A little background
For those of you who haven't played Terraria, it can be described as a 2D Minecraft. This Metroidvania-style game contains an intricate world, with devs releasing new content and improvements even years after its release. The game keeps on giving, so if you haven't tried it, and you enjoy that style of game, I'd recommend giving it a shot.
For those of you who HAVE been playing Terraria, whether you've been on since its original release or after the 1.3 patches, you know that the Moon Lord is currently one of the hardest endgame bosses (considered THE endgame boss by many).
But did you know that skilled players can beat him in under 2 hours, from world creation to the boss fight?
ShawKill
Enter ShawKill, a popular Twitch streamer and growing videogame legend. Shaw was able to enter a fresh world with a new character, then beast through it and take down the endgame boss in less than 2 hours (by the skin of his teeth).
At the time of this writing, I believe that's a world record speedrun.
I wouldn't recommend watching the run if you're new to the game, since it spoils a lot of the surprises along the way (kind of takes the fun out of its exploration aspect), but seeing this guy methodically rip through the world is inspirational.
Twitch stream (YT link for the lazy posted at the end of this article):
ShawKill's world gen start - as seen in his stream.
How did he do it?
So, how did he do it? A few things on top of luck contributed to his success. If you're interested in doing speedruns of your own one day, either in Terraria or another game, here are some takeaways from watching his video:
1. Practice.
A lot of speedrunners will spend a lot of time going through the steps to line up their speed run. In Shaw's video, he explains that it took about a month and a half to figure out the best route to line up his speedrun. That's no easy task: Terraria worlds are huge, and if you plan on memorizing a map, you need to train your brain to chart out a lot of information.
2. He used a world seed
Shaw used a world seed to select a world that allowed him access to a chest that had advanced gear in it. World seeds are an experimental feature in Terraria that allow you to essentially work off of a guaranteed template world, instead of one that's randomly generated. Of course, the world spawns fresh every time, but using a specific seed while you train can be useful for memorizing the location of certain items. Through a glitch specific to this seed, Shaw was able to receive a pretty advanced weapon early in game.
3. Resource management
He didn't stop for unnecessary junk. A big portion of Terraria revolves around resource management; there's a lot to pick up while you're running around. Players can spend countless hours organizing their base's inventory (or just building their base) so that they have all of their precious items in order. They could spend hours grinding for the perfect gear (gear building is very time consuming), but Shaw did none of that. You can see that he plays through a significant portion of the early game without armor, and doesn't even bother to hunt down items to max out his character's HP.
4. Planning
Shaw knew exactly which items he needed (and their quantities) before jumping to his next goal. He didn't just have a general step-by-step plan, he had a detailed list of exactly what he would need, and the times that he would need it by in order to advance the run properly.
5. Staying on course
As mentioned above, resource management can waste a lot of time. So can veering off course. There is a lot to see/do in Terraria, but Shawn made it a point not to worry about going off the path to find new items.
I hope you enjoy watching this guy's speedrun! He's got a few other videos like this out there, so feel free to show his channel some love.
YouTube vid for the lazy:
Note: the Twitch link shows the chat as it appeared during the initial stream. This is lost on YouTube.
Like this post? Have suggestions for improvement? Have a speedrun of your own that you think is impressive? Let me know down below in the comments! I use Steemit to write about some of my hobbies (cybersecurity, primarily), but I'm still trying to find my voice, so any advice or criticisms you have are appreciated.
Steem on!