About TerraWorld.dev

TerraWorld is a browser-based tool I built for viewing, searching, and editing Terraria worlds. It began with a personal need and kept growing whenever I caught myself thinking, “Wouldn't it be useful if it could also do this?”

Why did I build TerraWorld?

There are already many excellent Terraria map viewers. This project is not meant as a criticism of them; my needs were simply a little demanding 😝. I wanted a friendlier workflow and more than a minimap: chest-item search, Hoik and wiring views, and a way to see a world with game textures rather than only flat map colors.

I had too many ideas and could not find one tool that brought them together, so I started building my own.

A map viewer that can handle unfamiliar tiles

From the beginning, I wanted TerraWorld to keep opening worlds after Terraria added tiles I had not coded yet. As long as an update does not fundamentally change the world format, the core reader can still build the map and represent unknown content from the data in the file.

Then I realized modded tiles are also just tiles TerraWorld does not know. I tried the same approach with tModLoader, and it worked. TerraWorld could render much of a modded world and, unexpectedly, even find modded items stored in chests 😁. That is how tModLoader support became an official part of the project.

From map viewing to Pixel Art

The original goal was only map viewing. I also create content, though, and wanted a feature that would make an interesting video: turning an image into pixel art that anyone could place. That required drawing, selections, copy and paste, and undo. One feature at a time, the map viewer accidentally became a world editor 👀.

Drawing a world, not merely editing one

The more I worked on editing, the more it felt like using graphics software. I began taking inspiration from Photoshop and Affinity: property panels, layers, history, Magic Wand, rectangle, circle and Lasso selections, gradients, and other familiar creative workflows.

That is the long-term direction for Edit Mode. I want it to become a tool for creating and drawing worlds, not just changing a few tiles.

Will there be a desktop app?

Probably not. If you only want to view a map, installing another application should not be necessary. If you need a powerful specialist desktop editor, TEdit already does that very well. TerraWorld belongs somewhere in between: quick to open, immediately usable, and built for both exploration and creativity 👀.

A personal project

I currently build TerraWorld on my own, so bugs and overlooked cases will happen. If you find one, please send a report and, when possible, the world and steps needed to reproduce it. I will try to fix it—or ask Codex to help investigate 🤣.

Thank you very much for using TerraWorld.

Contact and feedback

If you found a bug, have an idea, or simply want to share a thought, use the feedback board below.

Open Feedback Board

I read every piece of feedback and will continue improving TerraWorld.