I recently saw it climb up the Steam charts, with the latest figure topping 500K copies sold. That caught my eye. But more than raw popularity, I was intrigued by the idea of a game with a bit of Terraria

Pugstorm and Fireshine Games' sandbox survival title launched in full for PC and current-gen consoles in August, with last-gen and Switch versions coming later this week.

You can choose to place different monster floor tiles in a single space or place it in separate areas in your base.

It’s a classic formula that will appeal to fans of base-builder survival sims, and the game sold more than 500,000 units in the first two weeks of Steam early access. I’ve been describing the game to friends as a top-down

Right away, use the basic crafting available to you in your pack menu to make some torches, a pickaxe, and the workbench. Everything else can wait for a bit, since you’ll need a few other key items and upgrades before you go much further.

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).

If you like games in this genre, then you'll love it, and even if you don't like games in this genre, this could be the one that converts you.

At least I managed to swing my sword and not a pudding this time. But afterwards I ran back home through brightly lit tunnels as fast as my little legs could take me, and now I'm Core Keeper Gameplay cooking up some glowing larvae steaks.

Spirit Merchant (technically traded). Each of these marks the exact location of an outer biome boss spawn. Each scanner recipe uses a resource unique to the boss's biome. Either found on the ground or as a mob drop.

Customize your character’s appearance and choose from an array of powerful armor and unique outfits to suit the moment.

Players can farm most skills with various AFK methods, to gain earlier advantage from some stronger buffs and useful talents. However, this is unnecessary in a normal playthrough. Especially since skill levelling was made substantially quicker in the 0.5 Desert Update.

Face legendary Titans that hold the secret to this long-forgotten world. Sharpen your combat skills against a variety of monsters and mini-bosses, spend talent points to level up your abilities, and plan your strategy to conquer these colossal creatures of the underground. Discover rare and powerful loot to help you on your journey and power up the Core.

And I've got a nice dirt patch where I can plunk down seeds, I dug a long trench from a pond all the way to my base so I can fill my watering can without having to venture out, and I've even got a patch of rock set up to grow my new carrots (they're actually called carrocks, since they only grow on rock). Rather than giving you recipes and telling you what ingredients you need, you just take two ingredients—any two ingredients, even two of the same ingredient—throw them in the pot, and see what comes out.