Current Events > why arent there more quality minecraft/terraria clones?

(+) Yeah! (+)

seems like it wouldnt be a terribly difficult genre to iterate upon, but most of the knockoffs suck sweaty asshole. starbound is pretty dope, and has a pretty baller mod selection, and i just recently learned vintage story exists and is pretty fun. but all the other shit ive tried is just ass. edge of space/planet centauri or w/e are hella bad. staxel and trove are bad.

are there some hidden gems i dont know about?

I thought Portal Knights was pretty good

MabusIncarnate posted...

I thought Portal Knights was pretty good

i think i have that actually
or is it an f2p game?

I imagine because most of them are geared toward kids, and kids don't tend to care whether something is shit or not.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

most of them are geared toward kids

really? i mean i wouldn't call many of them explicitly adult, but i never really got the feeling that terraria etc. were kid oriented

I mean most of the knockoffs

Starbound and aground are the only ones I enjoyed and even then it was only with mods

I remember starbound being pretty crap with the planets all being incredibly samey, I wanted to like that game. I even tried frackin universe.

Heavily modded Starbound is GOATed

Most of the people who want to iterate on them are probably just making mods for them.

Alteres posted...

I remember starbound being pretty crap with the planets all being incredibly samey, I wanted to like that game. I even tried frackin universe.

I couldn't get into FU in and of itself, but it's a required dependency for a lot of other mods. I remember grinding out the mats for this really badass armor set I wanted, only to find out I needed to progress about ten tiers in a section of the tech tree I hadn't invested in yet. So I grinded out the knowledge points for that, only to find out that I needed to make a crafting station that required X Y and Z mats, that were made from mats A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, which were made from mats H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, and T. And at that point I realized I didn't have the patience or organizational skills to enjoy it.

Using other major mods in tandem like Arcana and Shellguard made it a lot more palatable though, and they definitely solve the issue of planets feeling too samey.

Sputnik1337 posted...

Most of the people who want to iterate on them are probably just making mods for them.

yeah this was my first thought

the majority of minecraft clones are just complex minecraft mods

A big issue is trying to make a Minecraft/Terraria clone that offers something those games don't have. By making a clone, you're directly competing with two of the most popular games of all time. You can solve that situation by making a cheap knockoff, but if you put forth any sort of budget, you run the risk of just falling on your face.

Longshot here but have you tried Dragon Quest Builders?

There's like a million minecraft clones. And pretty much any survival building game post-minecraft was heavily inspired by minecraft. Probably one of the most influential games of all time.

Smashingpmkns posted...

And pretty much any survival building game post-minecraft was heavily inspired by minecraft. Probably one of the most influential games of all time.

This is true too. You'll get people calling Subnautica and The Forest Minecraft clones despite them being pretty different.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Longshot here but have you tried Dragon Quest Builders?

I have! I beat it I think, and I liked it for what it was, but it didn't really scratch that sandboxy survival itch, and I found certain aspects of building to be a chore with the lack of a first person mode.

pegusus123456 posted...

A big issue is trying to make a Minecraft/Terraria clone that offers something those games don't have. By making a clone, you're directly competing with two of the most popular games of all time. You can solve that situation by making a cheap knockoff, but if you put forth any sort of budget, you run the risk of just falling on your face.

I get that, and agree to an extent, but that didn't stop the dozens of Stardew Valley imitators (of which there's quite a few decent ones, my wife and I just spent a few dozen hours on Sun Haven), or the Soulslike explosion half a decade ago, or the plethora of sandbox survival games.

Vintage Story is kind of what I'm talking about being surprised there's not more like it. It started as a mod for Minecraft (Vintagecraft) and is now its own standalone game. It's got a tighter engine than Minecraft (can run on a potato with baked in shaders and optifine features like moving foliage), chiseling of individual voxels, bedrock quality character models, a much more complex and interactive crafting system (for example, in the early stone age part of the game, you've got to carve your own tools like axe heads etc. out of stone, voxel by voxel), an absolutely absurd variety of stone and ore types, etc.

It's not a better game than Minecraft by any means (it's still in early access and content beyond man vs nature survival is slim) but it hits that balance between familiar and different really well, and it just surprises me that more studios didn't attempt similar endeavors.

Portal Knights isn't free to play, it's been off and on game pass a lot. Combat isn't amazing but it's an overall good time burn with good crafting and variety.