Terrorarium is a brand-new level-builder developed and published by Stitch Media that offers a completely unique take on the level-building genre. The game is all about a space granny who will stop at nothing to win the blue ribbon from the Intergalactic Horrorcultural Society and she will murder hordes and hordes of the invasive species called Moogu that she breeds in her gardens. You play the game in different murder gardens called Terrorariums where you will find different ways to murder the cute little Moogus. This is our review of Terrorarium in which we play as the evil space granny and send hundreds and hundreds of cute little Moogus to their doom.
Terrorarium features the Gardener and her Moogus that she breeds herself. The Gardener is essentially an old space granny who uses the Moogus for her own use and she is an absolute savage when it comes to using these Moogus. She will have them burned in the fire, squished by alien flora and monsters, eaten up alive, and blown up by bombs just so that she can move forward and reach her destination. These Moogus come in three unique variants in the game. You have the Spicy Moogu which are fiery and can burn plants to make way. Then you have the Thick Moogu which are the heaviest and the thickest in the game. You will use them to break walls or make walls. The final Moogu in the game are the Gooey Moogu which as the name suggests are sticky and are primarily used to create traps to capture monsters roaming around the levels.
There are two main modes in Terrorarium to play. You have the Campaign which comes with different pre-built levels from each of the in-game biome. These levels are pre-made by the developers of the game and serve an excellent introduction to the game and show just how much creative you can get with the game’s level design. All of these levels are filled with dangerous challenges for you to overcome in the game. While the four levels might seem less to you at this point, the main mode where you will be spending hours after hours is the Maker Mode where you created your own levels, play saved levels, and download new levels that the community has made for the game. Since the game has been in Early Access for quite some time, there is a large variety of user levels for you to try out right at launch.
In its current state, you have the option of choosing from four unique biomes for creating your very own Terrorariums. You have the Lumina Flora which is like a rainforest at night and most of the flora in the area glows in the dark which gives a very haunting look. The second biome is Northern Mists which is an icy desert and barren white land. Torrid wilds is yet another forest biome where you have trees and other monstrosities that will eat you alive. The final biome is the SungGlow Grove that features water and lush green areas for you to create your deadly levels in. Each biome is unique and offers unique monsters, customization options, and much more for you to play around.
The game refers to its levels as Terrorariums. When you create a level, you are essentially creating a Terrorarium in the game. Each biome comes with its own unique items that you can place down to create your own levels. You have different rocks, hazards, rocks, walls, crystal formations, guidance signs and safe as well as dangerous flora to decorate your level with. Some of these items are also intractable during its play phase for example you can use the Moogus to break weak rocks and walls while certain plants can be burned as well for clearing out the way. You only get a certain number of Moogus for each level so you must be careful not to lose all of them or you will lose the game. You can find more in the levels as well at the Moogus corpses.
During my different tires of creating levels, I did not face any sort of item limitation in the game. The game does not limit you when it comes to the number of items on the screen so you can really go all-out with your level creations. Each biome also comes with its own unique monsters as well that will make your game even tougher. Apart from the flora, the fauna you place also causes many problems for you and your Moogus as you try to reach the end of the level. You can have different behaviors for these monsters such as having them stand at one place or have them patrol a location or a pattern to add more realism to levels.
After creating your levels, you can share them with the rest of the world as well so that everyone who owns the game can play these levels. For downloading additional levels, the game takes you outside to the mod section from where you download and play the levels. Personally, I am not a big fan of this method and would have preferred if levels could be accessed right from inside the game, you still have to download them from the workshop screen. Quick note here that my game crashed twice while trying to download a custom level but most of the time, it worked like a charm. Do note that I was playing a pre-release version of the game for my review and it will update once the full game is release which will make it more stable.
Final Verdict:
Terrorarium presents an interesting concept in the whole level creating genre but when you consider other examples in this genre, you have the recently released Dreams, LittleBigPlanet and the ever so famous Neverwinter Nights and its custom modules. However, considering the price range and the platforms, Terrorarium is still a great concept. In addition, out of all these titles, I like the actual gameplay part of Terrorarium the most because you still have to work your way to the end by using the Moogus and ensuring that you have plenty left to tackle the next challenge. It is a great indie addition to level building games however it is a game that requires more content for the future. For the time being, there is plenty of amount of level customization items in the game but in the long run, they are not sufficient to keep players hooked to the game for a long time. If developers continue to add more content to Terrorarium with future updates, I am sure that it will attract even more players and the current players will continue to play the game for a much longer time as well. You can head over to Steam and add the game to your library and jump in the Early Access version and since the final version is releasing tomorrow so you do not have to wait long for the full release as well.
Final Score: 8.0/10
