Aground vs Terraria
Aground
Aground is a 2D, side-scrolling, survival-themed adventure game where you'll be digging out the bowels of the earth for precious ores to turn into tools, weapons, and armor or to sell to gain coins. Similar to games like Kingdom: Classic or its sequel, Kingdom: New Lands, the game will have you venture out to explore new islands to discover more about the story behind the land, to meet new characters and to obtain better resources to craft superior items.The storyline in this game is pretty intriguing as well. It features a Bermuda Triangle-like area where people often get shipwrecked and are washed up to one of the shores of the small archipelago. The islands are filled with weird creatures and is rich with minerals and resources. As survivors starting from scratch, they do not have access to the technologies they used to enjoy that is until apparently a mysterious tribe, called the Mirrows, helped to set stuff up.
Aground offers players the sort of freedom that Minecraft is able to provide and yet, is not fully a sandbox game nor does it have a procedurally generated map. Of course, this game has a great storyline, along with quests to help drive those plot points forward, and that alone makes it a really fun game to play.
Terraria
Terraria is one of the biggest breakout indie game of 2011 and, like Minecraft, is still incredibly popular until today. However, despite the many similarities between Terraria and Minecraft which is mainly because they are both sandbox games, Terraria is a definitely much more fleshed out version of Minecraft without all the 3D voxels but with 2D pixels instead. The great thing about Terraria though is that it has more of everything that Minecraft has - more recipes, more enemies, more pets, more bosses... well, like we said, more everything. The depth in Terraria is simply astounding!Combat also feels action-packed in spite of being 2D and interestingly, the game provides an immersive storyline that you can follow... again, unlike in Minecraft where you literally have to create your own story if you want all of that. The game is cross-platform game and supports multiplayer as well.
In short though, we'd say that Terraria is more suited to adventure-based RPG gameplay rather than Minecraft but unfortunately, not everyone likes its 2D looks. So, if you're a fan of Minecraft and you don't really mind 2D games, you should definitely check out Terraria. You'll be blown away by the overwhelming size of the content!