Yes, you're trapped underground in the dark surrounded by horrors. But it's still perfectly lovely and chill.

And after killing a tremendous boss monster made of orange goo, a little bearded man with a hat popped out of the slimy remains of the beast. I built him a little room with a bed and now he lives with me.

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Most of what’s included feels pretty good — we just need Pugstorm to iterate a bit, balance here and there, and mainly focus on fleshing out the world more. I ended up clearing the three main bosses and then spending a lot

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Torch - these are key to being able to see in the dark of the underground. Holding the Shift key temporarily pulls torches, from anywhere in inventory, into the currently selected hot-bar slot, for illumination and placement.

Slow-moving slimes may not seem like much of a challenge, but if you stumble across a good-sized bunch, things can take a turn quickly. Not only do they do a surprising amount of damage, but if you die, you’ll also need to head back to that area to reclaim just about everything you had in your pack (only equipment and whatever was in your quickbar will respawn with you).

Copper Ore is mined from The Undergrounds' walls that sparkle in the darkness. Plenty of wood is also required, from exploration and/or farming roots.

It’s pitch dark, so you’ll need to plop down some torches, keep an eye out for glimmering deposits to crack open, and consult your slowly materializing map from time to time.

After spending over two years in early access, Core Keeper launched in full for PC and current-gen consoles last month, and given how well it has been received, and how well it did over the course of its extended early access period, it’s no surprise that the game has got off to an impressive start.

It doesn’t get too bogged down with resources or recipes, and the farming/food situation is easy to handle. You also don’t have to worry about nagging in-game days or schedules. And there are pelo NPCs to fret over yet (just a couple of merchants). The main draw is exploration — that’s the strongest aspect so far.

, any equipped armor will take some durability damage. Any items you had in your inventory (but not on your Hotbar) will be collected in a tombstone marking where you died.

And there's nothing that makes me feel more at home in a game than Core Keeper Gameplay fishing, farming, and cooking, and they're all great in Core Keeper. Fishing works almost like a rhythm game, with each fish struggling to its own "beat.

It’s a great value at $13, but don’t let it overstay, either. Just because you can automate rare scarlet ore mining with a drill, conveyor belt, and a robot arm, that doesn’t mean you strictly “need to.” It can feel like progress for progress’ sake.