Terrorarium

Review by Nicola Warren

Terrorarium is a dark humour game released by Stitch Media which is a fun Pikmin meets Mario Maker style game.

In Terrorarium you play as a Granny with a grudge who has an army of mushroom-esque minions called Moogu which you can use to help protect your garden and help to build the perfect murder garden to stop any unwanted visitors from entering.

There are only two modes in the game at the moment but hopefully, after early access is over there will be more modes released. Firstly you have quick play mode which personally I found to be more of an introduction to the game and a tutorial, but I do use the term tutorial loosely. I feel that the quick play/ “tutorial” needs a lot more work and instructions to help you with the game.

You are thrown straight into the game by leading your granny and an army of 40 Moogu to a sign which tells you the buttons to press in order to throw the moogu, you then encounter a wall which I assume you need to break down, but it doesn’t actually tell you this.

After throwing all of my Moogu it clearly realised I wasn’t doing something right so it takes a lot of play to figure out what exactly it is that you need to do, but I’m sure with a few extra bits of text this could easily be cleared up.

All of the quick play levels vary in difficulty from really easy to extremely difficult and most of them can be completed in a single play of the level. Yet you will encounter a few testing levels in which you will end up replaying several times as you need to keep count of your Moogu and make sure that you have enough to help you clear the level completely.

When it comes down to your little Moogu minions you will find that they die very frequently. That is okay though, as one of the habits which they do have is to breed with the corpses of the dead moogu and breed out of control until you have too many on your hands that you don’t know what to actually do with them. Don’t worry though because the Moogu are not only useful to attack others and break down walls, they’re also very handy to test out the traps in your murder garden.

The second mode that you will come across is Maker Mode! You got it! In this mode, you can design and create your own garden level not only to stop your unwanted visitors but also to share with friends and other players. There are over 100 different items which can be used in maker mode such as killer plants, giant walls, barricades, killer animals and even some simple beautiful plants just for decor.

I found there to be a few bugs and issues in Terrorarium but you can’t really expect anything less from an early access game. Some of the monsters on certain levels are a bit glitchy and keep jumping between places instead of staying where they need to be, Some of the instructions earlier on in the game aren’t very clear or don’t always make sense so at times it leaves you guessing of what you actually need to do.

The main thing that I feel would be better would be if they had a separate tutorial mode instead of trying to include it in the quick play game as it does make it not so fun to begin when you’re starting the campaign.

If you are a fan of Mario Maker and gore then you will definitely like Terrorarium as it brings you dark humour, quirky characters and fun. The old lady gardener even though a murderer she is very cute looking with her scrunchy face and weird little mannerisms.

I would recommend that it is more of a game for adults though than young children.

Overall I give Terrorarium 7/10 (which will be higher once the bugs are ironed out)