⛏ Terraria: The Board Game

May 2025 Update: Happy 14th Birthday to Terraria, Play at UKGE 2025, Pre-Production Components, Biome Art Update, Development News and More!
over 1 year ago – Wed, May 28, 2025 at 03:47:51 AM

Hello Terrarians! 🌳

Firstly, we want to wish a very happy birthday to Terraria! The 16th of May marked fourteen years since the game was released on Steam - congratulations to the Re-Logic team for this amazing milestone! 🎉

This month has been dominated by preparations for UK Games Expo 2025, one of our favourite tabletop game conventions (not just because it’s 45 minutes from our office, but that does help!). You’ll find full details below, as well as updates on pre-production components, biome tile art and lots more...

Let’s dig in! 😀

🎪 Visit Us at UKGE 2025, Stand 2-714

From Friday 30th May to Sunday 1st June, the Paper Fort Games team will be at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham, UK. Last year, we met loads of you at the show, and we’d really love to see you again; if you’re attending the convention, please swing by stand 2-714 to say hello and check out how the game has developed since UKGE 2024. 

We’ll be running multiple demos of the game every day of the convention, as well as bringing our daily giveaways, beanbag toss, slime balloons and King Slime photo cutout; we can’t wait to see you there!

👀 Latest Pre-Production Components

In anticipation of UKGE, we’ve been working with the Gameland manufacturing team to produce as many close-to-final components as we can for demos at the convention. This has involved lots of preparation of print files, reviewing of proofs and discussions with the factory, but we were very keen to have up-to-date copies to show at the event.

Last year (and until very recently), we were using a handmade version of the game for demos and development, featuring laser-cut tokens, generic dice and 3D-printed miniatures; this year we’re delighted to be showing off the game’s production-quality components (though Chris is a little sad at not being let loose on the laser as much this year…)

You’ll be able to see the game’s organiser trays, die-cut punchboard pieces, moulded plastic miniatures, printed transparent cards, wooden character pack, spiralbound Bestiary/ Crafting Menu, full-art card sleeves and much more. We have received many of these components in advance, and Gameland are going to be bringing a few of the remaining components direct to the show. Below is a selection of the new bits and pieces; it’s wonderful to finally see the tokens and tiles as punchboards!

Gameland also sent us this video of the spiralbound Bestiary/ Crafting Menu sample, complete with the foiling on the covers!

🎬 Gameplay Videos

Getting our hands on these latest production-quality components will also give us the chance to do something we’ve be wanting to do for a long while - make new gameplay videos! With the game’s rules in flux due to playtesting and our development copy of the game getting a bit ropey from all the handling/ stickering/ scribbling we’ve subjected it to, we haven’t been in a position to make a video that shows off the game in the way it deserves – until now! Once we’ve recovered from UK Games Expo, we’ll be organising a filming session; let us know in the comments if you’d prefer a full playthrough, bitesize overviews of different aspects of the game, or something else!

🎨 Biome Tile Art Update

If you’ve been reading the Development News section of our recent updates, you might remember that we made the decision to remove half-blocks from the game. They were causing some confusion with movement, digging and line of sight rules, so they’ve been taken out. The game’s biome tile squares are now either full or empty. This required an update of the biome tile art by George, but we’re really happy with the result; it has allowed simplification of the rules while maintaining organic aesthetic of the tiles:

🔲 Shadowboxes

The lovely folks over at Artovision recently reached out to us about making a 3D shadowbox version of the Terraria board game cover art; if you were at PAX East at the start of May, you might have seen it on show at their stand. 

Artovision make the official Terraria shadowboxes and they were keen to add the board game’s box art to their collection. The team kindly sent over a sample of the shadowbox and it looks amazing; it’s going straight up on the wall at Paper Fort Games HQ!

📝 Development News

Here’s what we’ve been focusing on this month:

• Rulebook: The rulebook rewrite is ongoing – it’s taking a little longer than anticipated but it’s worth spending time on. The good news is that it’s simpler, and shorter! 
• Card wording changes: We’ve been going through the wording on every card with a fine-toothed comb to ensure consistency, simplify concepts and shorten text where possible. We’re currently replacing commonly used terms (such as draw, discard and scrap) with icons so it’s easier to parse a card’s effect at a glance.
• Bosses: As well as streamlining Boss behaviours and mechanics, we’ve been trying out a new idea that make a boss’s spawned ally more than just another enemy token in the world. We’re testing a new mechanic whereby Allies powerup their Boss via a ‘buff’ track – players will have to decide how to move Allies on this track to balance rewards and boss buffs. The wrinkle is that an Ally gets added each turn, forcing Allies already on the track into new spaces. We’ll have more about this next month, but here’s a sneak peek of the prototype cards:

🚢 A Note on US Tariffs

A quick reminder that you can read our mini-update published last month for information on US tariffs; the situation is still in flux and discussions are ongoing with Re-Logic, with our manufacturing team and with fulfilment partners to find the best way forward. We'll keep you in the loop via Kickstarter updates, so keep an eye on your inbox!

📅 Updated Timeline Reminder

As per our March update, just a reminder that we’ve updated our fulfilment estimate to August 2025. You can read more about the updated timeline here.

👋 We’ll Be Back in June!

Thanks very much for reading this month’s update, for your ongoing support and for making this game possible.

If you’re at UKGE, we’ll see you there! Please bear in mind it'll take us a bit longer to respond to emails/ message/ comments while we're away but we'll get back to you as soon as we return to the office! 

Until next time, Terrarians! 😊

-The Paper Fort Games team

April 2025 Update: Playmat Surprise, Colourful Insert and Card Tray Samples, Boss Art and Dice Tray!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 03:30:37 AM

Hello Terrarians! 🌳

This month’s update includes a little surprise for world playmat backers, our latest (and most colourful) box organiser samples and some excellent new Boss art from George. Off we go! 😃

🎒 Playmat Carry Bag

During the campaign, we said that the world playmat would ship in a cardboard tube that could also be used to store it. This was true at the time, but over the past couple of months we’ve secretly been working on something a little snazzier; a custom Terraria carry bag that will be included with every world playmat! 🎉

The bag features the Terraria logo embroidered in gold thread, an adjustable carry handle and a drawstring closure - it's perfect for slinging over your shoulder and heading to game night (or as a quiver for your Jester’s Arrows!).

📥 Coloured Plastic Organiser Trays

Last month, we shared a render of the game’s coloured trays; the physical samples arrived in the office this week and we’re really happy with them. Not only do they add an exciting pop of colour to the box, they aid organisation by making each tray more easily identifiable.

📦 Card + Biome Tile Tray White Samples

In previous updates, you’ve seen the games card and biome tile trays as grey plastic 3D prints. We recently received the cardboard versions which are sturdy and work really nicely. These will be fully printed; in the image below you’ll see a small hand-made mockup of the crate art that will cover the boxes. Not only will these have the Terraria crate vibe - the labels will help us to simplify organisation by reminding players of which cards are stored in which location. 

🎨 Boss and Ally Art

George is in the process of wrapping up paint-overs of the game’s Boss miniatures and ally tokens. These pieces of art will appear on the game’s Boss cards, and will also serve as a great colour reference if you’re thinking about painting your miniatures!

🎲 Dice Tray Sample

The dice tray sample arrived this week; it’s easy to store and assemble, and the artwork really pops! We’re discussing with the manufacturer about the option of using invisible stitching in place of the black stitching shown on the sample.

📝 Development News

Here’s what we’ve been focusing on this month:

• The rulebook overhaul continues; we've received initial comments from playtesters and are making improvements and clarifications based on this feedback. We’ll publish it for backers to read as soon as it’s ready (and less ugly!).
• ‘Blind’ playtesting is ongoing; the game is being playtested by groups playing the game based solely on the updated rulebook.
• Removal of half-blocks from the game has been well received by playtesters; George has just finished re-working the biome tile art to account for this.  
• The ‘objective focus’ token (added to increase interactivity and planning between players) is serving its proposed function, but needs a couple of small changes to really shine. 
• Alternate objectives have been tested and enjoyed; we're adjusting some, but overall they are adding the desired variability game-to-game. 
• Simplification of enemy retaliation rules has been successful; less dice rolling is saving time!
• Further updates to boss rules, spawn criteria and behaviours to streamline boss battles. 

📮 A Note on US Tariffs

You can read our mini-update published earlier this month for information on US tariffs; discussions are ongoing with Re-Logic, with our manufacturing team and with fulfilment partners to find the best way forward. We'll keep you in the loop via Kickstarter updates, so keep an eye on your inbox!

👋 We’ll Be Back in May!

We hope you enjoyed this month's update; we're looking forward to showing you even more in May. If you have any questions, feel free to drop us an email at [email protected].

As always, thank you for your support and enthusiasm; until next time, Terrarians!

-The Paper Fort Games team

Mini-Update: US Tariffs
over 1 year ago – Mon, Apr 07, 2025 at 05:55:24 AM

This update is specifically for backers in the United States. If you're outside the US, this doesn't affect your pledge.

Hello Terrarians 🌳

We imagine that our US backers are worried about the impact of the recently announced increase in import tariffs on Terraria: The Board Game. 

We want to reassure you that we're still full steam ahead with the project, but this is an unprecedented situation and we're going to need some time to work on how to best navigate it. We are currently discussing the tariff increases with Re-Logic, with our manufacturing team and with fulfillment partners to find the best way forwards.  

You can read more about the impact of these tariffs on our industry here. 

Rest assured we'll keep you in the loop via Kickstarter updates, so keep an eye on your inbox. 

As always, thanks for your support!

- The Paper Fort Games Team

March 2025 Update: Updated Timeline, Character Pack and Tray Samples, Sleeved Card Capacity, New Character Art and More!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 06:24:13 AM

Hello Terrarians! 🌳

We’re kicking off this month's update with information about our estimated timeline, followed by a feast of new art, samples and other goodies from the past few weeks. Let’s dive in!

⏰ Updated Timeline

TL;DR: We’re updating our estimated shipping date to August 2025.

At Paper Fort HQ, we’re regularly evaluating our internal deadlines and estimated timeline. Over the past month, we’ve made improvements to the game that require some extra testing time and that necessitate updates to the game’s print files. Finalising the game’s tray design (a hugely important part of the game) and getting samples of some game components have also taken longer than we had hoped. These are critical milestones in the development process, and they directly impact the quality of the final game, so we need to give them the time they deserve.

This means that the game is going to take longer to get to you than we had anticipated; we’re updating our estimated shipping date to August 2025. As backers of many projects ourselves, we understand that this can be frustrating, so we wanted to let you know sooner rather than later and re-iterate our promise to keep you in the loop throughout the whole process.

This doesn’t mean anything has slowed down in our day-to-day work on the game; there are still many, many things happening in parallel, such as the finalising of art assets, the rulebook overhaul and loads of playtesting. Our monthly updates will continue, with all the behind-the-curtain details of the game’s development and as many exciting pictures as we can fit in!

Speaking of exciting pictures, let’s take a look at what’s been happening this month…

👀 Wooden Character Pack

This week, we received a full sample of the game’s wooden character pieces. During the campaign, we planned to include 4 character pieces in the base game, but as mentioned previously we’ve decided to increase this to 8 as a thank you for your support. Therefore, the core game will come with 8 character pieces (2 in each player colour), and Hellstone backers will receive an additional 32 characters (8 in each player colour). As you might remember from previous updates, we’ve been testing lots of different printing methods and are very happy that we’ve found a technique that not only allows a wider range of colours but also permits more detailed artwork; quite a challenge on a wooden piece smaller than a penny!

Below is the full set; the 2 leftmost pieces in each colour are the base game pieces; the others are included in the Hellstone pack.

📥 Plastic Organiser Samples

Until now, we’ve been testing 3D printed version of the game’s organiser trays; this is a great initial check of dimensions and component fit, but this week we progressed to the next step - our plastic samples finally arrived!

The trays are vacuum formed. For those of you who are interested in how this process works, you can watch this short video (5 minutes). It’s not specific to board game inserts, but the process is very similar, and it shows the various stages involved in the process. 

We’re happy to report that the plastic trays are sturdy, hold all of the components well, have secure snap-close lids and fit nicely in the box:

 Eagle-eyed viewers may notice a few things in the GIF above:

• The plastic trays are all black: This is just for sampling purposes. The trays will be coloured, with the enemy tray purple to match the enemy dice, the boss trays colour-matched to the boss miniatures and the remaining trays Terraria green, colour-matched to the character dice. The lids will all be transparent. Coloured trays are on their way to us; in the meantime here’s a digital mockup:

• There’s a mysterious white box at the top left: This area will contain a foam block in the core version of the game (so things don’t rattle around); Hellstone backers can replace this foam block with their box of extra wooden character pieces.
• The card and biome tile boxes are grey: These are still our 3D printed versions of these boxes. These will be made from full-art, double-walled cardboard in the final game; we are currently waiting on the cardboard samples.
• The card box is full of sleeved cards! That’s right; read on for a sleeve-related update…

🃏 Card Sleeves + Sleeved Card Capacity

Hot off the press, we have the physical samples of the full-art action card sleeves included with the Hellstone pledge! They look *amazing*, are fantastic quality (100-micron thickness) and fit the cards beautifully. We have subjected them to 30 solid minutes of the most brutal smash-shuffling that we could muster, and we’re happy to report they aren’t showing any signs of wear, splitting or peeling.

During the campaign, we said that the insert would only hold sleeved action cards (as these are the sleeves available in the Hellstone pledge). We had some backers ask about space for sleeved mini cards and we said we’d look into it as long as it didn’t alter the overall size of the game box or adversely impact the tray. It was a challenge, but we’ve managed it!

The left image shows the card box holding the game’s cards without sleeves. Foam blocks will be provided to fill the gaps and stop the cards moving around. The middle image shows the card box with sleeved action cards, spread across the 2 action card columns. The right image shows the card box with both sleeved action cards and sleeved mini cards. Square character, armor and minion cards live in their own sections at the front of the card box and should not to be sleeved as this will impair how they work. Once mass manufacturing is underway, we'll provide all of the final card dimensions and quantities for those of your who want to purchase your own sleeves. 

You’ll also note from the picture that you’ll get plenty of card dividers (not all of them are shown here); we’ll provide a suggested layout for the card box, but you’ll have the freedom to rearrange it however you see fit. Though it's not shown in the images above, the box also has a lid. 

🎨 Character Art + Updated Player Boards

George has just finished up a complete overhaul of our 8 character cards; we’ve worked closely with the Re-Logic team to create an interesting and diverse cast of characters to choose from!

Of course, as you progress through the game, you’ll be overlaying your character with various armor and vanity sets!

It has been a very fun technical challenge to make characters, armor and vanities that are completely interchangeable; we’re excited to see them in action!

Updated Player Boards

In our last update, we mentioned that we’ve updated the player boards to include designated consumable and discard pile areas; we just received the samples and it’s looking great! It definitely helps to have these extra reminders!

🎲 Character and Enemy Dice

We have just approved the samples for the character and enemy dice, with their new, easier to read inlay colours. The marbling looks great, and it’s very satisfying to roll a handful of them in combat!

📝 Development News

Here’s what we’ve been focusing on this month:

• The major rulebook overhaul continues; it’s currently with playtesters for initial comments and we’ll publish it for backers to read as soon as it’s ready.
• ‘Blind’ playtesting is ongoing; the game is currently with playtesting groups who will play the game based solely on the rulebook.
• Removal of half blocks for the game to simplify rules; a square is now simply full or empty.
• Addition of an ‘objective focus’ token to increase interactivity and planning between players at the start of each turn.
• Alternate objectives are currently being tested; these can be swapped in to increase game-to-game variability.
• Simplification of enemy retaliation rules; less dice rolling!

👋 We’ll Be Back in April!

We’re looking forward to showing you even more next month. If you have any questions, feel free to drop us an email at [email protected].

Thank you all for your support; until next time, Terrarians!

-The Paper Fort Games team

February 2025 Update: Card Sleeve Art Reveal, Organiser Schematics, Transparent Card Samples, NPC Art and More!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Feb 25, 2025 at 05:44:17 AM

Hello Terrarians! 🌳

This month’s update contains a card sleeve art reveal, an update on the game’s organisation, lots of samples from the manufacturer, NPC art and the latest development news from Paper Fort HQ. Grab your pickaxes and let’s dig in! 😊

👀 Card Sleeve Art

If you backed at the Hellstone pledge level, your game will include full-art card sleeves for the game’s action cards. Our original plan for these was to use the pre-existing King Slime boss art, but after seeing the Terrarian vs. Wall of Flesh playmat art that George created, we knew that instead, we had to have another bespoke battle scene on the sleeves!

With Re-Logic, we decided to feature Eye of Cthulhu on the card sleeve; another iconic Terraria Boss. To contrast with the playmat art’s Underworld setting, we chose the Snow biome as the location, with a moonlit palette adding to the eerie atmosphere. As you can see from the sketch above, the Terrarian was originally going to be decked out in iron armor, instead they were upgraded to sturdier silver armor and armed with the Ice Blade, as well as a silver bow slung across their back. We are so thrilled with how the piece came out; it’s currently with the manufacturer being used to make sample card sleeves. We’ll show them to you as soon as they arrive at Paper Fort HQ!

📤 Gametrayz Schematics

After lots of back and forth we are now happy with the game’s organiser; you can see a basic schematic of how the storage will fit together below.

The Card and Biome Tile boxes will be double-walled, full-art cardstock boxes with lids and all of the trays will be plastic with transparent lids. 

It takes quite a while for the manufacturer to create the tools for making these inserts, so while they get to grips with that we’ve ordered one final 3D printed version of everything. We want to be extra sure that everything fits the way it should, and there’s only so much you can check on a computer screen!

A quick clarification based on a backer query from last month; everyone will receive this organiser in their game box; it’s not Hellstone exclusive.

🧊 Transparent Card Samples

Last week, samples of the game’s transparent cards (used for armor, vanity and minions) arrived at the office. We're really happy with the print quality and the clarity of the cards when stacked. Here’s Chris testing a couple of the cards upon arrival; very satisfying!

🐝 Bee Armor Art

Speaking of armor cards, George recently finished up the final piece of armor art; Bee Armor! The design was initially simpler, but next to the other armor sets it felt a little underwhelming. With this in mind, it has been beefed up; we love the latest version.

✨ Latest Boss Miniatures

As you’ve no doubt noticed over the past few updates, we have been reviewing and feeding back on Boss miniatures for what feels like ages! They are so unique to the game, and so iconic to Terraria, that we needed to make sure that the modular key systems were perfect, and that the colours were just right. We received our latest batch of samples this week, and we’re happy to report that the keys are correct, the fit is good and the colours look great! These are still 3D printed and airbrush painted samples (hence why the inside parts on some are white); we didn’t want to move on to creating molds for the plastic versions before we were 100% happy with them.

📸 Bee Ally 

Last month, we showed you the new Bee Ally token. It would have been better shown in context rather than just on Chris’ hand, so here it is flying through the Underground Hive!

🎲 Inventory Dice Samples

In our last update, we mentioned that the inventory dice samples were on their way. The marbled acrylic looks fantastic in blue, red, pearlescent white and yellow, but the gold infill on the blue and red dice was very difficult to read. In light of this, we’ve switched over to a white infill on those dice instead and it is much clearer.  

The polyhedral character and enemy dice also arrived, but they needed a couple of small changes; we’ll share updated samples in a future update.

💳 Coin Dial Modifications

The game’s coin dials have been altered slightly for useability; they are bigger, the numbers are clearer and we’ve added a little cutout to make turning the dial easier. These might all seem like small changes but they make a big difference overall.

🌳 High-Friction Biome Tiles

Early on in the design of the game, we knew that tokens would need to be placed into the world; as enemies and to track various states. With this in mind, we’ve been working with the team at Gameland to find a coating for the biome tiles and tokens that decreases the chances of tokens moving easily if knocked. Of course, we can’t eliminate this completely, but we wanted to do something to help if we could. We’ve tried a few different options, and have finally found a matte finish that increases friction between the biome tiles and tokens placed onto them, without adversely affecting the colours or sharpness of detail. Happily, it also has another bonus; significantly reducing glare and improving readability of the tiles, even with a bright light directly overhead.

🎨 NPC (Non-Playable Character) Art

George has also been hard at work finishing the NPC icons. These now only appear on the NPC tiles and NPC board (see below), so we’ve pivoted from full-body art to bust/ profile picture style pieces and they work really well!

📰 Development News

• The major rulebook overhaul continues; we’ll publish it for backers to read as soon as it’s ready.
• ‘Blind’ playtesting is ongoing; the game is currently with playtesting groups who will play the game based solely on the rulebook.
• Simplification of chopping and digging rules; now quicker, easier and less fiddly!
• Removal of time tokens from the game; passage of time is now baked into the threat tracker which means less things to check per turn.
• Significant upgrades across all cards; culling of any ‘lacklustre’ cards, and replacement with more interesting and diverse cards to improve the overall deckbuilding aspect of the game experience.
• Objective chain updates, including testing of variable objectives allowing for more variety between games.
• Various graphic design improvements, including a player board upgrade to include designated consumable and discard pile areas.

👋 We’ll Be Back in March!

We’ll have more next month; thank you so much for your support, comments and enthusiasm! If you have any questions, just drop us an email at [email protected].

Until next time, Terrarians!

-The Paper Fort Games team