In 2011, the Terraria hype was reaching a fever pitch. I was scouring obscure message boards for any scrap of gameplay when I found the link. The file size was tiny—barely 2 megabytes—and the uploader’s name was just a string of gibberish.
Suddenly, my computer fans began to scream. I tried to Alt-F4, but the screen stayed locked. In the game, the NPCs slowly turned around. They didn't have faces—just the same grey texture as my character. Terraria.zip
The game character—my character—walked to the center of the screen without my input. He looked directly at the camera, held up a single 'Dirt Block' icon, and the game finally crashed. In 2011, the Terraria hype was reaching a fever pitch
In the corner of the pixelated room, the Guide was standing behind my chair. Should we expand this into a series, or Suddenly, my computer fans began to scream
The chat scrolled so fast it became a blur of white text: IS IT SECURE? IS IT SECURE? IS IT SECURE?
I reached for the power cable, but a new sound stopped me. It wasn't coming from my speakers. It was a rhythmic tapping coming from inside my hard drive. Click. Click. Click-click.
I ignored it and kept digging until I hit a cavern that shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t a biome; it was a room. A perfectly square room made of obsidian, filled with hundreds of NPCs. They weren't moving. They were all standing shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the back wall.