What makes a development team happy? Well, we love meeting new community members in the Discord, reading your comments on Twitter, and hearing how much you’re looking forward to Core Keeper…but what makes us really happy is getting feedback from YOU on how we can improve our game!
We recently ran a week-long Closed Alpha on Steam, giving you the opportunity to play an early build of Core Keeper and let us know what you think. We’ve read through ALL your feedback, and we’re beyond thrilled to announce that we’ve already started working on some improvements. We know you’ll be interested in what’s been updated, so read on for info on the Alpha feedback and details from our changelog!
Hungry, Hungry Explorers
One of the most important pieces of feedback we got was that players were getting hungry, fast! Currently, when a player’s hunger level gets too low, they experience a starvation debuff that impacts movement speed. This was frustrating for our Alpha Expedition, many of whom struggled to find enough food to satisfy their hunger before they located the materials to craft a cooking pot to make more filling dishes. Oops!
We’re working on balancing hunger so that finding food is still a challenge, but players aren’t totally nerfed at the start of the game. So far, to remedy this, we have reworked the food system so that food now drains based on the distance the player has moved; increased the food value that mushrooms give from 5 to 9; and made it so that seeds now have a chance to drop from slimes & wooden destructibles. We hope this will give players the opportunity to begin farming much earlier on in the game.
You Want to Play Core Keeper with Friends
If there’s one thing our feedback confirmed, it’s that you can’t wait to play Core Keeper with friends. All of our Alpha Testers who provided feedback said they would be likely to recommend Core Keeper to a friend, with the majority of those Alpha testers giving the highest possible rating of recommendation. This kind of feedback warms our hearts, and we hope you’ll enjoy playing in up to 8-player multiplayer.
Glurch the Not so Abominous Mass
Glurch is one of the first bosses you’re likely to encounter in Core Keeper (though our bosses can be fought in any order), and it’s one tough-looking blob. At least on the outside. It turns out, players were having a less-than-challenging time taking on the giant slime by employing a “hit and run” technique and chipping away at its health. To make Glurch a real threat, we’ve updated the game so that it now recovers 25% of its maximum health any time the player runs outside of aggro range.
The Ultimate Explorers!
We asked you which feature you enjoyed the most out of farming, cooking, crafting, exploring, combat, and base building. 68% of you found exploring to be the most enjoyable feature. You also enjoyed base building, farming, cooking, and crafting. Looks like we might have to work on combat a little bit though!
Wood You Believe It?
Want to craft torches? You’ll need wood. Want to make tools or weapons? Better grab some wood. Want to build a base? Well…you get our point. Unfortunately, player feedback suggested that wood was a much less common resource in the underground than we intended. Crafting and base building are key components of Core Keeper, so we knew something had to be done.
Introducing the Root Plant! When a player harvests wood, the wood now has the chance to drop seeds that can be planted to re-grow wood, making this a farmable resource. No more struggling to choose between tools, weapons, or decorations! It may take you a little while to farm a sizeable crop, so you may have to prioritise how you use the wood you grow at first, but that’s part of the fun.
Our Full Closed Alpha Changelog
Here’s the full list of everything we’re updating as a result of Closed Alpha feedback:
- Ranged weapons can now shoot in 360 degrees
- Gathering wood now has a chance to drop root seeds that can be planted to regrow wood as the Root Plant
- Biome locations are now placed in a random direction from The Core
- Melee weapons no longer hit torches when enemies are near the torch
- Unique colours for each player marker on the map
- Players can now hover over player markers on the map to see their names
- The Caveling Shaman’s attack anticipation time has been increased from 0.35 seconds to 0.6 seconds
- Enemies ranged attacks and melee attacks now share cooldown
- Healing Potion crafting cost has been decreased from 5 Slime and 5 Heart Berry to 5 Slime and 3 Heart Berry
- Healing Potion has been changed from healing 40hp to healing 40% of max health
- Glurch the Abominous mass now heals 25% of its max health whenever the player runs outside of aggro range
- Glurch the Abominous mass now spawns 10 tiles further away from The Core
- Seeds now have a chance to drop from slimes & wooden destructibles
- Decreased chance for seeds to drop from crosses on the ground
- Next item auto equips if the previous one breaks
- Decreased the amount of digging for Cavelings
- New enemy: Red Slime – found in the dirt biome and attacks you on sight
- Reworked food system so food now drains based on the distance the player has moved
- Increased the amount of food mushrooms give from 5 to 9
- Improved visuals for Caveling Shaman attack anticipation
- Removed “CK” from the Core Keeper icon
- Option to disable screenshake
- Facing mouse direction is now set to be the default
Thank you for taking part in the Alpha Expedition, we can’t wait to share more updates with you soon. In the meantime, why not sign up to our Discord so that you’re the first to hear Core Keeper news?