Blaugust 2022 – A Look at Core Keeper
Posted on August 24, 2022 by Aywren
How do I explain Core Keeper? It’s a pleasant blend of so many different games. You’ve got a bit of Valheim in there for boss progression, a bit of Minecraft for exploration and digging through caves, a bit of Stardew when it comes to tending crops… even a blend of Starbound here and there.
I’ve had it on my list to write something up about our experiences in Core Keeper, but kept putting it off. I guess Blaugust is my excuse for pulling all these game posts out at the last moment and getting them done! Not that I’m complaining!
We picked up Core Keeper back in May before the newest ocean biome update dropped. Since then, I’ve put a little over 50 hours of play into it. I’d heard good things, but was a little iffy about a game that took place underground. Turns out, folks saying it’s a pretty game were right, though! There are certainly some zen places to be found.
Core Keeper feels a lot like Valheim in the terms of progression. The story is very bare-bones. You’re tossed into this underground world without much instruction. You have to discover your path forward on your own – much of it tied to figuring out what resources do. You build a base (or two or three) as you’d expect in a survival adventure game, plant crops and learn to cook different foods for survival and buffs.
Similar to Valheim, there are different biomes with different resources that open up gear and item progression. There’s also a boss fight in each biome with specific mechanics you have to figure out in order to eventually move forward.
There’s a fun little skill tree built into Core Keeper that I really like. The more you do something, the better you get at it – including running! There’s skills for mining, melee, ranged attacks, fishing, farming, cooking, and other skills you work on along the way.
You earn points that you apply to the tree to level up, just as you’d expect. But some skills associated with some areas are a bit surprising - such as farming allowing you to add poison to your attacks and thorns to yourself when you are attacked.
The world is bigger than we expected it to be after we hit a certain event that triggered things (no spoilers).
We paused in our current game back in mid-June because we’ve run up against a boss that we need to figure out and it’s blocking our progression. The game’s battle is more challenging at times than the graphic style might lead you to think!
I’m sure one day we’ll come back to it and figure out how to beat the boss. We just have so many other games we’ve been playing lately – I’ll be writing about those soon, too.
Core Keeper is certainly one to keep your eye on in the future, though. As an early access game, it’s very solid and a lot of fun. This is one that friends make better to play with together, though.
The music is also quite pleasing, so I’ll leave you with this!