I've been in love with Terraria since its inception. It's great fun to explore and create, to a degree surpassing Minecraft, but there has always been something that stuck out with me: Terraria isn't really used as the storytelling medium that it could be. Minecraft has a plethora of adventure maps of all kinds that change up the way you play and experience Minecraft, the Yogscast is a good example with their varied Minecraft series. Terraria does not fe l like it has ventured into that area. We have an amazing community with great ideas like The Cyber and incredible mods like NTerraria and Avalon, but I haven't been introduced to many more story orientated adventures or mods. New biomes, mini-biomes, and dungeons are great and fun to explore, but it still plays into the "Dig Deeper, Get Stronger" mechanics of Terraria; you are meant to become as strong as possible from area to area. Mods that improve or give more weapons do the same and play into the RPG aspect of getting loot and upgrading gear. Even those that give quests from new or existing NPCs is usually just the Quest-Giver and Quest-Taker relationship (Like the angler) without any kind of progression. Though the game does have lore, the RPG elements eclipse much of the story telling. A werewolf drops a Boxing Glove gun on a Bloodmoon only after defeating the Wall of Flesh not because of story telling, but because of gameplay. Terraria lets the player become extremely powerful in the world and gives them agency to change nearly everything around them. This is the drawback Minecraft faced that was remedied with Adventure mode, which limited players agency.
Terriara doesn't have Adventure mode, but it solves agency issues on its own already.
"Biff McPompador is visiting his friend Guido in the hospital. He's been having nightmares and is losing weight. Even stranger, he says that the walls are watching him and talking." The scenario above requires restrictions of the player to make the story work and some of the game mechanics can be used to help:
+ Tools and weapons. Without an axe and pickaxe at the start of the world, Terraria becomes literally unplayable. Tools are the player's main way of changing the world. This control of player agency allows the map maker to guide people down a specific path and create specific situations. A zombie hoard is even scarier when you don't have a means to fight back. And killing the Guide with a flesh sword is different from using a shotgun.
+ Wires and lighting. Thanks to the wiring system, light switches can exist with all the wiring being both invisible and inaccessible to the player. Terraria can get quite dark, and the colored lighting helps in setting mood and ambiance.
+ Specific Blocks. Terraria natively has many different blocks with different meanings that can be used to help tell a story. A creepy flesh block hallway with dim alchemical lamp lighting is as possible as a cloud bridge connecting to a sunplate tower with living flame pillars.
+ Costumes and Accessories. Terraria has hundreds of possible appearances with the multitude of vanity items, accessories and armors. YouTuber meetyourdemize's series of Custom Vanities has shown how creative people can be at making new things from what they are given. Accessories can give players special abilities like swimming, double jump, and fall resistance. However, the game as it is also works against itself in this regar -Viewport and 2D Plane. The Player can see a lot of the screen when moving around which makes it harder to hide information that must be built into the world. The sense of scale and discovery is hampered when the map is not built to a large scale. Starbound, a later title, reduced the size of the Viewport of the player, making the player and world seem larger.
-World Size and Biomes. Though a large world feels enormous when you have to just walk across it, it does have a limit to what can be built and constructed. It is a limited space and sections of this space have specific music, enemies, and interactions with other elements.
-World Agency. The placing of blocks is specific to the player and some mobs. There is not ability to dynamicaly change one block to another block.
How could some of these problems be remedied? We can look to Minecraft for some useful features.
+ Command Blocks. Blocks that allow a player more agency in the world: restricting biomes, spawning specific creatures, custom dialogue in chat or from NPCs, and replacing specific blocks and furniture instantly are just a few.
+ Official Creative Mode. The Gameiki mod works quite well (I used it to build the hospital example), but one with more functionality and more integrated support with the game itself would be helpful (Infinite blocks, not just a full stack of them for example)
+ More Wiring Uses. Actuators are great, but some more wiring items would help create more complex systems like different gates or ways to slow down a pulse or make flickering signal. I'd like to hear what other people thick about ways to utilize Terraria's storytelling capabilities. I could be wrong,
What ways could Terraria be used make the next Shadow of Israphel? What could be added, changed, or used to make creating stories here more viable?