty simple, just compare its stats to equivalent level swords, and test it out some. Balancing/testing minions or whips can take many hours, especially since they are so complex in different scenarios.
Question for you: are you secretly auditing our work hours to make sure we are being productive? WHO HIRED YOU?!
1. For the Worthy was a last minute project Red added in his free time towards the end of the update. However, none of the features in it were originally going to be in Master mode. Master mode was never intended to be more complex than it currently is.
1. I've responded to many variants of this question throughout this, but the answer is usually the same . . . we ALWAYS have more ideas than we are able to implement. Sometimes, stuff just doesn't seem as important anymore while working on newer features, and sometimes time is tight, and sometimes you realize that its just time to move on to a different task. Are there things that we didn't get to add? Definitely. Hundreds. Thousands.
1. Maybe meteorite doesn't make for a good pickaxe material!
1. Earlier in this QnA, I had typed up an EXTENSIVE discussion of this, over a half hour of typing about them, and then I had a power outage and lost over 4 hours of answers. I don't have the heart to type it up again. However, as summarize in that question . . . its usually just not very interesting. Almost all of them can be summarized as "We added it by accident, wasn't meant to be in the game", or "We didn't need it".
2. I'd say hundreds, if not thousands, of sprites have been reworked, mabe even in 1.4 alone. Whether or not they are better is a subjective call, and with 500-1000 updates, its certain there could be a couple misses. But I think on the whole, the vast majority are an improvement.
3. Not too many, just had to go through the process of adding it. There were a few swords that weren't in it originally, and a few swords that WERE in it that were removed, but that's about it.
4. Nope
1. To guard the Temple!
2. J what now?
3. Somewhere between "Possible" and "Impossible"
4. Does it? I wasn't aware
5. No thank you
6. When the Tmodloader team (who are not ReLogic) are done with it!
1. As I understand it, crossplay is very difficult to implement for a number of reasons, including getting the companies behind Consoles/Mobile devices to cooperate. Which is usually quite difficult!
1. I'll preface this by saying that I only started being involved in the balance of Terraria about a year ago. Prior to this we did not have any strict standards of balance, and the balancing was done by just about whoever worked on it at the time.
Since late 2019, I've been reviewing balance and balancing new items being added, and my general policy looks something like this:
A. Weapons within the same tier should generally be roughly equivalent in potency to other weapons within the same tier
B. The rarity, or difficulty of obtaining, a weapon may influence the potency of a weapon, but generally not so much that it becomes superior to weapons in the next tier, or inferior to weapons in the previous tier
C. While inter-class balance is ideal (melee being balanced versus ranged), the balance on these has been skewed for years, and may not always possible. Thus, I strive to focus mostly on intra-class balance (melee being balanced against other melee). I'm going to worry a lot less about how Starlight fares versus Eventide, than I am going to be comparing Starlight versus Flairon.
D. There are many factors in determining the potency of a weapon, and its not always about DPS. There is range, ease of use, accuracy, "effective DPS" (how easily a weapon achieves its potential DPS), group damage, richochet or bonus projectiles, debuffs, mana cost, and many more. A weapon can deal less damage if it hits many targets at a distance, and still be balanced versus a short range, high damage weapon.
There are more considerations here, but this is a broad overview of my general philosophy. A game like Terraria has hundreds of weapons, and given my time frame, there was only so much that could be done. I know there will always be some issues with certain items standing out as underpowered, or overpowered, but I like to think that the literal hundreds of balance changes I made over the last year have had a positive impact overall!
2. I'm glad you think the quality has gone up! However, I'm not aware of any specific change in policy that resulted in such a shift. Maybe just chalk it up to practice over the years!
1. It allowed for some new traps and also hidden corridors that required a bit more investigation to discover!
1. A book system? Do you mean like, being able to write down stuff in game? I guess that could be neat, though it wouldn't impact much except perhaps Adventure maps.
1. I never had any doubts about pylons, I was confident that they were something I would use, and I trusted in that instinct.
1. This was the intention behind Master mode from the beginning, a simple, increased difficulty mode.
2. We did not. We added several desert entrance variants, and one of them is no entrance at all.
3. I don't believe it does override ALL other music tracks, bosses/invasions should still override. I suppose its because Towns are generally safer, and we wanted the music to reflect the different tone of that.
4. To me, I guess its because . . . what's the point of making houses for the benefit of having NPCs if all you do is stick them in wood squares? Its too easy, for a ton of reward. Of course, you can still do this now, its perfectly viable, but there is now an incentive to diversify this approach.
5. Red's mind works in mysterious ways.
6. Because they are all very powerful items that should not be common. Slime Staff in particular is more of an easter egg than "part of summoner progression". The biome keys are only rare if you look at the raw numbers, but when you realize its kills of ANY enemy in those biomes, you can see that thousands of kills is not that uncommon at all.
7. Its undeniable that alt ores are stronger than their counterparts, and I suppose this was so that they weren't simple resprites.
However, I'm not aware of any systematic rule that Crimson was intended to be more powerful than Corruption overall, even if it may be the case. I think its just how the dice fell.
8. I guess I see it differently; these things ARE the reward for fishing. Fishing is a major part of the game, involving a lot of content, and while none of it is strictly necessary, much of it is useful. You do not need to fish, but by fishing, you gain access to a lot of features. One could say the same for virtually every source of items in the game . . . shopping, enemy drops, crafting, etc.
9. Summoners are like mages, but even more reliant on their minions to protect them. They shouldn't be on the front lines, and are uniquely suited to staying at a distance while others fight for them. They SHOULD have the least defense of any class.
10. Because Block Swap is meant to be a tool of convenience, not one of power. Sand is considered a hazard, and lava even moreso. It was not intended to bypass these. However, we HAVE changed it so that by hardmode, you can blockswap sand and other falling materials. Also, you should not be able to block swap under Trees and Cacti because they are not meant to be on any other substrate. That's intentional design.
11. Lets break down Melee and Ranged weapons, especially at the early game:
Melee Weapons:
- They are usually still in your hand when used to strike an enemy at close range
- Their range is usually limited, unless they fire projectiles, like the Ice Blade, or they are Boomerang-type items
- They are not consumed on use
Ranged Weapons:
- They are weapons which propel ammunition of some sort at an enemy. You do not hit the enemy with what is in your hand, but with the ammo.
- They are typically long range weapons, almost exclusively featuring projectiles
- They consume ammo on use
And now lets look at Thrown Weapons . . .
- They are ammunition which are thrown at an enemy. You do not hit an enemy with something in your hand, but with the thrown consumable ammo.
- They are typically long range weapons, exclusively featuring projectiles.
- They are consumed on use
The only appreciable difference between Ranged and Thrown is that Thrown weapons are thrown "by hand" and consumed directly, while Ranged weapons are shot from a weapon, and only the ammo is consumed. Its clear to me that Thrown is a cousin of Ranged, and has virtually nothing in common with Melee. Even Boomerang-type items have less in common with Thrown items than Thrown items have in common with Ranged items.
12. I believe because fossils are fragile, so they could break while mining
13. They don't, its a crumbling/sifting sound
14. I think thinking of vanity/pet/aesthetic content as "useless" is really missing the mark entirely. Vanity content is an important part of the game, and people utilize it regularly. It just doesn't impact combat. And if anything, that's the perfect combination . . . people have a lot of extra money at the end of the game, and the Traveling Merchant offers a way to spend it, and its mostly on aesthetic stuff. This means we don't lock you out of high end gear with extremely high price tags (though there are some exceptions, it is not typical).
15. I'm not 100% sure, but perhaps its to require some effort to obtain the music boxes!
16. They aren't very rare. However, if they were much more common, then they would be excessively spammy.
17. Some stuff is exclusive, I don't think there has ever been a rule against that! And with the addition of the Dryad's Graveyard seeds, alt-world evils aren't exclusive anymore.
18. Probably because they are pretty fancy sets and just giving them out for farming EoC repeatedly seems too easy to me.
19. I think the Lucky Horseshoe was a pretty underwhelming reward for the Floating Island tier . . . lets be real, most people opened them for the Balloon and the Starfury, and Horseshoes were stuck in a chest somewhere (unless they went on a balloon). However, at the Underground Ore tier, this sort of protection would be invaluable, and there would still be accessory slots available and in less demand for using on the Horseshoe. It also freed up a slot for the relatively-similar-but-more-powerful Fledglign Wings to be put in the Floating Island tier. I think it was a good solution overall.
1. I don't think so. A Mechanical Brain of Cthulhu would probably be okay, if only for the symmetry. But meching all of the bosses just sounds like it would be boring and uninspired. The original three mechs were alright, but its definitely not something that should just be done for all of the bosses.
1. I think that they are meant to be challenging, and since you typically only fight one at a time, it would be too easy to knockback spam them and stay away.
2. Those bosses, as well as Ocram, were created by Engine and Codeglue, and were never ReLogic characters. As such, it would be highly unlikely they ever would have been on PC for 1.4. As we've moved towards a more consistent experience across platforms, the exclusive content has been removed over time, not added back in. I think adding these bosses back in would just be taking a step backwards.
3. If anything, I think it might be the opposite. We had so much we wanted to add to Journey's End, we actually needed a good reason to stop, as we were just continuing to come up with new ideas with every passing month. The timing of COVID actually led to us setting a deadline and releasing to give people something to play during quarantine, which I believe was the best decision.
4. Of course I play Terraria! And Summoner is my favorite
5. All of our music is done by Scott Lloyd Shelly, who is tremendously talented. I don't think anyone at ReLogic tried any, except for some very early pre 1.0 tracks Red made (and that aren't used).
6. Mountain Dew Baja Blast (Zero Calorie)
7. My favorite animals are ferrets. At the time of 1.4, I did not have any pets at all, and had not had any in over 10 years. However, I did just recently get a new kitten! But not in time to make any impact on Terraria.
8. I tend towards Creation, but its a bit of both. I like to conquer a hostile landscape (destruction) and then create a fortress/base of operations in the midsts of it (creation).
1. Personally? I don't have very much creative control, as the creative directors for Terraria are Redigit, Cenx, and Yoraiz0r. However, they've recently trusted me with taking the lead on balance concerns, subject to their approval. Occasionally, I'll have a personal idea that gets approved, and they'll let me handle the specifics, but this is not the standard.
2. I actually have a Master's degree in Counseling, and I was going to be a therapist.
3. The decision to continue working on Terraria (and when to end it) is a really high level decision made between Redigit, Cenx, and Yoraiz0r. Its really not something I have much say on, nor really something I should have much say on, though my input is listened to on the matter. For what its worth, I do agree with the decision . . . Terraria could get new content forever, but its simply not realistic to keep doing so.
4. I'm not going anywhere, I want to stick with ReLogic as long as they will have me!
1. For me, its being part of getting the Bestiary added to the game, and all of the work I did supporting that project!
2.
#1. Empress of Light
#2 Duke Fishron
#3. Moon Lord
1. Underground Mushroom Biome!
2. Some blue sausage from Duke Fishron might be nice
3. Blue Starry Blocks or Crystal Blocks
1. For me, its learning code syntax. I can read code much better than I can write it . . . I struggle to remember how you write various commands, unless I have a reference sheet.
2. I've learned a lot from taking online courses, youtube videos and the like. However, if you have the opportunity to receive a formal education in programming, I recommend doing that!
1. Probably because it would also mean we likely needed a Crimson and a Hallow Jungle, and this is equivalent to adding three entirely new biomes that are just derived from the HM Jungle. The Jungle is already one of the most complex and content-filled biomes in the entire game, and we'd have to make at least tile/wall/background variations for all three, not to mention the probable need for new enemies to match each one, and probably loot. I just don't think the Jungle needs that.
2. Because there was no Brain of Cthulhu when the Mech bosses were added.
3. Blue Starry Blocks or Crystal Blocks
4. I might have to say Cell Phone, just for all of the value you get out of one item
5. I don't think I've really worked on any enemies directly, actually. Just balancing on 1.4 stuff . . . so if I had to go by that, probably Hemogoblin Shark.
6. Empress of Light, I just think its a really engaging and interesting fight with great music
7. Empress of Light's track! Followed by Underground Desert
8. Underground Hallow probably!
9. I'd say learning to code, which I'm still not so great at, but I'm still learning!
10. A lot of pet/mount buff icons had cute or funny flavor text that often goes unnoticed!
1. We generally get along fairly well, and don't have many conflicts. In the event that something should happen along those lines, where we can't agree on something, we will normally ask for Red/Cenx to make a final call, and then we respect that decision!
2. Well, I think modding as a whole is good for the community. However, I don't personally like to mod any games, Terraria or otherwise. So I don't personally "encourage" or "discourage" modding, because I think its a personal choice, but I'm definitely in support of anyone who chooses to do so!
3. Typically, "idea guy" is not a viable role in a company our size. Everyone needs to be able to carry their own weight and contribute to the game directly. Every single one of us comes up with ideas all the time, there is no need for someone who's only job is to make ideas. We were never short on those.
4. I like pretty much all of the game, I don't really have a favorite, though I'm partial to the early game ore-tiers. I'm a bit of a memer, so I like funny item flavor texts that reference things.
5. Terraria is the kind of game where you can ALWAYS add more. But its also important to know when to call it a day.
6. Work on Terraria is stopping across the entire company, not just Redigit. We wouldn't really be allowed to continue working on it on our own unless Red/Cenx approved it, and then we'd just be back to business as usual (working on Terraria). Redigit/Cenx are the ones who own Terraria, we can't just keep developing it without their permission.
7. Red is really the only one who can dictate anything about the lore, and the lore was a compilation of things that he felt about the game. Some of it has been around a long time, some of it he thought about more recently.
8. To answer the specific question "is it in your best interest", I don't think so. T:OW was canceled for a reason, going back to it would probably be unwise.
9. Not that I'm aware of, why would we change Empress of Light? We are very happy with her design.
10. The numbers don't really carry any relevance, its just how many major updates/minor updates we add. Deliberately adding 4 or 5 more minor updates (which usually take several months to make) just to make the numbers have a fake pattern is kinda . . . you know . . . not a very high priority
11. Absolutely!
1. This was never considered for Master Mode. I'm not aware of anything ever being scrapped from Master Mode.
2. Ice Biome getting more content is popular feedback these days, but I actually think the Ice Biome is fine. Before we expanded the Desert, people said the opposite: "The ice biome has tons of content, and the desert doesn't have any!". Well, then we added more desert content, and now people want more ice biome content. Its sort of an endless loop. I don't think the Ice biome would be a high priority target for new content, if I were to personally be in charge of adding more.
3. Well, it was in 1.4 that we MADE the change to vanity slots, so I don't see us having a reason to go back on that now.
The size restriction on texture packs is there for mechanical reasons to prevent bugs with the game, so its there for a purpose.
1. The Lightning themed Desert content was always envisioned specifically for the Desert, it was not scrapped Storm content. In fact, the Storm weather event came much later than those weapons.
There was never actually any specific plan to add any enemies or drops to the Storm event, though I'm certain it would be a great idea. But nothing was ever scrapped, it simply wasn't something we focused on.
1. Final Fantasy 1!
1. Phase Dye
2. My set was primarily inspired by Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with a hint of Vampire Hunter D
3. It was a good idea.
4. I don't wear hats or headgear IRL
5. Ironically, not the Leinfors Hat. I don't wear a hat in game, I use the Familiar Wig.
6. No strong opinion on the matter.
7. As an agent of chaos, I prefer to never put the toilet paper on the holder, and just leave it laying upright on the sink counter top.
1. Lunatic Cultist is not a typical boss, and has never really had a role as a loot provider. His defeat unlocks the Celestial Event, which provides a ton of loot. You might consider the two one and the same.
Moon Lord has extra drops because he's the final boss, he's special.
1. I was introduced to coding by Yoraiz0r while I already worked on Terraria, using C#
2. Well, I was already doing QA for Terraria, but I felt limited, as if I wasn't doing enough. Coding gave me an opportunity to do more!
1. Oh of course, there are dozens if not hundreds of things I'd personally want to add to Terraria.
1. Why wouldn't we like the best color?!
1. I guess this wasn't my "least favorite", because there isn't any code work I actively dislike, but one thing that came at the end of the dev cycle that was really frustrating was assigning Journey Mode Research tiers. Every Journey Mode item has a specific number of that item required to research it, and because there are over 5000 items in the game, every single item had to be manually reviewed for the appropriate amount of items that needed to be sacrificed. This was a very lengthy process, which required multiple review passes and testing to make sure it was internally consistent with itself. Furthermore, because of the code system we used to implement these tier counts, every additional item we added AFTER that, I had to manually go back to the file and update it with a new entry at the end, with a newly assigned tier. This was very easy to forget, and I definitely did forget it multiple times. There wasn't much we could do to automate the process, and assigning and keeping track of 5000 different variables is not an easy or quick task.
1. I love adding new Music Boxes!
2. I didn't create Terraria, and I didn't really join until quite a few years in, but I'm not someone who really feels "inspiration". I simply want to see the game be as enjoyable as possible to me, and I base that on what I personally want to see in the game.
3. The first programming task I ever did was to increase the sell value of the Super Healing Potion, because it was too low. This was a good practice task for me as a new coder.
1. Cenx was heavily involved in the concepts behind both of Hallow bosses, so I really couldn't answer for her. Crowno did the direct art on Empress of Light, and Lazure did Queen Slime. Yoraiz0r created the attacks for Empress of Light, and Grox did most of the Queen Slime attacks, though I contributed some on the combat design for Queen Slime. Since I only directly contributed on Queen Slime's attacks, I'll say I thought of it from a "How does the King Slime fight go, and how would I scale that up for a Hardmode player who can now fly, especially one who went into the fight expecting King Slime 2?". That was, for me, the central guiding philosophy for Queen Slime attacks.
1. I've always wanted to make games since I was 3 years old. I just didn't know it was possible until Cenx hired me!
2. It depends on the focus of that day, whether I'm on QA duty or Programming duty. When I'm working QA, I'm typically reviewing new content, cataloguing lists of their functionality/issues, testing for bugs, retesting fixed bugs, and other things like that. I also gather bug reports from the forums or Discord.
If its Programming duty, I usually work on "easy" tasks, or time-consuming-but-simple tasks, to free up coding time from the more skilled programmers. Its not efficient to have Yoraiz0r spend 10 hours on some task that any novice coder can do. So I try to work on those, so that they can work on the harder stuff. This usually involves adding simple items/furniture, adjusting stats, adding drop sources or recipes, and virtually anything involving text, dialogue, or item tooltips.
3. For programming, Visual Studio
4. I prefer Light mode
5. I'm not sure I could pinpoint it. I think its a combination of many factors all in combination. Fun combat, nice sandbox gameplay, interesting enemies/characters/weapons/biomes, great music . . . any one of these things could be bad and the game would suffer tremendously for it.
6. Hundreds of them. And because there are ALWAYS more ideas than there is time to add ideas.
1. Modding is VERY difficult to do on Consoles, period. There are only a handful of video games on Consoles that can be modded, and they are not like PC modding at all.
1. I have no idea, I've never played Stardew Valley!
2. I'm not something as simple as coloring your equipment really needs a source of inspiration, it just seems like a basic gameplay addition for aesthetics.
3. In the ENTIRE game, I'd be inclined to say Gamepad support. It was a massive undertaking to add it from the ground up (its easier to add in the beginning, when you are making the game), and it requires constant maintenance, updates, and bug fixes with every new feature and UI system we add. There are probably very few other mechanics that require so much upkeep, for something that had such a low impact on the game itself.
4. Fortunately, it wasn't difficult. We never had issues where hoiking accidentally broke. But it is a thing we have to look out for.
5. I can't think of a specific dye that is popular among the whole team. I'm a personal fan of Phase Dye, and I don't know anyone else who likes it all that much.
6. I wouldn't say "hated" but Eater of Worlds has a lot of technical issues and is prone to bugs in a way that can be hard to fix.
1. Adding Music Boxes is my favorite thing to add!
2. Hmm . . . difficult. I'd have to go with Cloud in a Bottle, because Hermes Boots is an item of convenience usually, but Cloud in a Bottle dramatically improves cave navigation.
3. Before 1.4, it would have been Titanium. After 1.4? I'm a big fan of Orichalcum, I love its set bonus. Not a common opinion though.
4. It would have to be easily in the thousands, as I've added hundreds of items, and each item, at minimum, usually has a dozen or so lines of code. I've also added hundreds of lines of dialogue, as well as the entire bestiary text entry collection, and that would be several hundred as well. I really have no idea specifically how much though.
I've only added a handful of sprites of my own, a quick review indicates I've done 9 sprites in total which are currently in the game.
5. I don't feel any particular attachment to strings of code themselves. Its too abstract for me to relate to that way.
6. I've played most of the Final Fantasy games up to 9, and Final Fantasy 1 is my favorite game of all time. I'm retired from the series, however.
7. The first thing I programmed at all was a change to the Super Healing Potion's sell value, and the first sprite I made were all of the Gold Goldfish sprites.
8. Add a new painting!
1. Adding Storm effects to Duke Fishron's boss fight, the way the lightning/rain system was set up, it didn't really work for making JUST the Ocean have weather.
2. There isn't much I specifically regret adding, but there were some things we added (or bugs we fixed) that took WAY longer than they should have, and in hindsight, it would have been more efficient not to work on them at all. The Hat Rack furniture item was more trouble than it was worth, and I regret suggesting it.
3. Didn't really impact us at all, as we already worked from home!
4. Definitely!
1. Well, it doesn't feel like much of a change, because I'm still with ReLogic, and I love being here, so it just feels like a transition!
2. We can't say!
3. That's not my call to make, but it would be cool!
4. 1.4 was NOT intended, and was originally 1.3.6. It simply did get too big to continue calling it 1.3.6, as some other 1.3.X updates had 100 items or less, and 1.3.6 had several hundred already.
5. Nothing specific to me, no.
6. They are definitely my primary social circle and friends!
7. I think the whole team is ready for something new.
1. What's the First Fractal?
1. I couldn't pick just one, we come up with tons of concepts all the time that aren't used.
2. I suppose just none came up for discussion. Daybreak is something like an evolution of the spear though.
3. No particular reason
4. I'm not sure, as I wasn't around at the time, but XNA was a valid and thriving framework at the time of Terraria's creation. It was an entirely reasonable choice, at the time.
5. I recall that Betsy and the Ogre sprites took quite a while.
6. I think the idea has come up, but was not considered because it would just be power bloat. Its just making the player stronger with no downsides, and then that makes the game easier for no real reason.
1. No, this never part of the plans for Master Mode
2. I would have liked to see special Expert behavior for the Mech bosses and Golem.
3. I mean . . . max damage hits will do that for you.
1. I think being a Terraria dev is my greatest achievement, truly!
1. What was the most memorable or meaningful moment you had while working on Terraria?
1. Good Question Chippy!
- There are too many to list . . . but the moment Cenx approached me and asked if I wanted to be a member of ReLogic. It was a lifelong dream come true to work on video games. Completely changed my life.
- The first time I met the team IRL in 2018, seeing Redigit, Cenx, Yoraiz0r, Loki, D-Town, FoodBarbarian, Safeman, 0x33, and Arkhayla, that was an amazing trip. Didn't want to go home!
- When I showed Redigit my Bestiary mockup for the first time. And then about a year later, they were like "So, lets do Bestiary!". It was my biggest suggestion implemented into the game, and my favorite thing in 1.4.
So many amazing memories!
1. There were some combat inspirations from bullet-hell games, and her music was also vaguely inspired by the fast paced music tracks of that genre, but visually, I believe she was from scratch.
2. We didn't. We just rearranged them. Arkhalis is now dropped with the Arkhalis dev set.
3. Because none of the recipes felt quite right, and they had balance impacts on the Terra Blade that made it underpowered. Even the current one isn't perfect, but I think its the best fit currently possible.
4. I assume Red came up with the idea. However, the sprites were all done by the spriters, but different spriters did different sets. Mine was done by Crowno, for instance, but some were done by other spriters.
5. Unfortunately for me, all of the events were in the game already when I was hired. The only ones I worked on were Sandstorm and Old One's Army, but those were both pretty fun!
6. I don't think as a team we could agree on a favorite vanity set
If not my own vanity set, I like using Familiar Wig with my long blonde hair, Reflective Obsidian-dyed Solar Armor Chestplate, and Reflective Obsidian Dyed Djinn's Curse, for aesthetics.
7. I don't really have a least favorite weapon, and I didn't really do code work on many weapons, they are normally a bit too advanced for me.
8. Came before my time, I don't know!
9. I think Summoner is the only real answer to this, as it gained the most content in 1.4, and it fleshed it out in a way that it has needed for a long time.
10. I mean, I've always wanted to do game design, and I can't imagine leaving.
11. Definitely. We all want the game to be as good as it possible can!
12. Aside from chatting with each other and some gaming? Don't think so, we live all around the world!
13. There were concerns that 1.4 didn't have enough content to warrant being called 1.4, namely because it doesn't add any new major biomes or progression past Moon Lord. But that's also intentional . . . Moon Lord is intended to be the final boss. Even so, while we added tons of items, its a little light on combat content, and we knew that would be noticed, but its simply how the update went.
14. Safeman or Jim
15. Loki!
16. I aspired to work on video games, but I didn't know the form that it would take
17. There was an idea about making underground towns a viable thing, as can be seen from the addition of the Gem Critters. The Gem Trees went along with that.
18. I mean, it happens all the time, but you catch it when it happens almost instantly. I've "completely broken" all the text in the game dozens of times, but I also noticed it right away. That's what testing is for!
19. What I'd REALLY want to see is an Item Blacklist, where you could flag specific items to either not be picked up, or be automatically trashed. Anyone who's dug through the Jungle and quickly filled their inventory with junk knows my pain.
20. Terraria has dozens of items and enemies that were inspired by things from video games, movies, anime, etc.
21. Well, I typically look at the tier of the weapon, and then I evaluate all nearby similar weapons. So for instance, when adding Starlight to the Empress of Light, I take into consideration all like-tier Melee weapons (North Pole, Christmas Tree Sword, Flairon, Flying Dragon, Sky Dragon's Fury) and I try to aim for a roughly similar level of overall power, depending on the unique mechanics of the weapon. I also try to make sure that the weapon doesn't invalidate later tier weapons (like Meowmere), and also that the weapon is stronger than earlier tier weapons (like Possessed Hatchet). And if possible, try to predict if the weapon has any exploits that would make it abusable. When we reworked the Proximity Mine Launcher, we accidentally gave it a fairly abusable system that had to be reworked, for instance, and one of our testers caught it.
22. Red wanted to have a more difficult mode, and AI changes/extensive overhauls take a lot of time. It was intended to just be a simple difficulty increase.
23. Never!
24. Yes! Except for when my power outage erased everything from page 6 through page 10 and I had to spend 5 hours doing them again.
Whew! That was a lot!
Thank you guys so much for all of the questions! It was a long, but fun, time filling them out! I'm also always available for more chatting here on the forums, or in the Terraria Discord server, so hit me up!
You can read Grox's post within this thread HERE or read the answers in the spoiler below:
Whew, there's a lot of good questions here. Like Jim, i'm gonna avoid repeat questions if I can help it.
1. There were a variety of inspirations, but this isn't really a question I could answer, as most of them were before my time.
2. Fish, of course.
3. I don't often use paint, but when I do it's less a favorite and moreso using paint to keep my building's colors relatively similar.
4. Duke Fishron.
5. I'm gonna go with a classic and say Night's Edge; I haven't really done a playthrough without getting it and using it.
6. There are many enemies I like, either visually or mechanically, so it would be hard to pick just one...
7. Cheese, cheese, cheese!
My favorite feature of 1.4 is a tie between Block Swap and the Bestiary.
1. His lunch, of course!
2. Leinfor's set is quite dapper, and FoodBarbarian's set has one of the coolest visual wing designs in the game, in my opinion.
3. I feel like a lot of my inspiration comes from just playing the game, getting a feel for what could fit somewhere, and seeing if any one else on the team agrees. It is very much a group effort!
The backbone coding framework of Terraria is very old; if we had the chance or time to completely overhaul something, this would be what I'd change.
1. I really like Mantis Shrimp, for being weird in a variety of ways and also casually being able to create what amount to tiny black holes with thier punches.
2. Presumably, Mothron ate it?
3. This was before my time, so I can't really answer it.
4. I like playing it casually with friends.
5. I really like the santank mount, the toy tank is a lot of fun to mess around with!
My favorite pets are the trio of 'worm' pets, but especially the Phantasmal Dragon. How they look and move is always really cool to me.
My favorite light pet is Golem, who while not the best light pet looks the coolest in my opinion. For practicality though, I like the Wisp too.
I really like Boss 2, Underground Desert and Underground Jungle themes.
I was fairly sure when they were implemented that they would be widely used, as they provide convenient teleports to get across the map.
Thanks for the compliment! I mostly hammered out the armor look myself, and Jim worked his magic to make it look even better! (Thanks Jim!)
I really like Stardew Valley and a lesser known game series called Geneforge.
1. Well there was this one memorable time where, due to a bug, everything was spiders.
2. I really like how a lot of the pets turned out!
Wait a minute, this isn't a question...
If there are, do you really think we'd give it away so easily?
Just joining the team was a real meaningful moment for me, but in terms of development it would be hard to pick one, I really like working for Re-Logic!
1. There were a variety of inspirations, but this isn't really a question I could answer, as most of them were before my time.
2. Fish, of course.
3. I don't often use paint, but when I do it's less a favorite and moreso using paint to keep my building's colors relatively similar.
4. Duke Fishron.
5. I'm gonna go with a classic and say Night's Edge; I haven't really done a playthrough without getting it and using it.
6. There are many enemies I like, either visually or mechanically, so it would be hard to pick just one...
7. Cheese, cheese, cheese!
My favorite feature of 1.4 is a tie between Block Swap and the Bestiary.
1. His lunch, of course!
2. Leinfor's set is quite dapper, and FoodBarbarian's set has one of the coolest visual wing designs in the game, in my opinion.
3. I feel like a lot of my inspiration comes from just playing the game, getting a feel for what could fit somewhere, and seeing if any one else on the team agrees. It is very much a group effort!
The backbone coding framework of Terraria is very old; if we had the chance or time to completely overhaul something, this would be what I'd change.
1. I really like Mantis Shrimp, for being weird in a variety of ways and also casually being able to create what amount to tiny black holes with thier punches.
2. Presumably, Mothron ate it?
3. This was before my time, so I can't really answer it.
4. I like playing it casually with friends.
5. I really like the santank mount, the toy tank is a lot of fun to mess around with!
My favorite pets are the trio of 'worm' pets, but especially the Phantasmal Dragon. How they look and move is always really cool to me.
My favorite light pet is Golem, who while not the best light pet looks the coolest in my opinion. For practicality though, I like the Wisp too.
I really like Boss 2, Underground Desert and Underground Jungle themes.
I was fairly sure when they were implemented that they would be widely used, as they provide convenient teleports to get across the map.
Thanks for the compliment! I mostly hammered out the armor look myself, and Jim worked his magic to make it look even better! (Thanks Jim!)
I really like Stardew Valley and a lesser known game series called Geneforge.
What were the biggest roadblocks you encountered over the course of programming terraria? (For the programmers)
What were the trickiest enemies/objects to design, personally (For the artists)
And to both, what were your favourite features/designs that you implemented (Favourite mechanic, favourite design)
Y'all are awesome, so cheers if you answer!
1. Well there was this one memorable time where, due to a bug, everything was spiders.
2. I really like how a lot of the pets turned out!
Wait a minute, this isn't a question...
If there are, do you really think we'd give it away so easily?
What was the most memorable or meaningful moment you had while working on Terraria?
Just joining the team was a real meaningful moment for me, but in terms of development it would be hard to pick one, I really like working for Re-Logic!
You can read Crowno's post within this thread HERE or read the answers in the spoiler below:
Hello everyone!
Thank you very much for submitting all of your questions. I tried to answer the ones I felt most comfortable with and the ones I though I had the most insight to offer. Hopefuly it's a fun read!
General Terraria Questions
My favorite 1.4 feature might be the bestiary. I like creatures and I like collecting things in games, so bestiaries always pick my interest. I worked on the UI design for it so I'm very fond of that mechanic.
At one point in development Redigit wanted to create "Moon Boss", an event where players were supposed to fight the actual Moon. However the idea was so outlandish that the team could not figure out ways to actually do something like that and make it work. Eventually this idea evolved into the concept of the Lunar Event and Moon Lord.
Following the previous question, everything started with "Moon Boss". From there we had a lot of brainstorming sessions in which we discussed replacement ideas and the amalgamation of those ideas became the basis for the Lunar Event. Before finding the final visual for Moonlord I had sketches of 4 different visual themes it could have, which eventually inspired the Celestial Pillars designs. I also designed the creatures for each pillar with different themes in mind.
Player Walking animations. 14 frames for a simple walking animation, for such small characters, is overkill. We could have cut a lot of time if we worked with less frames and the animation could still have looked as good (or better).
My first time with Terraria (1.1) was an attempt of a full playthrough, even though I didn't knew how extensive the game was back then. From then on, I tried to do at least one full playthrough every time a big update came out, either with the dev team or with friends.
I have not played modded Terraria (yet)!
Imagination, history, nature, science, pop culture... inspiration comes from everywhere!
I personally don't see a reason to revisit Otherworld. It is unfortunate that it didn't work, specially because a lot of work from many talented folks went into it. But it is important to recognize when something is not working and just let it go instead of insisting. Maybe some ideas from that project could be revived and evolved into something else, but not in the way it was. Sometimes you've got to just move on and try on new things.
Dev sets were initially a sort of gift from Redigit to the dev team. He wanted the team to have something special as form to show his appreciation, so he suggested that each dev could have a cool unique outfit they could wear while playtesting. We knew people would find them even if it was a "dev secret", but we never expected the community to react the way it did back then. In the end we decided to make those items available for everyone, since the sets were never intended to be a big deal.
Leinfor's set might be my favorite. I love victorian and gothic visuals (as well as the color purple), so it was a pleasure to design his set. In an alternate reality I would use that set as my own.
I also have a soft spot for Skiphs' set because it is very unique and it was very fun to design it.
Terraria has an amazing community. Even though I'm not always in touch with it, I appreciate the outpourring love and decication the community has towards the game and our work. It is incredible to see so many people connecting and sharing their experiences. That's something truly special and rewarding.
My top 5 (in no particular order): Morning Rain, Underground Hallow, Underground Desert, Underground (from Otherworld), Space Day
Not necessarely a glitch, but for 1.4 we had to overhaul the way armors worked. That meant redoing and reframing the sprite sheets for hundreds of armor sets. It was a very dull, time consuming and kind of annoying task.
At least visually, Yorai had this really cool idea of having the sword spawn "sword clones". If I recall it correctly, I suggested making the sword clones actually being all the other swords from the game, used to craft the Zenith. Because well, that would look cool as heck. I also remember sending Devil May Cry videos for reference of the sword effects, haha.
I don't, but I think it's rare for any kind of content creator to consider their work perfected. We always think about ways in which our creations can be better. But obssession over perfection will always drive a work further from conclusion. Rather than perfected, I believe Terraria is concluded. And it is beautiful the way it is!
Everything from Eclipse. I love them, I really do. They were super fun to design and I think they are really cute and fun looking. But oh boy, when Eclipse hits you in early hardmode it's never a good time.
I've hidden two very subtle references to video games I like in one of the bosses of the game. No one has ever noticed that. But I'll give you a hit: it's only possible to find those references when the boss is defeated.
Terraria always had a very peculiar art style. Even though it evolved and got more polished with each update, a lot of different artist with different levels of experience have contributed with assets over time. This led to many inconsistencies with the art, which was a big challenge for the art team on Terraria's later years. We had a desire to push the game's visuals forward as we grew in experience, but the game is so big that overhauling all the graphics each time we wanted to improve would be a gargantuan task. Terraria's art folder has over 11,000 files between tiles, NPCs, items and such. So we always had to find a balance between pushing the art forward while keeping that nostalgic, simpler style Terraria had at the beginning, updating some of the most rough looking assets when we got the time for it.
The Old One's Army might have been my favorite. Trying to adapt the DD2 character designs to the style of Terraria was challenging but very fun. I have a soft sport for Pumpkin Moon, since I love halloween and did a lot of the art for that event. And Eclipse was super fun to work on because I love horror and monster movies.
Nope. And I'll take this chance to express how funny I think it is seeing people writing down trivia and references on the wikis that are completely inaccurate speculations, haha.
I can only speak for myself on this subject, but personally I just make stuff up. My headcanon doesn't go too far from "make giant floaty brain with tentacles because it is fun" most of the time. I believe that is part of what makes it special, since not worrying about knitting a tight lore gives us freedom to do whatever we think it is fun. It allows the game to be as crazy as it is, and it allows players to come up with all sorts of fun stories on their own headcanons.
Yes, it is a star.
Way too many to count. But I can confidently say we made new assets for A LOT of things and that it changes the game's aesthetic substantially. One of my favorite things to update were the Trees, I think they make a huge difference.
It is normal to have content left in what we call "cutting room floor" during the development of a video game. Some features might even be implemented but ultimately cut out after testing, for a multitude of reasons. The general rule is: if something was cut or removed even after being added, most likely it is because it was bad or just didn't work.
Many of the new biome ideas we had. Like alternate versions of existing biomes, biome expansions and so on. We had concepts for things like that but there's always a lot of things to reconsider, so many of it went unused and unfinished.
Well, I don't know exactly but that might be... uhh... my hypothetical son? We gotta ask Phlebas about that since he was the one who did the original painting, haha.
In my opinion It's one of those things that might seem obvious for the game to have, but in practice it's a lot of extra stuff that would barely serve any purpose aside from being an underused novelty. For each type of cactus we would need an entire set of furniture and gear, and that is a lot of content for a resource that's not as relevant as wood for example.
I prefer pickaxes because of the sound they make.
When I first heard about Pylons I thought "That is a feature I didn't knew we absolutely needed until now". I had no doubts people would use it and I thought it was a great idea.
I believe regardless of the passion for your craft, creative people always get very tired of working on the same thing for too long, haha. But we do what we gotta do!
Bosses Questions
There isn't a specific formula to design the Terraria bosses. Sometimes the theme comes first, sometimes the mechanics come first. Most of the time there is a general idea of where that boss is going to be in the game, then it is decided who is going to work on it. We keep bouncing art and gameplay ideas to each other, trying to find what works and what doesn't.
Well, Terraria is a wacky game so it's only fair bosses are wacky as well. We get references from all over the place! Fun fact, I feel like I did a lot of research on tentacles and insects over the course of designing bosses.
I never really though about that, but I'd say they can't be just one simple thing or one concept. It can't be just a huge flying eyeball, it needs to be a huge flying eyball with TEETH.
Definitely, it's common to have more than one idea for a boss during the concept phase.
For example, my first sketch for the crimson boss was a heart inside of a ribcage with spider legs made out of bone. Edgy, I know. Eventually it became the brain, but before having the floating eyeballs it was supposed to have flying worms orbiting around it.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew.
Queen and King Slime.
A whopping amount of 3 frames for each form.
Empress of Light was conceived as the first Hallow Boss for 1.4 and I was the artist assigned to design it. Right off the bat I knew I wanted to do a Fairy or some variation of a classical fairy tale creature. Inspiration for her design came mainly from imagination, but also the whole pantheon of fairy tale characters we see in popular media.
At one point I considered her being an insect that would start as a cocoon and then hatch into a fairy/moth creature, which I think might have been inspired by fairies from Berserk - but that was scrapped early on. Her design is also heavily inspired by Zelda characters, specially the weird giant fairies and the gerudo (hence her deliberate pointy nose). I know some people believe she might be inspired by a Hollow Knight boss, but any similarities with their design are really just coincidence.
The bullet hell part is mostly Yoraizor, since he is the one who programmed the boss and came up with its moveset. He is a Touhou fan, what can I say!
I won't change her nose. You guys should learn to love it and stop bullying me about it!
Work and Team Questions
Most of the current Re-Logic members were Terraria fans and members of the community. I've been with Re-Logic since 2013 (it is going to complete 8 years in 2021), which was also the year in which I started playing the game. I was introduced to the community because of an art contest, and because of that I found out Redigit was hiring new artists. I decided to apply to the job and the rest is history!
Before I joined the dev team I was on a "quest" to find a job, but getting rejected on every interview. Even though I was already hobbyist artist and game developer at that time, I didn't thought that was something I could make a living out of. None of the jobs I had applied to were related to that. In a way, Terraria was just another job opportunity I found - but ultimately the one that worked out and changed my life. So I could say what inspired me was necessity, allied to the dream of working with things I already loved to do.
Being able to work with things I love: doing art, creating things and video games. I also love that I can work remotely from the comfort of my home, specially considering Re-Logic always works on improving the quality of life of its employees.
Re-Logic's team is composed of excelent people so we do fine with each other! But like any group people, conflicts and misunderstandings always show up. Sometimes we can get caught in heated discussions and we don't always agree on everything, but we always find a way to resolve our differences and to keep working together. Being able be open for dialog and to stay humble are important qualities for any person working on a team, in my opinion.
I had no idea of how far I would get with Re-Logic. I guess I avoided thinking about it, but I didn't expect it to be this far. I am definitely proud of my work and grateful for every good thing it brought into my life!
Absolutely! Not just the developer's love for the game, but the community's love for the game is also what made it get this far.
In my opinion it is a collection of things: timing, vision, dedication and passion. Redigit had a great vision for what the game could be and the game came out at the right moment in time. The dedication to keep it alive and improving is what made it keep growing in success and popularity. And of course, no success story exists without all the people who have supported it throughout all of the years.
I'm excited for it. The entire team learned a lot from years working on Terraria, so it will be great to have the chance to apply that experience and knowledge to new things.
Being hired and working my first month. It was a surreal feeling that I had a real job and it was making art for a video game. Being able to travel to the USA to meet with the team in person was also a very cool experience.
We do pretty well! Re-Logic uses a lot of tools to keep everyone on track such as tools for logging hours, distribute tasks, share files and etc. Communication can be a problem sometimes, but it's a natural part of the process and we are always trying to improve.
It's a good feeling, I don't know how to describe it very well. But it's very satisfying to be a part of something so special, recognized and respected by so many people. It surely puts a lot of pressure on us for the next projects though!
Art and Gamedev Questions
It can be! Each person has their own way of learning and developing a skill, with pixel art is no different. Some people might find it easier, some people might have trouble with it and find out it's not their thing. One way or the other, you will always find challenges regardless of your experience.
It's really hard to trace back the first things I ever did with pixel art. But I remember of a specific moment where I decided to post a pixel art for critique on a forum thread, and it was this one (back in 2009):
I'm used to working with Photoshop so it's what I use most of the time, for convenience. Sometimes I use other tools like PyxelEdit or Aseprite, which have great features. I also have used a ton of MS Paint on my early pixel art years, but with the tools available nowadays I don't recommend it.
Absolutely not! Equipment and software are tools, they merely exist to serve the artist's needs. Your knowledge and technique will define how you use your tools, not the other way around.
Yes. I believe that two factors that make a sprite much more demanding to work on are size and animation. Working within restrictions can also be challenging, and that's a crucial thing about pixel art.
My general tips for doing pixel art are the same as for starting on any other art medium: study, practice and have fun with it!
There are tons of resources you can find online for free, such as tutorials, classes and software. Start by trying to learn the basics, finding your limitations and what things you like and dislike about it.
I also recommend looking for references. Start with the things you like, such as games you think are cool looking and artists you admire. But specially, try to study classic games from the 8/16/32bit era. Those folks were the best at their craft and perfected many of the techniques and ideas artists still used today.
Getting "good" is relative, every person has a different pace to learn and different goals to reach. Some people might get the hang of it earlier than others, it's something unique to every person. Not only that, but art is hardly something that has a ceiling of skill. We are always learning, improving and getting better. I've been doing pixel art formore than I decade now and I still I have a lot to learn and improve!
VERY EPIC PIXEL ART TIP: START SMALL! I often see beginner artists start with large, highly detailed, high resolution art pieces. Starting with big projects will make you lose focus from basics, which is what you should be focusing on when you start. And one of the most basic characteristics of pixel art is that it is mainly (but not always!) low resolution art. The larger your pixel art gets, the more effort and technical prowess it will require. Start small!
It's difficult to come up with unique textures and styles after you make a hundred of them, looking for real life reference would be my best tip I guess. As for shortcuts, since Terraria tilesets require a lot of tiles I set up some custom Photoshop actions to make the process of cutting and framing them a bit easier. Sometimes I also use a software called PyxelEdit, which has a lot of great features for designing terrain tiles.
I'm not a programmer so I cannot talk about the specifics of the Terraria engine or address the subject in a more technical way, but I can share a bit of my personal experience. Nowadays there are so many good and accessible game engines that I feel creating an engine from scratch is just not necessary. If you are more inclined to be a software developer and want to develop your programming skills, I think creating your own engine can be a great learning experience. But if your intention is to focus more on the aspects of game design itself, sitck with a game engine that you feel comfortable with!
Before working on Terraria I have used game engines such as RPG Maker and Construct for many years. I really lost count of how many small games and prototypes I did throughout the years but it might have been hundreds, haha. I still develop games on my free time, as a hobby. When I feel inspired I love to do game jams, and I'm almost always working on a side project when I'm bored. If you are curious, you can find some of my games on my itch.io page (just search for crowno). I also had some experience designing tabletop stuff, like RPG scenarios and card games.
It's important to define what you want to specialize on and what carrer path you want to take. If you want to focus on art, programming, game development itself... there are many paths to choose and you will find one that is your favorite. Check what are your options for learning. If you are a hobbyist or wanna try indie development, you might be fine with self-teaching through online content. You can find a lot of accessible and free resources. But maybe you want to try a carreer in AAA game development and shoot for the big companies, so it would be wise to invest into formal education.
Personal Questions
On a daily basis, I drink more coffee than tea. But I LOVE both of them.
Dark mode always. Gotta preserve these eyeballs.
Some of my favorite games of all time are: A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy VI, Shadow of the Colossus, "SoulsBorne" series, Earthbound and Megaman X.
Some of my favorite anime are Ghost in the Shell, Mushishi, Fullmetal Alchemist, Mob Psycho 100, Paranoia Agent, Bersek and a lot of Ghibli & Satoshi Kon stuff. As for movies and TV I mostly enjoy thrillers, horror, fantasy and sci-fi. Pan's Labyrinth could be my favorite movie but I like too many stuff so it's hard to pick. Some of my favorite directors are Guillermo Del Toro, Christopher Nolan and David Fincher.
Both! Depends on the game.
It is my favorite color and it is beautiful.
Thank you! Overall, my favorite things to create are characters and creatures. For Terraria my favorite things to create are monsters, bosses and items.
I don't mind it. I just kinda like the aesthetic of beaks and plague masks, that's why it got repeated. People ask me about it all the time though, so it gets kinda annoying haha.
Before playing Terraria, I was just a kid who had finished high school and was trying to figure out my life. Creating games and making art were already a passion of mine and what I spent most of my spare time with.
It is a great game and I like it a lot! A really admire the folks at Mojang. Sometimes we get to interact with each other on Twitter, haha.
I used to look at Terraria like this at first, before I had a chance to play it. Once I started playing it I realized that this was a very reductive description because the game is so much more. But even if it's not super accurate, I believe it is a simple and direct way to describe the game for someone who might be familiar with the genre but haven't been introduced to Terraria yet. So that isn't a bad thing in my opinion!
Even though I have not played the mod, I've seen some of it and I can say it has great art. It's clearly made by very talented and passionate artists and they did a fantastic job creating an unique visual identity. I feel like if Terraria was rebooted and we had the chance to slightly change the style, the quality of the art could be similar to what Calamity is.
Again, I'm not super familiar with a lot of mod sprites, even though a lot from what I saw is pretty good. But on the subject of large sprites I think it depends on how fluid they look, specially if the sprite has any sort of animation. Larger sprites are harder to animate and to make look organic, even if the art itself is high quality. So perhaps that would influence my opinion.
I don't see any issues with mods changing the game, that's what they are for! When playing with mods players have the choice of how to modify their game, so no one should worry about making a mod that is too close or too far from vanilla. Sometimes you might wanna play the game with a little extra, and sometimes you might wanna have a completely different experience. It's great that mods can allow that range.
I already expressed how amazing I think our community is, but I'll take this chance to just say it again. I love seeing the fan creations, the fan art, the animations and drawings. Seeing the characters being brought to life in different styles by others artists is really cool. You can bet I'm always checking out ALL kinds of art people do and can't get enough of it, haha.
By the way, there is one Terraria fan video that to day this remains my favorite. It is a parody of "Rhythm Heaven Fever" but with Terraria characters. I love this kind of thing, it makes me smile every time.
Well, no one ever invited me to it, haha. But I don't think I would interact much or be an active participant in conversations. Consider that for many years my routine consisted of working on Terraria for dozens of hours every week, so on my free time I don't have much energy to keep talking about that. Not only that, but unfortunaly people can be invasive with developers sometimes. I've had issues with online harassment before, so I prefer to limit my interactions to avoid that kind of situation. I'm usually a very private person.
Is there a forum trophy with my name?!
That's very unlikely. If I knew you, maybe. Thanks for asking anyway!
I'm glad to be able to answer at least some of your questions and to share a bit more of myself.
Thanks everyone for you questions and for your support!
Thank you very much for submitting all of your questions. I tried to answer the ones I felt most comfortable with and the ones I though I had the most insight to offer. Hopefuly it's a fun read!
General Terraria Questions
My favorite 1.4 feature might be the bestiary. I like creatures and I like collecting things in games, so bestiaries always pick my interest. I worked on the UI design for it so I'm very fond of that mechanic.
At one point in development Redigit wanted to create "Moon Boss", an event where players were supposed to fight the actual Moon. However the idea was so outlandish that the team could not figure out ways to actually do something like that and make it work. Eventually this idea evolved into the concept of the Lunar Event and Moon Lord.
Following the previous question, everything started with "Moon Boss". From there we had a lot of brainstorming sessions in which we discussed replacement ideas and the amalgamation of those ideas became the basis for the Lunar Event. Before finding the final visual for Moonlord I had sketches of 4 different visual themes it could have, which eventually inspired the Celestial Pillars designs. I also designed the creatures for each pillar with different themes in mind.
Player Walking animations. 14 frames for a simple walking animation, for such small characters, is overkill. We could have cut a lot of time if we worked with less frames and the animation could still have looked as good (or better).
My first time with Terraria (1.1) was an attempt of a full playthrough, even though I didn't knew how extensive the game was back then. From then on, I tried to do at least one full playthrough every time a big update came out, either with the dev team or with friends.
I have not played modded Terraria (yet)!
Imagination, history, nature, science, pop culture... inspiration comes from everywhere!
I personally don't see a reason to revisit Otherworld. It is unfortunate that it didn't work, specially because a lot of work from many talented folks went into it. But it is important to recognize when something is not working and just let it go instead of insisting. Maybe some ideas from that project could be revived and evolved into something else, but not in the way it was. Sometimes you've got to just move on and try on new things.
Dev sets were initially a sort of gift from Redigit to the dev team. He wanted the team to have something special as form to show his appreciation, so he suggested that each dev could have a cool unique outfit they could wear while playtesting. We knew people would find them even if it was a "dev secret", but we never expected the community to react the way it did back then. In the end we decided to make those items available for everyone, since the sets were never intended to be a big deal.
Leinfor's set might be my favorite. I love victorian and gothic visuals (as well as the color purple), so it was a pleasure to design his set. In an alternate reality I would use that set as my own.
I also have a soft spot for Skiphs' set because it is very unique and it was very fun to design it.
Terraria has an amazing community. Even though I'm not always in touch with it, I appreciate the outpourring love and decication the community has towards the game and our work. It is incredible to see so many people connecting and sharing their experiences. That's something truly special and rewarding.
My top 5 (in no particular order): Morning Rain, Underground Hallow, Underground Desert, Underground (from Otherworld), Space Day
Not necessarely a glitch, but for 1.4 we had to overhaul the way armors worked. That meant redoing and reframing the sprite sheets for hundreds of armor sets. It was a very dull, time consuming and kind of annoying task.
At least visually, Yorai had this really cool idea of having the sword spawn "sword clones". If I recall it correctly, I suggested making the sword clones actually being all the other swords from the game, used to craft the Zenith. Because well, that would look cool as heck. I also remember sending Devil May Cry videos for reference of the sword effects, haha.
I don't, but I think it's rare for any kind of content creator to consider their work perfected. We always think about ways in which our creations can be better. But obssession over perfection will always drive a work further from conclusion. Rather than perfected, I believe Terraria is concluded. And it is beautiful the way it is!
Everything from Eclipse. I love them, I really do. They were super fun to design and I think they are really cute and fun looking. But oh boy, when Eclipse hits you in early hardmode it's never a good time.
I've hidden two very subtle references to video games I like in one of the bosses of the game. No one has ever noticed that. But I'll give you a hit: it's only possible to find those references when the boss is defeated.
Terraria always had a very peculiar art style. Even though it evolved and got more polished with each update, a lot of different artist with different levels of experience have contributed with assets over time. This led to many inconsistencies with the art, which was a big challenge for the art team on Terraria's later years. We had a desire to push the game's visuals forward as we grew in experience, but the game is so big that overhauling all the graphics each time we wanted to improve would be a gargantuan task. Terraria's art folder has over 11,000 files between tiles, NPCs, items and such. So we always had to find a balance between pushing the art forward while keeping that nostalgic, simpler style Terraria had at the beginning, updating some of the most rough looking assets when we got the time for it.
The Old One's Army might have been my favorite. Trying to adapt the DD2 character designs to the style of Terraria was challenging but very fun. I have a soft sport for Pumpkin Moon, since I love halloween and did a lot of the art for that event. And Eclipse was super fun to work on because I love horror and monster movies.
Nope. And I'll take this chance to express how funny I think it is seeing people writing down trivia and references on the wikis that are completely inaccurate speculations, haha.
I can only speak for myself on this subject, but personally I just make stuff up. My headcanon doesn't go too far from "make giant floaty brain with tentacles because it is fun" most of the time. I believe that is part of what makes it special, since not worrying about knitting a tight lore gives us freedom to do whatever we think it is fun. It allows the game to be as crazy as it is, and it allows players to come up with all sorts of fun stories on their own headcanons.
Yes, it is a star.
Way too many to count. But I can confidently say we made new assets for A LOT of things and that it changes the game's aesthetic substantially. One of my favorite things to update were the Trees, I think they make a huge difference.
It is normal to have content left in what we call "cutting room floor" during the development of a video game. Some features might even be implemented but ultimately cut out after testing, for a multitude of reasons. The general rule is: if something was cut or removed even after being added, most likely it is because it was bad or just didn't work.
Many of the new biome ideas we had. Like alternate versions of existing biomes, biome expansions and so on. We had concepts for things like that but there's always a lot of things to reconsider, so many of it went unused and unfinished.
Well, I don't know exactly but that might be... uhh... my hypothetical son? We gotta ask Phlebas about that since he was the one who did the original painting, haha.
In my opinion It's one of those things that might seem obvious for the game to have, but in practice it's a lot of extra stuff that would barely serve any purpose aside from being an underused novelty. For each type of cactus we would need an entire set of furniture and gear, and that is a lot of content for a resource that's not as relevant as wood for example.
I prefer pickaxes because of the sound they make.
When I first heard about Pylons I thought "That is a feature I didn't knew we absolutely needed until now". I had no doubts people would use it and I thought it was a great idea.
I believe regardless of the passion for your craft, creative people always get very tired of working on the same thing for too long, haha. But we do what we gotta do!
Bosses Questions
There isn't a specific formula to design the Terraria bosses. Sometimes the theme comes first, sometimes the mechanics come first. Most of the time there is a general idea of where that boss is going to be in the game, then it is decided who is going to work on it. We keep bouncing art and gameplay ideas to each other, trying to find what works and what doesn't.
Well, Terraria is a wacky game so it's only fair bosses are wacky as well. We get references from all over the place! Fun fact, I feel like I did a lot of research on tentacles and insects over the course of designing bosses.
I never really though about that, but I'd say they can't be just one simple thing or one concept. It can't be just a huge flying eyeball, it needs to be a huge flying eyball with TEETH.
Definitely, it's common to have more than one idea for a boss during the concept phase.
For example, my first sketch for the crimson boss was a heart inside of a ribcage with spider legs made out of bone. Edgy, I know. Eventually it became the brain, but before having the floating eyeballs it was supposed to have flying worms orbiting around it.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew.
Queen and King Slime.
A whopping amount of 3 frames for each form.
Empress of Light was conceived as the first Hallow Boss for 1.4 and I was the artist assigned to design it. Right off the bat I knew I wanted to do a Fairy or some variation of a classical fairy tale creature. Inspiration for her design came mainly from imagination, but also the whole pantheon of fairy tale characters we see in popular media.
At one point I considered her being an insect that would start as a cocoon and then hatch into a fairy/moth creature, which I think might have been inspired by fairies from Berserk - but that was scrapped early on. Her design is also heavily inspired by Zelda characters, specially the weird giant fairies and the gerudo (hence her deliberate pointy nose). I know some people believe she might be inspired by a Hollow Knight boss, but any similarities with their design are really just coincidence.
The bullet hell part is mostly Yoraizor, since he is the one who programmed the boss and came up with its moveset. He is a Touhou fan, what can I say!
I won't change her nose. You guys should learn to love it and stop bullying me about it!
Work and Team Questions
Most of the current Re-Logic members were Terraria fans and members of the community. I've been with Re-Logic since 2013 (it is going to complete 8 years in 2021), which was also the year in which I started playing the game. I was introduced to the community because of an art contest, and because of that I found out Redigit was hiring new artists. I decided to apply to the job and the rest is history!
Before I joined the dev team I was on a "quest" to find a job, but getting rejected on every interview. Even though I was already hobbyist artist and game developer at that time, I didn't thought that was something I could make a living out of. None of the jobs I had applied to were related to that. In a way, Terraria was just another job opportunity I found - but ultimately the one that worked out and changed my life. So I could say what inspired me was necessity, allied to the dream of working with things I already loved to do.
Being able to work with things I love: doing art, creating things and video games. I also love that I can work remotely from the comfort of my home, specially considering Re-Logic always works on improving the quality of life of its employees.
Re-Logic's team is composed of excelent people so we do fine with each other! But like any group people, conflicts and misunderstandings always show up. Sometimes we can get caught in heated discussions and we don't always agree on everything, but we always find a way to resolve our differences and to keep working together. Being able be open for dialog and to stay humble are important qualities for any person working on a team, in my opinion.
I had no idea of how far I would get with Re-Logic. I guess I avoided thinking about it, but I didn't expect it to be this far. I am definitely proud of my work and grateful for every good thing it brought into my life!
Absolutely! Not just the developer's love for the game, but the community's love for the game is also what made it get this far.
In my opinion it is a collection of things: timing, vision, dedication and passion. Redigit had a great vision for what the game could be and the game came out at the right moment in time. The dedication to keep it alive and improving is what made it keep growing in success and popularity. And of course, no success story exists without all the people who have supported it throughout all of the years.
I'm excited for it. The entire team learned a lot from years working on Terraria, so it will be great to have the chance to apply that experience and knowledge to new things.
Being hired and working my first month. It was a surreal feeling that I had a real job and it was making art for a video game. Being able to travel to the USA to meet with the team in person was also a very cool experience.
We do pretty well! Re-Logic uses a lot of tools to keep everyone on track such as tools for logging hours, distribute tasks, share files and etc. Communication can be a problem sometimes, but it's a natural part of the process and we are always trying to improve.
It's a good feeling, I don't know how to describe it very well. But it's very satisfying to be a part of something so special, recognized and respected by so many people. It surely puts a lot of pressure on us for the next projects though!
Art and Gamedev Questions
It can be! Each person has their own way of learning and developing a skill, with pixel art is no different. Some people might find it easier, some people might have trouble with it and find out it's not their thing. One way or the other, you will always find challenges regardless of your experience.
It's really hard to trace back the first things I ever did with pixel art. But I remember of a specific moment where I decided to post a pixel art for critique on a forum thread, and it was this one (back in 2009):
I'm used to working with Photoshop so it's what I use most of the time, for convenience. Sometimes I use other tools like PyxelEdit or Aseprite, which have great features. I also have used a ton of MS Paint on my early pixel art years, but with the tools available nowadays I don't recommend it.
Absolutely not! Equipment and software are tools, they merely exist to serve the artist's needs. Your knowledge and technique will define how you use your tools, not the other way around.
Yes. I believe that two factors that make a sprite much more demanding to work on are size and animation. Working within restrictions can also be challenging, and that's a crucial thing about pixel art.
My general tips for doing pixel art are the same as for starting on any other art medium: study, practice and have fun with it!
There are tons of resources you can find online for free, such as tutorials, classes and software. Start by trying to learn the basics, finding your limitations and what things you like and dislike about it.
I also recommend looking for references. Start with the things you like, such as games you think are cool looking and artists you admire. But specially, try to study classic games from the 8/16/32bit era. Those folks were the best at their craft and perfected many of the techniques and ideas artists still used today.
Getting "good" is relative, every person has a different pace to learn and different goals to reach. Some people might get the hang of it earlier than others, it's something unique to every person. Not only that, but art is hardly something that has a ceiling of skill. We are always learning, improving and getting better. I've been doing pixel art formore than I decade now and I still I have a lot to learn and improve!
VERY EPIC PIXEL ART TIP: START SMALL! I often see beginner artists start with large, highly detailed, high resolution art pieces. Starting with big projects will make you lose focus from basics, which is what you should be focusing on when you start. And one of the most basic characteristics of pixel art is that it is mainly (but not always!) low resolution art. The larger your pixel art gets, the more effort and technical prowess it will require. Start small!
It's difficult to come up with unique textures and styles after you make a hundred of them, looking for real life reference would be my best tip I guess. As for shortcuts, since Terraria tilesets require a lot of tiles I set up some custom Photoshop actions to make the process of cutting and framing them a bit easier. Sometimes I also use a software called PyxelEdit, which has a lot of great features for designing terrain tiles.
I'm not a programmer so I cannot talk about the specifics of the Terraria engine or address the subject in a more technical way, but I can share a bit of my personal experience. Nowadays there are so many good and accessible game engines that I feel creating an engine from scratch is just not necessary. If you are more inclined to be a software developer and want to develop your programming skills, I think creating your own engine can be a great learning experience. But if your intention is to focus more on the aspects of game design itself, sitck with a game engine that you feel comfortable with!
Before working on Terraria I have used game engines such as RPG Maker and Construct for many years. I really lost count of how many small games and prototypes I did throughout the years but it might have been hundreds, haha. I still develop games on my free time, as a hobby. When I feel inspired I love to do game jams, and I'm almost always working on a side project when I'm bored. If you are curious, you can find some of my games on my itch.io page (just search for crowno). I also had some experience designing tabletop stuff, like RPG scenarios and card games.
It's important to define what you want to specialize on and what carrer path you want to take. If you want to focus on art, programming, game development itself... there are many paths to choose and you will find one that is your favorite. Check what are your options for learning. If you are a hobbyist or wanna try indie development, you might be fine with self-teaching through online content. You can find a lot of accessible and free resources. But maybe you want to try a carreer in AAA game development and shoot for the big companies, so it would be wise to invest into formal education.
Personal Questions
On a daily basis, I drink more coffee than tea. But I LOVE both of them.
Dark mode always. Gotta preserve these eyeballs.
Some of my favorite games of all time are: A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy VI, Shadow of the Colossus, "SoulsBorne" series, Earthbound and Megaman X.
Some of my favorite anime are Ghost in the Shell, Mushishi, Fullmetal Alchemist, Mob Psycho 100, Paranoia Agent, Bersek and a lot of Ghibli & Satoshi Kon stuff. As for movies and TV I mostly enjoy thrillers, horror, fantasy and sci-fi. Pan's Labyrinth could be my favorite movie but I like too many stuff so it's hard to pick. Some of my favorite directors are Guillermo Del Toro, Christopher Nolan and David Fincher.
Both! Depends on the game.
It is my favorite color and it is beautiful.
Thank you! Overall, my favorite things to create are characters and creatures. For Terraria my favorite things to create are monsters, bosses and items.
I don't mind it. I just kinda like the aesthetic of beaks and plague masks, that's why it got repeated. People ask me about it all the time though, so it gets kinda annoying haha.
Before playing Terraria, I was just a kid who had finished high school and was trying to figure out my life. Creating games and making art were already a passion of mine and what I spent most of my spare time with.
It is a great game and I like it a lot! A really admire the folks at Mojang. Sometimes we get to interact with each other on Twitter, haha.
I used to look at Terraria like this at first, before I had a chance to play it. Once I started playing it I realized that this was a very reductive description because the game is so much more. But even if it's not super accurate, I believe it is a simple and direct way to describe the game for someone who might be familiar with the genre but haven't been introduced to Terraria yet. So that isn't a bad thing in my opinion!
Even though I have not played the mod, I've seen some of it and I can say it has great art. It's clearly made by very talented and passionate artists and they did a fantastic job creating an unique visual identity. I feel like if Terraria was rebooted and we had the chance to slightly change the style, the quality of the art could be similar to what Calamity is.
What is your opinion on the large mods' sprites? (especially Calamity, since for me it looks even better than vanilla (no offence
Again, I'm not super familiar with a lot of mod sprites, even though a lot from what I saw is pretty good. But on the subject of large sprites I think it depends on how fluid they look, specially if the sprite has any sort of animation. Larger sprites are harder to animate and to make look organic, even if the art itself is high quality. So perhaps that would influence my opinion.
I don't see any issues with mods changing the game, that's what they are for! When playing with mods players have the choice of how to modify their game, so no one should worry about making a mod that is too close or too far from vanilla. Sometimes you might wanna play the game with a little extra, and sometimes you might wanna have a completely different experience. It's great that mods can allow that range.
I already expressed how amazing I think our community is, but I'll take this chance to just say it again. I love seeing the fan creations, the fan art, the animations and drawings. Seeing the characters being brought to life in different styles by others artists is really cool. You can bet I'm always checking out ALL kinds of art people do and can't get enough of it, haha.
By the way, there is one Terraria fan video that to day this remains my favorite. It is a parody of "Rhythm Heaven Fever" but with Terraria characters. I love this kind of thing, it makes me smile every time.
Well, no one ever invited me to it, haha. But I don't think I would interact much or be an active participant in conversations. Consider that for many years my routine consisted of working on Terraria for dozens of hours every week, so on my free time I don't have much energy to keep talking about that. Not only that, but unfortunaly people can be invasive with developers sometimes. I've had issues with online harassment before, so I prefer to limit my interactions to avoid that kind of situation. I'm usually a very private person.
Is there a forum trophy with my name?!
Will Crowno go on a date with me?
That's very unlikely. If I knew you, maybe. Thanks for asking anyway!
I'm glad to be able to answer at least some of your questions and to share a bit more of myself.
Thanks everyone for you questions and for your support!
You can read Jimmarn's post within this thread HERE or read the answers in the spoiler below:
I'll try to answer as much as I can, some of the questions are repeated so trying to not repeat myself too much!
2. I believe that would be 4, at least was the last time I checked my calculator
3. Tough question, I'm a sucker for limegreen though.
4. Oooh another tough question. EoL is pretty badass.
5. I always really liked the water bolt. But, I like a lot of them, the prism is also really cool.
6. Another tough one! I think I will say Wyvern... or Harpy.. Yeah..
7. Chocolate on a Donut.
My first piece of pixel art was probably a gun or something that I vaguely remember I did in MS paint back in Windows 98/XP days, but kind of feel like they don't count as I never went anywhere with it and it was just me doodling in my free time as a kid. So the first real thing may be something for the Ice biome in the game.
2. Hard one, pepperoni or beef with onion and chili.
2. Gnomes or Rock Golem, really liked the idea of the gnomes, but it was also a thrill to make the Rock Golem and animate it.
3. Can't say for sure
4. Hard to say, I worked a good while on Crimson, but I don't think it took any longer than the others, it was just trying to come up with an alternative to the corruption, and then I focused on it for a while.
5. Again I can't say for sure I'm afraid, not that I can think of right off the top of my head
6. A fall-colored world.
2. Tough question, I like all of them but if you forced me to choose one, maybe Crowno's
3. I follow quite a few artists on Instagram and Twitter, and like to check out Artstation occasionally. Seeing others art is a huge inspiration and sparks the creative part of the brain, some times it's also just the right time if you get what I mean. You get into the zone. But there's also some times when it can be really challenging and hard, where it feels like you can't get it out of the head.
2. First resprite in 1.4 I can't say for sure. Some times we just feel that something could be improved
2. Most fun thing to sprite, it's hard to say, it's good to vary for the most part, some days it is making a background piece, and others it is making and animating a character/enemy.
3. I don't know
4. Nectarine
2. I can't say, I don't know
3 and 4. Only time will tell
5. No
6. Check further up
7. I'm not sure
8. Too many to choose from but I mentioned some further up
9. Loki made a thread about it
10. Yeah
4. I've had a lot of fun with it, wish it had more types of enemies and stuff to explore though!
5. The bee perhaps, hard to pick one
Has to be one of the best communities there is!
But for the most part I do everything in Photoshop, and is what I know best.
2. I can't say for sure, maybe only Red knows. Probably in a whole different galaxy, maybe even a whole different dimension.
I've always liked to think of it as a world in a Terrarium, on someone's desk in a different world, where life grew and took place, with the beings inside unaware of the world outside the Terrarium.
3. It doesn't really follow our sense of eras since it's a whole different world with it's own history.
2. That's a tough question I'm not sure how to answer
3. I've had several occasions where I feel what I've made is pretty bad, but some times coming back to it at a later stage gives me the idea on how to improve it. Some times it can be hard to get it where it feels right, and I start over. Other times it's something I made a while ago that I feel should get an upgrade.
4. Tough question, I can't think of any particular favorites, like I mentioned I liked working on the gnomes, and the rock golem for the recent update, or maybe one of the backgrounds I've done, or the map backgrounds. Maybe the little turtle pet. I also can't think of anything right this very second that feels overlooked.
5. Yes
2. I get motivated by making fun and cool things, and by seeing others artwork or a nice scenery out in the wild.
3. Yes often I look up references to try to make sure I get the shapes and details right, when it's something I've done many times I don't need to because of experience. But working from references are good to learn.
4. No, I could likely do sprite work in an old edition of MS paint, the tool I use is mainly for convenience and speed, I like photoshop as I've used it over many years, and have set up custom shortcuts and workspace that I feel help me stay organized and get what I need to do the job
5. Oh that varies a lot, from sprite to sprite and what it is, an item can be done fairly quick if you know exactly what you want to make, other times it can take some trial and error before you get something you're happy with. And it can depend on the size of the sprite, and how much detail you need to put into it. Some times it can even be that you're working with so few pixels that you got to spend some extra time to get it to represent something you can recognize even though it isn't enough pixels to do so.
6. Keep on doing it, look at tutorials and look up others work, don't copy it, but try to learn from it, in the end making more stuff and practicing is the best you can do. You will get better over time if you devote your time to it
2. That's a tough one! I can't say for sure, it all varies so much, some times it's nailing the look of a vanity set or an item. Other times it's been challenging to make a background with all it's details and animations. I think I struggled most with animating the big backgrounds the first time I did them.
3. For me I'd say the Gnomes I think
Merry New Year to you too!
2. Probably most challenging for programmers
3. Practice, practice and practice. And keep doing it, some times it can even start as one idea and evolve into something entirely different!
4. I really love Red Dead Redemption 2's Campaign, and I'm having a lot of fun playing Satisfactory. Boardgames, hard to say, Clue can be fun, or games like it with more depth, I've been playing some Ligretto in the holidays but that's a cardgame, I also enjoy a good game of Chess.
5. It could some times be challenging to get the right look in tilesets of 8x8 (scaled up to 16x16)
2. Favorite part is the community and the team I'd say, I've tried to answer the rest further up here
3. I'm not sure, I had an idea of elevators way back, it turned into ropes instead. And I had an idea of pistons and how they could work once, maybe it could become a mod some day
5. I some times do some drawing or 3D modeling on the side for fun, but I haven't spent too much time on finishing any of it really. Should get better at that.
I usually like ranged, but I go a lot back and forth
2. Oh, I wouldn't really have imagined this back when I first joined. It's been an amazing journey for sure!
3. Hard to choose, world seeds are fun, Journey mode is a fun addition as well, and things in the game, too hard to choose.
4. To not be able to stop time
5. Answered this one further up as well
6. Oh yeah? I'd have to go with the Terra toilet.
Process is very similar to making a drawing, it depends on what you are making, but you start by an idea, then you try to get that idea onto the "paper" and depending on what it is, after you have something you're happy with, you can start to animate it, or create a tileset from it.
2. I don't think so, I partially tried to answer a similar question above
3. I've wondered about the same thing
4. It varies from time to time.
5. Thank you! Answer above
1. I've always enjoyed making things, ever since I was a little kid, grew up playing old consoles and computers, the favorite games were always the ones where I could make custom levels. Like LodeRunner as an example. And I enjoyed drawing, even though I felt I wasn't very good at it, I wanted to get better, still do. Made stop motion movies, and eventually found out I wanted to learn 3D modeling and level editing, went to university to learn 3D modeling there, as well as some minor sketching and painting. Ever since I was young I wanted to make games, something thrilling about making something you could move around in and experience, and let others experience.
2. Tough to say, they've all been fun to make stuff for, hallowed is one of them, it has this extra element that makes it seem harmless, but turns out to be quite the opposite.
3. There's quite a few of them!
4. Wouldn't say so
Everyone:
1. There's been a loving community and playerbase, and it's been a thrill to work on it and see the game evolve!
2. I do! But not as often besides testing things, and I usually play full chaos class, back and forth and mixing it up.
3. I didn't
2. I don't think I would taste any of'em
3. Hard to say, I like to mix things up!
But I prefer green, lime-green. Dev-set isn't representing that though.
You're all awesome!
2. So much, answered some of this above, like I mentioned there, making things, games with level editors, and the thought of making something you and others can experience and move around in
3. First thing was probably courses on an old racer game my brother had on commodore 128, then in other games on consoles and gameboy, stop motion movies with lego, and eventually Warcraft 3 map editor. Which really inspired me to learn more.
2. Clocking in, stating what's on the days agenda, look over tasks, start by doing those, discussing some if there's anything to discuss or share, sharing progress, and having lunch. Working on tasks and eventually clock out. What exactly is to be done varies a lot from day to day or week to week
3. Answered further up
4. Dark
5. Hard to say but a big factor is definitely the community, we're so grateful for all of you!
6. Also answered further up
3. Hermes boots first I think, tough call
4. Chlorophyte
5. ooh, I'm not sure, I've at least got thousands of files, and with tiles, probably quite a bit!
7. Can't say I have one
8. Copper Pickaxe
9. I've actually barely tried it I'm afraid.
10. Something for the Ice-biome, may be penguins or ice bat.
Time will tell!
2. answered further up, it's hard to recall what I've struggled the most with, it's been ups and downs, some days I've struggled with getting ideas, and others it just flows
3. I am not sure, I have yet to try them out!
4. Well in some ways it's not been much different, I've been working from home most of the time since 2013, and more of us here are spread across the world That being said, I do look forward to this whole situation to pass
5. Yes! Thanks for asking, hope you and all of those reading and asking questions has one too!
8. Our team is like my second family, I've known most of these guys for almost a third of my life. Although we're far apart, they feel like family and are amongst my closest friends.
Main thing, keep on practicing, look up references, find other artists you like
The tie to that has to be meeting the team for the first time after working with them for quite a while already, it was amazing to meet everyone that could be there, and the entire time has been meaningful and memorable from start to finish. I've learnt so much.
I'll answer what I can and trim the rest so it doesn't eat so much space. Some of it is answered further up
1. Everyone has their own ideas, some make their own while others provide reference or description of what they wanted
2. Halloween and Pumpkin moon was fun to work with
3. Think I'd pick Lunar cultist set, hard to choose one. .
4. My least favorite weapons to use are most of the shortswords
5. I really can't remember
6. Well I know we at least put a lot of love into it
7. We are so spread across the world, so we sadly can't but we still chat and talk a lot, and when we did meet, we had a great time together. Those who live close do though
8. It was already very popular when I joined after just as we started working on 1.2, but I think it's hard to imagine it would be this popular and have a large playerbase for so many years It's nothing but amazing to have such a great community!
9. Hm, think maybe Andrew and/or Houston
10. Maybe Yoraiz0r
11. Not necessarily sprite, but I always knew I wanted to work with games, and the aesthetics of it, and I'm super thrilled I did!
12. Shake it
13. Yeah!
14. My pleasure! Thank you for asking!
Alright! That was a lot more than I thought! I hope I answered your questions!
I'm sorry if I missed your question or wasn't able to answer!
I really didn't think I'd be sitting here for this many hours answering, but it's been great fun and we appreciate you all!
Thank you all for submitting your questions! I hope you all have a great day/night and a great year ahead!
It's been quite the... Journey
1. Usually team effort I'd say or someone has a specific idea that we try to work out, don't think I came up with any of the bosses. But a good place to start is where the boss belongs
2. I believe that would be 4, at least was the last time I checked my calculator
3. Tough question, I'm a sucker for limegreen though.
4. Oooh another tough question. EoL is pretty badass.
5. I always really liked the water bolt. But, I like a lot of them, the prism is also really cool.
6. Another tough one! I think I will say Wyvern... or Harpy.. Yeah..
7. Chocolate on a Donut.
I'm really happy with the Rock Golem, or the Gnomes..
Process in creating backgrounds.. hm, well I usually look up a bunch of nature shots or just remember things from being out myself. Then I try to draw it out as a thumbnail and add in elements and light as I see fit, then I use that as a reference to make a large version with better details
My first piece of pixel art was probably a gun or something that I vaguely remember I did in MS paint back in Windows 98/XP days, but kind of feel like they don't count as I never went anywhere with it and it was just me doodling in my free time as a kid. So the first real thing may be something for the Ice biome in the game.
I wasn't the one adding it, but I was really happy when we added in the stylist. If you ask about any of the ones I made, I'd say Truffle
Can't answer for anyone but myself here, but we met through messages about ideas for the game, and then things just evolved from there! I've been on the team since January or February 2013 if I recall correctly
1. Good question! I'd say it was just the game itself! That evolved to the people surrounding it!
2. Hard one, pepperoni or beef with onion and chili.
I have, on a good few occasions, and I enjoy it! Haven't tried mods yet, but I've seen a good few videos of them!
1. May be, May be not
2. Gnomes or Rock Golem, really liked the idea of the gnomes, but it was also a thrill to make the Rock Golem and animate it.
3. Can't say for sure
4. Hard to say, I worked a good while on Crimson, but I don't think it took any longer than the others, it was just trying to come up with an alternative to the corruption, and then I focused on it for a while.
5. Again I can't say for sure I'm afraid, not that I can think of right off the top of my head
6. A fall-colored world.
I mainly use Photoshop, but also Aseprite for animation usually.
Tips for doing pixel art would just be to look up a bunch of reference, see tutorials and tips and practice a lot!
1. His lunch
2. Tough question, I like all of them but if you forced me to choose one, maybe Crowno's
3. I follow quite a few artists on Instagram and Twitter, and like to check out Artstation occasionally. Seeing others art is a huge inspiration and sparks the creative part of the brain, some times it's also just the right time if you get what I mean. You get into the zone. But there's also some times when it can be really challenging and hard, where it feels like you can't get it out of the head.
Duke Fishron was sparked from the pigron enemy if my memory serves me right
Well the base idea was the bossman's himself. And then a lot of it is team-effort, but all I'd say is, you get a base idea, then you start to build upon it, and as you do it will evolve the more you go at it, and then you get to a point where you start to get new ideas based on what you already have, or what you miss.
1. I can't think of anything specific really, but it often happens that you make something, and then there's some stray pixel or pixels you've missed while saving things out, or a shift in the tile. But it's not very annoying, it can happen and will need to be fixed
2. First resprite in 1.4 I can't say for sure. Some times we just feel that something could be improved
1. I don't know, don't think I would change anything.
2. Most fun thing to sprite, it's hard to say, it's good to vary for the most part, some days it is making a background piece, and others it is making and animating a character/enemy.
3. I don't know
4. Nectarine
1. Sky islands are cool! (I didn't make them, but hey, they're cool!)1.Why did you guys make sky islands
2. What inspired terraria
3. Will terraria ever have a sequel
4. Was 1.4 actually terraria last update
5. Was the arkhalis design choice based off the diamond sword from minecraft
6. What is your favorite enemy in terraria.
7. Why is there no halloween exclusive npc
8. What is your favorite weapon
9. Why was terraria otherworld cancelled
10. Will you respond to this
2. I can't say, I don't know
3 and 4. Only time will tell
5. No
6. Check further up
7. I'm not sure
8. Too many to choose from but I mentioned some further up
9. Loki made a thread about it
10. Yeah
It was pretty early on when we started work on 1.2 and I was tasked with trying to come up with an alternative to Corruption, so I started to think and doodle some and the result became Crimson, I thought about having a very different colorpalette and had this idea of a red ominous world, and then tried to come up with some enemy ideas to fit into that world. Then it was added to, by everyone on the team
Probably one of the two, some time, who knows?
1. I really like Hedgehogs, and Dogs. Heck, all the animals, existing or none-existing.
4. I've had a lot of fun with it, wish it had more types of enemies and stuff to explore though!
5. The bee perhaps, hard to pick one
I think it's amazing! I've seen loads of it over the years, it's really awesome and amazing to see you all invested in Terraria and the stuff you make on your own!
Has to be one of the best communities there is!
Mainly photoshop, but also Aseprite for animations usually, especially if they're long or complex. I've also used Pyxel Edit some for ease of making tiling textures.
But for the most part I do everything in Photoshop, and is what I know best.
1. It's a different world, maybe in a galaxy far away! These guys can do some stuff we don't really know how to do here. Maybe they have some energy that keeps them in the air, could be that it's draining for them too to use this energy, with air resistance and gravity constantly trying to pull them back down
2. I can't say for sure, maybe only Red knows. Probably in a whole different galaxy, maybe even a whole different dimension.
I've always liked to think of it as a world in a Terrarium, on someone's desk in a different world, where life grew and took place, with the beings inside unaware of the world outside the Terrarium.
3. It doesn't really follow our sense of eras since it's a whole different world with it's own history.
1. I don't find it very difficult to stick to I think, it has so much, and I try to make sure that what I make doesn't stand out from all the other things in the world
2. That's a tough question I'm not sure how to answer
3. I've had several occasions where I feel what I've made is pretty bad, but some times coming back to it at a later stage gives me the idea on how to improve it. Some times it can be hard to get it where it feels right, and I start over. Other times it's something I made a while ago that I feel should get an upgrade.
4. Tough question, I can't think of any particular favorites, like I mentioned I liked working on the gnomes, and the rock golem for the recent update, or maybe one of the backgrounds I've done, or the map backgrounds. Maybe the little turtle pet. I also can't think of anything right this very second that feels overlooked.
5. Yes
1. It can be, it certainly was challenging when I first started, but practice helps a lot, and keep doing it
2. I get motivated by making fun and cool things, and by seeing others artwork or a nice scenery out in the wild.
3. Yes often I look up references to try to make sure I get the shapes and details right, when it's something I've done many times I don't need to because of experience. But working from references are good to learn.
4. No, I could likely do sprite work in an old edition of MS paint, the tool I use is mainly for convenience and speed, I like photoshop as I've used it over many years, and have set up custom shortcuts and workspace that I feel help me stay organized and get what I need to do the job
5. Oh that varies a lot, from sprite to sprite and what it is, an item can be done fairly quick if you know exactly what you want to make, other times it can take some trial and error before you get something you're happy with. And it can depend on the size of the sprite, and how much detail you need to put into it. Some times it can even be that you're working with so few pixels that you got to spend some extra time to get it to represent something you can recognize even though it isn't enough pixels to do so.
6. Keep on doing it, look at tutorials and look up others work, don't copy it, but try to learn from it, in the end making more stuff and practicing is the best you can do. You will get better over time if you devote your time to it
1. The devset actually came from a school assignment I had while studying 3D Modeling and Rendering. I had to make a custom character within a fictional world. And the character I made there was at the same time as I made the devset, so I made a pixelized version of it. I would probably make something entirely different if I were to make a custom devset of my own today.
2. That's a tough one! I can't say for sure, it all varies so much, some times it's nailing the look of a vanity set or an item. Other times it's been challenging to make a background with all it's details and animations. I think I struggled most with animating the big backgrounds the first time I did them.
3. For me I'd say the Gnomes I think
Merry New Year to you too!
1. That's hard to say, we've updated quite a few, from full revision to just fixing minor things.
2. Probably most challenging for programmers
3. Practice, practice and practice. And keep doing it, some times it can even start as one idea and evolve into something entirely different!
4. I really love Red Dead Redemption 2's Campaign, and I'm having a lot of fun playing Satisfactory. Boardgames, hard to say, Clue can be fun, or games like it with more depth, I've been playing some Ligretto in the holidays but that's a cardgame, I also enjoy a good game of Chess.
5. It could some times be challenging to get the right look in tilesets of 8x8 (scaled up to 16x16)
1. Main thing is practice like I've mentioned, but for tilesets specifically I usually test along the way by tiling it in the document to get the texture down first, some times I've used Aseprite and enabled tiling there to preview it while working on it. I've also used pyxel edit in the past to work on tiles which has some neat tile features. Main thing I'd give is to start simple, block in the shapes and when those feel right you can go in and add the details and highlights
2. Favorite part is the community and the team I'd say, I've tried to answer the rest further up here
3. I'm not sure, I had an idea of elevators way back, it turned into ropes instead. And I had an idea of pistons and how they could work once, maybe it could become a mod some day
5. I some times do some drawing or 3D modeling on the side for fun, but I haven't spent too much time on finishing any of it really. Should get better at that.
Hehe I don't know, probably just bad luck I suppose
I usually like ranged, but I go a lot back and forth
1. Answered this one a bit further up1. If there was something you would like to add to the game, what would it be?
2. Have you ever thought terraria would make it this far?
3. What is your favourite feature in 1.4?
4. What is the worst part of programming/making sprites?
5. What games do you like other than terraria?
6. Cactus toilet or terra toilet?
Thats all the questions i have. Hope you all are doing okay
2. Oh, I wouldn't really have imagined this back when I first joined. It's been an amazing journey for sure!
3. Hard to choose, world seeds are fun, Journey mode is a fun addition as well, and things in the game, too hard to choose.
4. To not be able to stop time
5. Answered this one further up as well
6. Oh yeah? I'd have to go with the Terra toilet.
Well usually it's if we need something in particular, and then I try to think what it could be based on what it's needed for. Truffle I made to be an npc tied to the mushroom biome, he sort of just popped into my head when I was tasked with making an npc for the overworld mushroom biome.
It's important to try to make sure everything fits within the world, so if certain items had a completely different resolution it would stand out quite a bit. Some part of working with pixel art is to work within the restrictions of sizes, it's a challenge to make detail of something that only has so many pixels to work from. And some times you got to know how to over-exaggerate something and make it fit in pixel style. Often you need to tone down noisy details and focus on key elements.
Process is very similar to making a drawing, it depends on what you are making, but you start by an idea, then you try to get that idea onto the "paper" and depending on what it is, after you have something you're happy with, you can start to animate it, or create a tileset from it.
The Team and you guys, the users and this community! Red's just a cool dude!First off, thank you for this amazing game! And thank you for always being open, honest, and transparent! I love the communication between all of you at Re-logic and us in the community, such as lienfors’ 1.4 balance thread, this and other Q and As and so much more.
As for the questions:
1. What is your favorite part of working at Re-logic?
2. What is your favorite part of the Terraria community?
3. Why is Red such a troll? (In a good way of course!
1. It varies from discussing it with the others, from one idea that evolves into something or from just doodling. Or it's from what type of setting something is in, or how it is going to be made.A few questions for youu guys:
1. For any of the artists, where do you tend to find the majority of your inspiration comes from while working on the sprites of either Weapons, Enemies, or Bosses?
2. Did you ever have any particular fondness over an in-game item sprite which you personally designed, that makes you sometimes seek out that particular item just to have it in your collection while playing? And of course, if so, what item(s)? I know I’ve always loved the yoyo counterweights and how they look like dice, I normally buy them even if I’m not using melee just to put them in item frames
3. For the programmers, how in the world did you figure out the world gen! Somehow, every world I’ll say to myself “okay I’m gonna explore for like 5 minutes” then spend 2 hours underground because the caves are such a fun labyrinth to explore. Honestly it’s incredible how you managed to do that with random world gen
4. For both artists and programmers, how do you guys work together? When designing a boss or a weapon or anything of that sort, are the basic mechanics figured out first and then the design? Or is concept art made and the programming team builds off of it?
5. I love your game and keep up all the awesome work!! I’m excited to see what’s made in the future, and so I leave you with this question, what’s your favorite part of working at Re-Logic?
Feel free to answer or skip any of my questions, but I hope you can get around to answering at least one of them
2. I don't think so, I partially tried to answer a similar question above
3. I've wondered about the same thing
4. It varies from time to time.
5. Thank you! Answer above
Artist:
1. I've always enjoyed making things, ever since I was a little kid, grew up playing old consoles and computers, the favorite games were always the ones where I could make custom levels. Like LodeRunner as an example. And I enjoyed drawing, even though I felt I wasn't very good at it, I wanted to get better, still do. Made stop motion movies, and eventually found out I wanted to learn 3D modeling and level editing, went to university to learn 3D modeling there, as well as some minor sketching and painting. Ever since I was young I wanted to make games, something thrilling about making something you could move around in and experience, and let others experience.
2. Tough to say, they've all been fun to make stuff for, hallowed is one of them, it has this extra element that makes it seem harmless, but turns out to be quite the opposite.
3. There's quite a few of them!
4. Wouldn't say so
Everyone:
1. There's been a loving community and playerbase, and it's been a thrill to work on it and see the game evolve!
2. I do! But not as often besides testing things, and I usually play full chaos class, back and forth and mixing it up.
3. I didn't
1. I wouldn't mind visiting it all, would need some good gear though. But it would be fun to see Hallowed, if I were to live there though, I'd probably stick to overworld for safety.
2. I don't think I would taste any of'em
3. Hard to say, I like to mix things up!
Only time will tell, Pixel Piracy wasn't developed by us though, but we published it
Why it's a cool colorWhy do you guys like purple so much?
But I prefer green, lime-green. Dev-set isn't representing that though.Answered aboveWhat were the biggest roadblocks you encountered over the course of programming terraria? (For the programmers)
What were the trickiest enemies/objects to design, personally (For the artists)
And to both, what were your favourite features/designs that you implemented (Favourite mechanic, favourite design)
Y'all are awesome, so cheers if you answer!
You're all awesome!1. Can't say I have a favorite, it's fun to vary abit, but the best part is usually when things click, and what I've been trying to do goes somewhat right.1. What's your favourite thing in general that you guys like to program the most and same for artist but drawing you know xd
2.What was your inspiration or what made you start doing what you do
3.What was the first thing you started by
That's all love you guys
2. So much, answered some of this above, like I mentioned there, making things, games with level editors, and the thought of making something you and others can experience and move around in
3. First thing was probably courses on an old racer game my brother had on commodore 128, then in other games on consoles and gameboy, stop motion movies with lego, and eventually Warcraft 3 map editor. Which really inspired me to learn more.
1. Answered above
2. Clocking in, stating what's on the days agenda, look over tasks, start by doing those, discussing some if there's anything to discuss or share, sharing progress, and having lunch. Working on tasks and eventually clock out. What exactly is to be done varies a lot from day to day or week to week
3. Answered further up
4. Dark
5. Hard to say but a big factor is definitely the community, we're so grateful for all of you!
6. Also answered further up
2. Answered further up, oh but I just recalled, I really had a fun time making the portal gun and were excited to see that implemented into the game.
3. Hermes boots first I think, tough call
4. Chlorophyte
5. ooh, I'm not sure, I've at least got thousands of files, and with tiles, probably quite a bit!
7. Can't say I have one
8. Copper Pickaxe
9. I've actually barely tried it I'm afraid.
10. Something for the Ice-biome, may be penguins or ice bat.
I had a lot of emotions making the Journey's End promo art-piece. And those emotions were strongly amplified once I started to get close to done with it and sharing it with the others on the team. It was only first then it sunk in that I've been working on this for almost 1/3 of my life. It's been an amazing Journey! And it'll hopefully be an equally amazing journey ahead!Ooh ooh, mine would be:
1) How do you feel ending a game that's been out for 10 years and one that has sold over 30 million copies?
2) And what's next?
Time will tell!
1. Can't say for sure, there's been a lot of things we've tried and not gone through with, and mostly something else takes over instead, and we get something better for it. Can't think of anything that I wished we didn't add.
2. answered further up, it's hard to recall what I've struggled the most with, it's been ups and downs, some days I've struggled with getting ideas, and others it just flows
3. I am not sure, I have yet to try them out!
4. Well in some ways it's not been much different, I've been working from home most of the time since 2013, and more of us here are spread across the world
That being said, I do look forward to this whole situation to pass5. Yes! Thanks for asking, hope you and all of those reading and asking questions has one too!
7. I did add my beanie in the game, it's pretty generic though. I can't think of anything else in particular.
8. Our team is like my second family, I've known most of these guys for almost a third of my life. Although we're far apart, they feel like family and are amongst my closest friends.
Self-taught, answered this further up as well
Main thing, keep on practicing, look up references, find other artists you like Well, one would be while making the Journey's End promo art, I had such a strong idea of how I wanted it to be, and a lot of emotions while doing that and that I wanted it to convey. I've never been so nervous as I was showing that piece to the rest of the team, and when that's probably one of the moments I'll remember strongest in the future.What was the most memorable or meaningful moment you had while working on Terraria?
The tie to that has to be meeting the team for the first time after working with them for quite a while already, it was amazing to meet everyone that could be there, and the entire time has been meaningful and memorable from start to finish. I've learnt so much.
That's a big one!
I'll answer what I can and trim the rest so it doesn't eat so much space. Some of it is answered further up
1. Everyone has their own ideas, some make their own while others provide reference or description of what they wanted
2. Halloween and Pumpkin moon was fun to work with
3. Think I'd pick Lunar cultist set, hard to choose one. .
4. My least favorite weapons to use are most of the shortswords
5. I really can't remember
6. Well I know we at least put a lot of love into it
7. We are so spread across the world, so we sadly can't but we still chat and talk a lot, and when we did meet, we had a great time together. Those who live close do though
8. It was already very popular when I joined after just as we started working on 1.2, but I think it's hard to imagine it would be this popular and have a large playerbase for so many years
It's nothing but amazing to have such a great community!9. Hm, think maybe Andrew and/or Houston
10. Maybe Yoraiz0r
11. Not necessarily sprite, but I always knew I wanted to work with games, and the aesthetics of it, and I'm super thrilled I did!
12. Shake it
13. Yeah!
14. My pleasure! Thank you for asking!
Alright! That was a lot more than I thought! I hope I answered your questions!
I'm sorry if I missed your question or wasn't able to answer!
I really didn't think I'd be sitting here for this many hours answering, but it's been great fun and we appreciate you all!
Thank you all for submitting your questions! I hope you all have a great day/night and a great year ahead!
It's been quite the... Journey
• WINNER OF RANDOM DRAW: @Etotheipi •
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