Part 2: When the Sun Goes Down

#2 - When the Sun Goes Down



Welcome to our first evening in Rivershire. Garrett has decided he has something important to do off to the right and has wandered off that way. Once the sun finishes setting, he'll come back to his house and stay put for the night.

Staying indoors at night had to be coded into the NPC AI behaviors. Early versions of the game had the Guide cheerfully opening the door at night and letting in the lurking horrors. Players would have to block NPCs in their homes at night by placing blocks in front of the doors so they couldn't get out. It was quite a mess. For a very long time people resented the Guide.



The reason that players resented their Guides for opening the doors at night is that nighttime in Terraria worlds is incredibly dangerous. The daytime is rather mild, where typically the most dangerous thing you might fight on the surface is a slime passively bouncing around. The things that come out once the sun goes down are incredibly aggressive, and will actively chase you around.

Also demonstrated here is holding a torch in front of you for light. Light sources are at a premium in this game, and torchlight will probably be our go-to for a frustratingly long time to come.



Torches can be attached to any foreground object, as well as anywhere on a backwall. I find that there's little reason to not illuminate the area around your home. It helps you see better at night, and it looks kind of nice too.



Before the day completely turned to night, we've successfully placed torches all the way over to the "smaller" large tree we saw in the previous update. Having so much of the area illuminated will help us tonight. Some people like to hide in their houses at night and hope that the horrors go away. Not us, though. We're going to spend the night fighting.



Like so. This also marks the point where day officially became night. How can I tell? Well it's simple, really...

Terraria Music - Night

Night is one of the themes you're going to be hearing most often in the game, so give it a listen. I rather like it.



Anyway, we head back to the house and wait for the first guests to arrive. According to the wiki, daytime in Terraria lasts for 15 minutes, from pre-dawn at 4:30 AM until sunset 7:30 PM. Night lasts another 9 minutes on top of that.

Also, do you see that over to the left? No? Well let me pan the camera a little...



Still nothing? Why don't we head over to investigate...



This shot is really dark, and I apologize for that. But there is something in this shot on a collision course for Sam here. So let's just retreat back to the house to regroup and fight it with some better lighting.



This is the first of the nighttime enemies, the Demon Eye. This fellow here has 44 HP, and he takes off somewhere between 14 and 15 HP when he hits us.



While (poorly) fighting the demon eye, I hear a distinct sound several times followed by something hitting the ground nearby. This is a fallen star, and we definitely should go out of our way to collect as many of these as we can. I'll show off what these are used for later on when we have more. But for now we want to grab as many as we can.



No sooner does the demon eye die when the other nighttime enemy shows up in the torchlight. This is a zombie, and this is the second one we've seen so far. The first one was in that dark screenshot I showed earlier.



This, folks, is our "legendary" copper shortsword. This weapon is absolutely worthless. We can kinda stunlock the zombie a little bit, but the damage is pitiful. If we get attacked by a demon eye, we're screwed.



So let's craft ourselves an upgrade. The wooden sword is a broadsword, and its swing arc is absolutely amazing.



The knockback leaves a little bit to be desired, but this is an improvement over the shortsword in every other conceivable way.



Look at that. We can jump around and be more mobile too. I really like the swing arc of the broadsword class melee weapons.



Something neat I like is that when this pincushion zombie died, we got a bunch of arrows as drops. Go back up and look at the previous gif and you can see that the zombie had a bunch of arrows sticking out of it. It's such a neat little touch, but it adds so much.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot to say about the night. So here's some no context shots of Sam jumping around and doing stuff.







I apologize if the mouse cursor bothers anyone. The next time I record I can make sure Dxtory doesn't pick it up. Let me know if you would like me to change it.





We're actually out in these shots looking for more fallen stars.



As you can see, it's becoming rather dangerous to do so.





While we can kick ass fairly well, the hits are starting to take a toll. Dodging is great and all, but sometimes there are simply too many enemies to dodge around. We need to be able to take more hits. But how are we going to do so?



First is by cowering in the house while our health regenerates some.



A little over halfway is good enough. Plus zombies like to beat on your doors at night, and I don't want him on the other side dealing us a hit the second we step out again.



Garrett is eager to help us defend the house from the forces of evil.





Action shots are fun, y'all.



Anyway, we eventually clear the enemies out enough that we've got a moment to breathe and regroup. So I think it's time to craft some armor.



Wooden armor is kind of expensive to craft, requiring 75 pieces of wood. (20, 30, and 25 pieces respectively)



You may remember the part of the inventory UI that had the housing tool. Well, the rightmost column is where we equip armor and accessories. The three pieces of wooden armor gives us a total of 3 defense.

According to the wiki, damage taken is calculated thusly: net damage = attack - (defense * 0.5)

So in our case, we're shaving off 2 points of damage from each attack because the game rounds decimals up. Defense will rise as the game goes on and we get better armor. Right now I'm taking the approach that a little mitigation is better than nothing!



As a bonus, we look a little bit like Wood Man.



I don't know what it is about this tree that attracts zombies and demon eyes so much, but at least we're in a relatively defensible position.



But just like that, the night is over. We managed to find a total of four fallen stars, so I'm happy at least. Feel free to start playing Bloody Tears here.

(Click for big)

Pre-dawn is so nice in Terraria. All the nighttime monsters have fled, and the sky is just starting to light up.

But, before I leave you all for this update, we have something incredibly important to do.



Combining 3 fallen stars together makes a mana crystal. This will give us another 20 mana points. They don't do us much good right at the moment, but we'll find something to use them on soon enough.



Much better. With 40 mana and a new day dawning, things are looking up.



In fact, I think it's time we expand our settlement some.

NEXT TIME: A new friend.