How Terraria Was Made and Why Development Suddenly Stopped

“I really started with an idea. I know it sounds cliché, but I've been working on my programming for a while, so when I had the basic idea of ​​what I wanted to achieve, I started working on it and never looked back! With this mindset, Andrew “Redigit” Spinks and the rest of the Re-Logic team created Terraria, one of the most successful independent games of all time. With over 30 million copies sold and nearly 10 years of free updates and new content, the 2D sandbox game has more than earned its place in video game history. Despite its overwhelming success, there were multiple moments during its

development

that could have brought about a premature end to Terraria's decade-long journey, or at least put an end to the final version of Terraria as we know it today.

Growing up, Andrew developed an obsession with learning everything he could about computers, with the intention of making video games as a career. At the age of 19, he joined the US Air Force and during that time he began hosting flash game sites. By the time he finished his service in the Air Force, he had achieved enough success with his flash websites to make a living from it. However, after a while, he realized that he wasn't happy enough just creating websites about games and wanted to do them. Just before starting

development

on Terraria, Andrew was working on a game for Mario fans called Super Mario Bros.

X, alongside game developers Jeremy “Blue” Guerrette and Gabriel “Red Yoshi” Henrique. Around January 2011, Andrew began developing more concrete ideas for Terraria and the driving force was to create a game that combined different elements that he personally enjoyed in the hopes of creating something that was simply fun to play. As soon as he planned a basic concept, Andrew, along with Jeremey and Gabriel, immediately began development and founded their company Re-Logic. Andrew taught himself to code and was ready to take on his biggest challenge yet. During development, he was inspired by many of his favorite games, but one of the biggest inspirations is a game called Liero, an old free DOS game that can be summed up as real-time Worms.

Plus, it's hard not to mention Minecraft as a source of inspiration given the similarities. Andrew is fully aware of this and admits that gaming played an important role during the development of Terraria. "Minecraft was the final piece of the puzzle in putting this game together, and also one of the biggest inspirations." It was decided to program the game in C#, using the Microsoft of most important design. Gabriel helped Andrew draw the elf art. Re-Logic also hired composer Scott Shelly to produce the soundtrack. The developers did not add any story or lore to the original 1.0 version of Terraria and this was a very intentional decision. “We feel that players would like to create their own home, town, city or even alter an entire world.

And on top of that, they would also create their own story to match it. So if we had included a base story of our own, it might have interfered with their own imaginative creations.” One of the key elements that the independent studio wanted to implement from the beginning was player choice. Whether people wanted to focus on structure building, combat, exploration, or adventure, everything had to be an option and equally rewarding, without either being forced on the player. After all, no two players are the same and this was something that the developers realized very well, being players themselves.

Exploration is actually Andrew's favorite part of the game, who says that he wanted to put so much content into the world that the only way to include more is to generate a different/more difficult world and take your characters there. The studio decided to release the indie game on Steam first, which was and still is a very common practice for indie developers. Andrew said Steam handles all player accounts and payments for the game, leaving him and the other developers more time to focus on the game itself. Ahead of release, Finn Brice joined the team to help with pixel sprite art and speed up the development process.

He previously worked on an open source game called Hedgewars. Everything was going well for the folks at Re-Logic, but disaster struck when a beta version of Terraria was leaked online, forcing the studio to prematurely release version 1.0 of Terraria on May 16, 2011. Remembering that moment , Andrew Wishes he and the rest of the team had more time to prepare for the launch. “I would have continued working on the game until I felt it was ready for release. Because Terraria was leaked, I felt compelled to release the game earlier than I would have liked and worked to get it to my ideal release state.” Which is exactly what the studio did with five updates that were quickly released in the following weeks after launch and brought the game to a state where it should have been on day one.

However, despite the leak, Terraria was an incredible success from day one, selling over 50,000 copies. That number increased to 200,000 copies in just its second week. When asked about this sudden overnight success, Andrew and his team have no idea how they did it. They had to work hard to keep up with everything that was happening immediately after launching, and although they

made

some mistakes, Andrew said it's part of growing up in the industry. The whole experience taught them a lot and gave them the confidence to move forward. After releasing the first five updates, the developers were able to focus on the future of Terraria and introduced a bunch of new monsters, bosses, NPCs, and items with version 1.1 in December 2011.

However, for a while it looked like the bright future of Terraria and The Potential was going to last very short. In February 2012, less than a year after the release of Terraria, Re-Logic announced that it was stopping all further development of its first independent title. “After much internal debate, we have decided it is time to move forward. My wife and I are having another child soon and I want to spend some time getting to know him. I also want to spend time recharging and improving as a programmer and game designer. I've learned a lot working on Terraria and I plan to use what I've learned, build on it, and move forward with another even better project.

However, we're still planning at least one more bug fix for Terraria. I want to thank you all for supporting us and making the success of these games possible.” By this time, some developers had also left the studio, including Finn, who went on to form Chucklefish. The community that had formed around Terraria was sad and frustrated to hear that development had come to an end, as many players felt that version 1.1 was just the beginning of the game's potential. Months passed and without the inclusion of proper modding support at the time, the community had all but given up hope of seeing any new content added.

Surprisingly, in September 2012 it was announced that the game would be coming to consoles. Publisher 505 Games and developer Engine Software were handling the ports and approached Andrew with the idea of ​​adding exclusive content, an offer he reportedly couldn't refuse. So, console players not only got Terraria on their machines, but they also got a more expanded version. Additionally, the console announcement does not mention anything about the PC version. This upset the community quite a bit and they didn't understand why Terraria on PC wouldn't receive the same additional features, or at least receive additional support for PC to further optimize the game.

Andrew mentioned in interviews that it wasn't an easy decision to stop supporting PC, but it was always his intention to bring the game to consoles at some point and when he felt he had done everything he could on PC, it was time for gamers. console players will be able to experience the independent title for the first time. However, luckily for the PC community, Andrew and his wife Whitney Spinks were playing Terraria one day in December 2012 and when January 2013 rolled around, she convinced her husband to add more content to the game on PC and reconnect with community.

The first thing she did was reach out to the official forums and ask what kind of features fans would like to see added to the sandbox game. Later that year, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in March, followed by mobile ports in August and September, and finally a PlayStation Vita port that was released in December. Bringing Terraria to consoles was a challenge for Engine Software, as they had to painstakingly translate C# code to C++ and write custom wrappers for PlayStation. The netcode was particularly challenging according to David Welch, one of Terraria's former producers. These versions served as a starting point for Codeglue, responsible for the mobile ports.

Additionally, both Engine Software and Codeglue not only had to translate the code, but they also had to translate traditional PC mouse and keyboard controls to console controllers and touch controls. It was not an easy task, but Andrew was very happy with the outcome of the ports. “I'm definitely happy with how things are going. Engine Software even came up with some great ideas in terms of speeding up some of the basic processes to really balance the gameplay with the new controls. I'm really happy that they were able to add new content and optimize the experience for the console audience and put in the extra time to stay true to the vision of the game. “That was extremely important to me.” Terraria was reaching more players than ever and the title was about to become even more attractive to PC gamers.

In October 2013, Re-Logic released update 1.2 for PC, adding a host of new game mechanics, items, NPCs, etc. In addition to introducing graphic changes. Around the same time, it was announced that Terraria 2 was in the works. In fact, the sequel has been in the planning stages for quite some time, ever since Andrew first abandoned development of the original. However, after update 1.2, he was finally ready to move forward and execute his ambitious vision for the second chapter of Terraria's journey. At the time, the developer described Terraria 2 as something that would have a lot in common with the original, but would also expand into the entire Terraria universe.

He further said that he's stuck on a lot of things with Terraria, like the way loot works, the way character progression works, etc. With the sequel, he wants to have infinite worlds so that the player is not stuck in a single world, but can travel anywhere. Andrew also talked about introducing greater biome diversity. 2013 was certainly a big year for Terraria, as the game finally moved to consoles and mobile devices, while also giving PC players a great reason to keep playing. 2014 and 2015 continued the trend of putting Terraria in more hands, with ports for PS4, Xbox One, macOS, Linux, and Nintendo 3DS, while the Wii U version came out in 2016.

Additionally, console players finally received the 1.2 update. . in 2014 too. Re-Logic also revealed a new project in February 2015 called Terraria: Otherworld. A trailer was released promising a fresh take on the familiar Terraria experience that takes place in an alternate dimension within the same universe. Unfortunately, the project faced many problems throughout its development, but more on that later. Fans speculated that this new project could be the sequel that Andrew talked about in 2013, but it was quickly confirmed that was not the case. Another World was simply a spin-off, not a full sequel. Re-Logic also

made

it clear that the project was still in its early stages of development, but fans wouldn't have to wait much longer that year for more Terraria content.

June 2015 marked another major milestone in Terraria's history with update 1.3, which added more items, events, enemies, bosses, and gameplay features. One addition that Andrew himself was especially excited about was the inclusion of a final boss, as he was never happy with the idea of ​​Terraria not having one. During its release, the developer also mentioned in interviews that update 1.3 marked the last update he would personally work on and that it was up to the rest of the team what would happen to Terraria in the future. Andrew was apparently done with indie gaming once again and even talked about his personal future plans. “Now that Terraria is finished, I would like to start working on a new project thatnot be Terraria 2.

I already have a lot of plans and ideas for Terraria 2, but that will be much later. “I want to create a game that is very modular, includes support for mods, and makes it easy for players to add their own content.” The following years passed quietly without any major new content updates, but a lot of changes were happening behind the scenes. In July 2016, it was announced that Engine Software and Codeglue would no longer be involved in the console and mobile ports of the game in the future. The reins were handed over to Pipeworks Studios, which is part of the Digital Bros. group that also includes 505 games.

In other words, it was an opportunity for Re-Logic to turn the developers responsible for the ports into an in-house studio, making business communication and future development channels much easier. About a year later, Re-Logic had less exciting news for fans of the franchise and revealed that Terraria: Otherworld was changing developers, which likely meant a delay. Engine Software would no longer work on the project and Re-Logic decided to hand over its spin-off game to its new partners at Pipeworks Studios. Their statement also said that there would be a "quiet period" around the game while the developers had to reexamine the vision for Another World from top to bottom.

Many fans were concerned after this announcement and in 2018 those concerns were proven valid when Re-Logic made a post on the official forums explaining that Terraria: Otherworld had officially been cancelled. They were very honest with the community and admitted that they should never have announced the game as soon as they did. Furthermore, they realized too late that they should not have outsourced such an important project and instead should have worked on it themselves. When they switched from Engine Software to Pipeworks Studios, the damage was already done. It wasn't all bad news, however, as Re-Logic also announced that Terraria was still in active development, with the 1.3.6 update on the way.

Furthermore, all the ideas they had for Another World would not simply be scrapped but reworked for future titles. As mentioned above, Andrew was apparently done with Terraria after the 1.3 update, but he was still closely involved with the Otherworld project. Once that fell apart, he decided to return to Terraria for update 1.3.5 and any future updates. In May 2019, fans got their first look at Terraria's major final content update, subtitled Journey's End. The team had so many ideas for update 1.3.6 that they finally decided to bundle them all into one last big update and release them all at once. A year later, fans were finally able to experience Journey's End on the ninth anniversary of the game's initial release and the update overhauled and added many elements to the game. 800 new items, new enemies, a complete overhaul of world generation including new biomes, quality of life improvements, golf gameplay, a new difficulty mode, new improved weather effects and more, all part of one card from final love to a game. which the developers had worked so hard on for almost a decade.

On top of that, the developers also launched proper modding support for the first time on the update's release day. Of course, mods have already been available for Terraria for years, but the tModLoader app made mods much more visible and accessible to the PC community. The studio explained that fully integrated official mod support is not something feasible within the Terraria codebase, but tModLoader is the best option according to Re-Logic. Since Journey's End was the last major update, the studio felt there was no better way to show its appreciation to fans than to hand the keys over to the community itself and see how they could continue to explore the game further.

The Terraria developers have always valued their fans more than anything and it's one of the main reasons why Re-Logic never put a price on any of the major content updates. They are aware that they could have very easily charged a small amount of money for Journey's End, for example, without too many consequences for the community. Still, they chose not to and feel strongly that giving up those rapid advances was and is the right way forward. "First, this speaks first to our core philosophy of games and players. Second, it goes back to the way games were sold when we were gamers.

That is, you bought a game and enjoyed it. In this situation, we are simply Combining that with the modern ability to update and add things to that game over time, deep down it seems like the right thing to do.” Andrew Spinks and Terraria were involved in a bit of controversy recently. In February 2021, Andrew announced that the Stadia version. of Terraria was canceled due to the suspension of the company's Google account for no apparent reason. He even went so far as to say that doing business with Google is a liability and any future Re-Logic projects would not reach Google platforms.

For a while, it seemed like all bridges were burned immediately, but later in February, Google restored all affected Re-Logic accounts and provided what was sorely needed. Transparency about the situation for the studio now everything is fine between Google and Andrew and Terraria will even launch on Stadia once again. Terraria also launched on Switch in 2019, which will make the game available on all major platforms in March 2021. No less than 35 million copies were confirmed to have been sold across all available platforms, reaching another major milestone in the story of the game. Now that active development on Terraria has ended, it's anyone's guess what lies ahead for the developers at Re-Logic.

The much-talked-about sequel may still be in development or perhaps the studio is working on an entirely new IP. Only time will tell. Re-Logic has mentioned in the past that he would like to be known for things other than Terraria and that they have a couple of projects in the works that are not related to Terraria or in the sandbox genre. Whether that's still the case today remains to be seen, but whatever the developers decide to do, they have a clear mission ahead of them. "We hope to eventually have some projects under our belt and have positively impacted the lives of many players and sparked something in their imagination that didn't exist before." Thanks for watching this video.

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