(Edit: Small updates as of 1.3, but more is to be added later).
This guide won't cover everything, just the basics to help you advance more quickly without just sitting around at the beginning not knowing what to do.

Step one - Getting Started
Step two - Boss Fights
Step three - Dungeon and Floating Islands
Step four - Underworld and Wall of Flesh
Step five - Hard Mode
Step Six - Plantera, the Jungle Temple, and After Plantera.
Thanks to the Wiki

I probably won't describe exactly how to craft everything, you can go to the wiki for that.
Here is a link: http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Terraria_Wiki

So basically you move with a and d, and jump with space, and jump down through a platform with s. First what you are going to want to do is cut down a lot of trees and then craft a crafting table. Make some wooden walls, and then with the wood(not the walls just the regular wood), build a house that is at least 6 squares tall and 10 squares wide(that's including the ceiling walls and floor). Make a wooden hammer and pick up the crafting table and put it in the house.
By now you've probably killed a slime or two, so go ahead and make some torches with the slime and wood. Make sure you put a block(dirt or wood) right next to the doors at night so the guide doesn't open them and let the zombies in. Then it's your choice, you can either wait the night out killing a few zombies as they come, or tunnel down into the ground below your house, or if you can get pretty deep into the caves before nightfall then just keep going deeper until the night is over. Make sure you collect the spider webs in the caves, because you'll need those to craft a bed for your spawn point. At some point you will want to find a spear or a trident from close to surface chests, this will be a very good weapon to get you started. So, basically you will keep delving into the caves until you get a sufficient amount of copper/iron/silver/gold to make some armor and better tools. I like to make gold tools and silver armor. This may take a while so if you're impatient just make iron tools and copper armor.

A tip for digging straight down a lot is to put back a dirt or stone block or platform every once in a while so you don't die from falling if you ever want to go back down the same tunnel. If you forget to do this then you can stand on the edge of the tunnel and dig down on the column of bocks right next to the shaft you previously made. Or, if you've found climbing claws or shoe spikes you can use those to slide down the walls of your tunnel. Once you get 50 silver coins you will be able to have a merchant, but you need to make your house bigger to acomodate him. Build rooms on top of your house and make them at least 6x10 and they need a table, chair, and lightsource. If you get a blood moon at any time before you fight the eye of cthulu buy as many throwing knives as you can from the merchant, and then if you go into the corruption you can get some corrupt mushrooms and make them into vile powder to poison them with.

Before I get started, you may want to go to the terraria wiki and familiarize yourself with potion making, and at least learn how to make iron skin potions and regeneration potions. Now, if you were lucky enough to get a blood moon before you are ready to fight the eye of cthulu then you could have bought throwing knives and poisoned them with vile powder. You need to kill a few demon eyes to get 6 lenses, and then go into the corruption and craft a suspicious eye at a demon altar. Demon altars are at the bottom of the chasms, or if you're lucky you might have found one while randomly delving into the ground. If you haven't, then carefully jump down little bits of the chasm at a time, and craft the eye, and then you will need a grappling hook or mirror and two manna stars to get home. So, basically for the eye, you will want to gather a ton of wood and build platforms, and then place them next to the top of your house. You will be running back and forth across this long platform, and if you're not confident in your abilities then you might want to build more levels of long platforms(enough to jump up on to them from the ground. So, if you haven't gotten throwing knives then go to the merchant and buy 150-200 shurikens, and then when you use the eye, just throw them(knives or shurikens) at the eye like mad. It will drop demonite ore among other things. So, make a demonite battleaxe, and you will then use that to kill the eater of worlds.

Note: the eater of worlds has been replaced by the brain of cthulhu in worlds with crimson, and I'm thinking that a ranged weapon would be better for this one(thinking demonite bow, or something similar).

You will need to go to a demon altar and make a worm food out of vile powder and rotton chunks. Then, you might not have to build platforms for this boss, I've found you can just kill it by shooting your grappling hook at the ground and swinging your weapon constantly(using healing potions as necessary). He will drop more demonite ore and shadow scales. You should have enough to make a nightmare pickaxe. Then you can delve into the corruption and break the shadow orbs and kill more eaters of worlds, and get some sweet loot from the orbs and trigger the possibility of a meteor falling. A tip for mining meteors before you have an obsidian skull is to make platforms right above it and throw tons of dynamite and bombs at it(make sure you're high enough so that the dynamite can't hurt you.

Next you will want to kill skeletron. You will need to talk to the man at the dungeon and choose curse to start the fight at night. If you can afford a minishark by now then buy it, otherwise if you have gotten enough meteorite to make the space gun and meteor armor, then do that, otherwise you will need to find some other type of ranged weapon to kill it with(the shotgun or vilethorn probably wont work here). You might also want to build platforms to jump on and run across, and make sure to stock up on buff potions.

Ok, so now you can go into the dungeon safely, and you will want to stock up on buff potions and shine potions before you go in. Vilethorn is very helpful here to kill those pesky skulls that float around in the walls. You will want to keep searching the dungeon until you find an npc and a shadow key, and a muramasa. The shadow key you need to open chests in the underworld, and the muramasa is just a good weapon. Also, you will want to get a bunch of golden keys for the floating islands(as of an update since this guide's creation, skyware chests don't require golden keys to unlock).


For the floating islands you will want to get some gravitation potions and hover back and forth between the place where it gets dark, and not too close to the ground. So, pretty much just open the chests on the islands and make sure you get a lucky horseshoe. A red balloon is good to have as well so you can craft the cloud in a balloon later.

Note: As of 1.2 you don't need dungeon keys to open the floating island chests.

If you haven't already done so, make a hellevator. Hellevator means you go straight down, even through lava. The way you get through lava is to dig up to a water pocket, and let the water fall down on your shaft. And, then just mine through the obsidian that is made. While you are in the underworld you will want to find a few shadow chests, and also at some point you are going to want to make a straight walkway out of dirt or stone(whatever you have), mining through any buildings, and go in both directions as well(because you don't know which way the wall of flesh will come from). So, after you've gotten all the shadow chests(remember you need the shadow key from the dungeon to open them), make sure you get a guide voodoo doll. It is your choice whether you get hellstone armor or not, it will make things easier in the future, but will take much longer.

To wake the wall of flesh you need to throw the doll into the lava, and make sure you are ready to fight it before you do this, otherwise you will die and need to get another doll. If you haven't already done so, you might want to make meteorite armor and the space gun(remember that meteorite armor makes the space gun not take any mana), otherwise a minishark could work as well.


I guess you could try out the jungle at any point after the dungeon, but it is not required to progress in the game.

Edit as of 1.2 update: Now the method of using a hellstone walkway does not really work anymore, because it constantly does damage to you ignoring the invincibility time. Also, now if you have enough platinum, instead of making a ton of holy water, buy the clentaminator, and some hallow ammo for it and just spray it all over the place. You might not necessarily want to get rid of all the corruption or crimson, because there are some drops that you might want to get from the monsters that spawn there(ie the dungeon chest keys and souls of night). If you don't have enough platinum for the clentaminator then you will want to go to the hallow and kill a bunch of pixies to make holy water, and spread that around your place, because hallow is definitely better near your house than crimson or corruption(I haven't tested this theory, but I'm pretty sure it is correct).

If you want a dao of pow later on you might want to consider trying to make the sand in one ocean hallow and the sand in the other ocean corruption. This is a very good way to find light and dark mummies. At some point you will also want to use the pwnhammer you get from the wall of flesh to break the demon altars. Every time you break a demon altar your world will get some cobalt, mithril, or adamantium ore, and also there will be a bit of corruption added in a random area. A good way to maximize efficiency while fighting the mechanical bosses is to keep searching for mimicks until you get a cross necklace. Also, if you are going to be using mana for these bosses a mana flower is good to have. This is crafted from natures gift which you get from the underground jungle, and something else. This will make you automatically use mana potions when you run out of mana. I will attach vids of me killing The Twins, The Destroyer, and Skeletron Prime.


The console version has another boss which lets you get a little bit stronger of armor, but I've noticed that it's hard to use the controls for the console version, because I don't really play my playstation that much. I guess I just got used to the computer controls and it's hard to switch over. Anyways, with the 1.2 update there's much more pc content, so there will be a guide on that next.

This is all about some of the stuff that was added in the 1.2 update. So, Plantera. Basically you want to rig the teleporters up on either end of a long straight path, and switch between them when plantera gets close. As of some new update since I made this guide, the projectiles will go through walls, so walls will be inneffective against them(except maybe for the spikey balls I think they would get blocked so stick with walls). In the video I am using the laser rifle, but you can try using the megashark with meteorite bullets, since they will bounce and maybe find their way to plantera. One small detail that I forgot to add when the guide came out is that plantera bulbs won't spawn until you kill all three mechanical bosses, so go do that first!

Next, in the jungle temple, the first few times you go in there you will probably die a bunch, but you will get used to it, and having better weapons from after plantera will definitely help. If you want to save a lot of trouble then try to take the traps, if you can see them, with your drax or drill. You might also want to bring along a wrench and wire cutters and wire, and take all the traps and pressure plates, and rig them all up in the golem room. The first time you kill the golem will be the hardest, especially if you don't have a lot of really good weapons, but the traps will definitely help. Try to put a pressure plate inside a little box you've made out of dirt which is up pretty high, and it's your choice if you want to make holes in it to try to attack the golem yourself, but if you do, make sure the spike ball droppers can't bounce the spike balls into your box. Also, make a box around the lihzahrd altar big enough for the golem to get trapped in. It might take a few tries to get the traps and boxes right, but if you build a house in the jungle it will make it easier to get back and try again.

Now, after you've killed plantera everything will get much harder. Expect to die a lot in the dungeon and during solar eclipses if you haven't gotten any good weapons yet. It's a good idea to build houses and set your spawn point near the dungeon and jungle so that you can get back to it much quicker after you die. You can also buy teleporters from the steampunk girl, but then you have to connect them with wire, and the teleporters work with a maximum of 3000 wires(edit: as of some new update since I made this guide you can place teleporters connected by wires as far apart as you want, so go ahead and go crazy with them!). This was enough for me to build teleporters from my main house to the jungle, and between my main house and the dungeon. You might also want to put a piggy bank and safe in the house near the jungle and the dungeon, so you can store some of your drops in them while you go back into the dungeon or jungle multiple times.

Since there's no way to add it to the contributors section. I didn't take anything directly from the wiki, but I used it to get my facts straight on some of the things my memory was kind of cloudy on.

The wiki has been a great help site for me while playing terraria, and I don't know what I would have done without it. Also, consider joining a terraria group on steam to get those burning questions answered by seasoned veterans about things that I haven't covered in this guide and you can't find in the wiki.