Then the chat box flickered: It’s better if you don't look up.
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. Terraria.zip
When my PC rebooted, Terraria.zip was gone. But my desktop wallpaper had changed. It was a screenshot of my own room, taken from my webcam’s perspective, rendered in 8-bit pixels. Then the chat box flickered: It’s better if
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. taken from my webcam’s perspective