If you’ve owned a Steam account before, or currently do, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Terraria; Terraria is a side-scrolling RPG that allows you to use the environment to your advantage to tunnel, build, craft, and fight against various creatures. Having invested over 40 hours into the desktop game, I feel that the game could have a great touch interface and enjoyable gameplay for Android. Developer Brad Gearon has created a link that allows you to run your copy (that means you must own the desktop version) on Android through his conversion kit and application called Branches.
How well does it run?
Running a desktop game on a mobile platform is no easy feat, but thanks to modern day hardware and Brad’s conversions tools we are able to have a nice start. Every game and port in its early stages has bugs, and this is no exception. Currently the levels load but can peak anywhere from 300-500MB+ which means that you’re going to have to have a higher-end device. If you have a device similar to the Galaxy S II and up, then you should be able to play it no problem. In our experience on the Transformer Prime, the game was virtually lag-free with no issues (minus the shading issue, which you can see in the video we put up of it). While the game runs beautifully there are some bugs associated with it still being in a beta release: one of the more important is the lack of a inventory button (without having it bound to a hardware key). Due to the lack of the software button, which the developer says should be fixed shortly, you are unable to open the inventory and therefore save your progress in the game; however, we were able to bind the inventory button to our keyboard on the prime which allowed us to open the menu and save the game properly.
The few issues that we’ve encountered so far seem to be the shading issue and the missing buttons. The shading error can be seen every time you jump when the ground shading will cascade up over the properly lit area with black boxes: like we’ve said before, it’s a minor annoyance and definitely not a game breaker. The missing buttons case the game to be a bit tough at times, considering the jump button is non-existent visually, but is still placed in the correct area as far as function goes. So if you can keep hitting in the same spot, it’s not a big deal either. As we’ve already discussed, the missing inventory button causes the largest issue, but is easily overcome by a hardware keyboard or button.
With the upcoming build improving performance by nearly 200%, the game could really soar when loading on even the oldest devices. The developer stated that with the new tiling engine that he was able to run the game with approximately 120MB of ram, peaking at 240MB or so during the world loading process; with the new engine coming out, devices as old as the Xperia Play (by old I mean dated hardware) would be able to easily play the game.
How do we get it?
First off, you have to purchase the desktop version of Terraria (and you’re going to need a desktop to run the software to download it and convert it). The game is available through the Steam Client for $9.99 and is downloaded and installed for a grand total of ~50MB (depending on the amount of worlds you have). Once it’s downloaded and installed you need to launch the game at least once, then create a character and a world.You must own the game and a desktop so you can start the game to create the person and the world, keeping piracy to a minimum.
After you have downloaded and installed the game you will need to follow the instructions given on his website, or watch the Youtube video that we have created, to prepare the game for your Android device. The process is simple and the developer has made it easier thanks to the ability to convert the game, then push it automatically to the SD card if your device is connected via ADB. The final step is to install the Branches apk which launches the loader and the converted game. The apk gives you the ability to change up a few settings, including keymappings, and configure sync to dropbox for the full game if you wish to play it cross-platform style.
The game is a great game for both desktops and mobile devices together. Brad is doing all this work for free, accepting donations as a way for you to give back; make sure you do, this is a lot of work for him to share to everyone without asking for a dime. That being said, the apk and conversion tool is provided as-is and there is no telling whether it will be fully supported on your device, although we’ve had no issues running it on all of ours so far. So if you have the game, or are interested in purchasing it, head on over to Brad’s blog with the link provided below to grab the conversion tool and apk to get started. We’ll also provide links to the Steam page to allow new users to purchase the game. It’s well worth the money, and having a cross-platform mobile version makes it that much better.
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