No manual but there is a NPC called the guide that spawns where you are at the start who gives you tips and can tell you what items can craft what.

It's also both a single and multiplayer game.

That NPC GUIDE is worthless! :P The only thing you need him for is getting into Hard Mode, but I won't say any more about that and leave it to the new players to discover. :P

Thanks for all the responses so far. I'm relieved that it's single-player, for I do not do multiplayer, and I will check out the Wiki before making my first foray into Terraria territory.

He's sort of useful for general hints if you've never played before and/or are trying to avoid spoiling things for yourself by using the wiki or watching videos. And his hints are somewhat contextual -- they change as you reach different gameplay milestones (boss battles and such), giving you clues on how to progress to the next milestone.

But his crafting info is VERY useful.

It is nice to see a game update notification has finally appeared for Terraria, hopefully this indicates GOG are fixing that system, although I am not seeing any notifications for the latest Witcher III DLC so perhaps my optimism is misplaced.

I tried to get into this game but all that happens is I manage to dig a big hole in some dirt, then it gets dark and I get attacked by a bunch of creatures or zombies. Is there something I'm missing? Any good beginner's guides people can recommend?

http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Guide:Getting_started

I've been ninja'd, it seems, but, as I looked it up, I might as well mention that the linked guide is a bit jumbled (it's a wiki, after all) and contains a bunch of info about character and world creation which can probably be skipped if you've already got a character and world. Start with the "Beginning Gameplay" section.

@tinyE: What are you doing posting? 1.3 should be your only concern now! It cries if you're away from it too long, you know.... : P

EDIT: fixed typo and hyperlink

I spent all day trying to build this dome and fucked it up at the end so I had to take a break and calm down. :P

So far I've just been spending the whole time digging. Other than a small home for myself and the guide, I haven't built shit. :P

Got some impressive tunnels though :D

Thanks! And yes "too lazy to google" but I wanted something that I know people have used and consider a good guide. "Beginning gameplay" is exactly what is needed for chumps like me.

CHUMPS!? When I got this game last year I stayed up all night reading that stupid thing! :P I despised it with a passion until I got a feel for what I was doing.

See my above post. I'm sure at least 50% of games played are just people stuck in water filled ditches and tunnels being eaten alive by mould spores and zombies before.

eh maybe pre-1.1 maybe back when all he did was give the same generic hints about building a house for NPCs and to stay indoors at night while he keeps opening the damn the bloody doors to the house every damn night letting the zombies and eyes in to kill everyone(you ever wonder why there was a voodoo doll made of him in the game and why you can use it the way you do? that's why), sure but now he has actually has his uses outside of offering him up.. He's now useful for nudging you in the right directions past your first day or two in the world and by clicking his crafting option you can learn all the things that can be made with that item and what other items are needed and what work station to make it at.

So he's good for other things now then being a useless annoyance, a good target and a sacrificial lamb

really that's a good chunk of the game, digging tunnels to find ores and get loot so your strong enough to explore the other biomes and their undergrounds to find more ores and loot so your strong enough to go explore even further and can kill your first few bosses, then tackle the dungeon get the loot their to be able to then dig down to hell get the ore and loot from there so you can summon the last pre-hardmode boss, kill him to trigger hardmode and get the hammer so you can smash the demon/flesh altars so you can spawn new ores in your world and create the hallow and hardmode corruption/crimsion so you can get their underground versions allowing you to find the stuff and the new ores that you spawned to help craft new gear to get the new loot to help you kill the three mechanical hardmode bosses to make even more stronger gear so you can then take on the hardmode jungle boss so you can craft the keys to the biome chests in the dungeon so you can survive the jungle temple so you can kill that boss, so you can get more gear to take on the new 1.3 boss event which requires you to slay five new bosses in order to take on the last boss, all while triggering and trying to survive the two hardmode events Pumkin moon and Frost moon so you can get the loot drops from those.

That is if your just doing a straight run, if you want to play around you can also do that and just ignore the progression treadmill.