Core Keeper Guide | Tips and Tricks for Beginners

This Core Keeper Guide will teach you the basic mechanics of the game, explain the HUD, and show you a short walkthrough to help you start your adventure!

Core Keeper is a surprisingly complex game with a lot of depth. Once you've worked your way up to fighting the first boss, you'll be able to zoom around the world on a go-kart, catch bugs, and gradually open up more of the world. Read on to learn the basics of the game, starting with a quick explanation of the HUD.

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Core Keeper HUD Explanation

1. Health: Your standard health bar. If this reaches 0, you die. Health does not regenerate naturally, but you can eat food, drink a potion, or rest in a bed to restore it. Some items will give you passive health regeneration.
2. Mana: Your reserve of energy for casting magic. Mana recharges fairly quickly, but some magical weapons can use a hefty amount of Mana for a single attack.
3. Hunger: How hungry you are. If you're too hungry, you'll suffer some stat penalties. If you're stomach is full, you'll get a "Well Fed" buff that boosts your stats for a short time.
4. Buffs/Debuffs: All of your buffs and debuffs will be shown below the Hunger bar. You can put your mouse over a buff or debuff to see what it does.
5. Minimap: This shows you the map of the area immediately around you. Icons for bosses that you have located will also show up on this map, giving you an idea of which direction you need to go in order to reach them.
6. Hotbar: The Hotbar stores the items that you can use immediately. These count as inventory slots as well.
7. Off-Hand Ability: Equipped off-hand items (such as Shields) will have a special ability that can be activated by pressing this button. Some items have a cooldown which is indicated by the bar below the icon.
8. Interact Prompt: This button will light up if you can interact with something you're near.
9. Map Button: Pressing this button will open the map.
10. Inventory: Pressing this button will open the inventory.

Core Keeper Guide | Learning the Basics

Now that we've gone over the HUD, it's time to get moving with the key part of this Core Keeper Guide and explain the basic mechanics of the game. Fortunately, it's not too difficult compared to some other games in this genre.

Creating Your Character

Your first step will be to create your character. You can adjust your cosmetic look in a variety of ways, but don't stress out about this too much — you can change the look of your character later by crafting a Magic Mirror and a Dresser at the Carpenter's Workbench.

Aside from the cosmetics, you'll also have to pick your "Background" which is an initial set of starting skills and equipment. None of these bonuses are truly exclusive and you can eventually earn everything from all of the other Backgrounds. I recommend taking the "Miner" Background so you start with a Copper Pickaxe — you'll have to do a lot of digging at the beginning!

Cleaning Up the Core

You will spawn into the world on top of a Waypoint and in front of the Core. Surrounding the Core are three statues. These three statues represent the first three bosses that you'll have to take on: Glurch, Ghorm, and Malugaz. Before we worry about them, though, we'll want to start cleaning up the immediate area.

Using your Pickaxe, break up the wood logs surrounding the Core. Craft a couple of basic Chests from your inventory and place them so you can store excess items. Then craft a Basic Workbench and interact with it.

Making the Basics

The Basic Workbench gives you access to a bunch of important items for setting up your base. Here are the key items you'll need in your first couple of hours:

• Furnace: Smelts ore into bars, which can then be used for crafting.
• Cooking Pot: Allows you to cook food.
• Salvage and Repair Station: Allows you to repair and reinforce your equipment in exchange for Scrap Parts. It can also be used to break down existing tools, weapons, and armor to get Scrap Parts. It's best to craft a few cheap tools and destroy them so you can repair your good tools.
• Copper Workbench: Opens up the first half of the Copper tier of crafting.

Each biome has its own unique materials. You'll start with Copper in the Dirt Biome, and then you'll move on to Tin in The Clay Caves BIome and Iron in The Forgotten Ruins.

Progressing to new tiers of materials requires building the next Workbench at the highest one you have. You make the Copper Workbench at the Basic Workbench. The Copper Workbench opens up access to the Copper Anvil, which allows you to make more Copper items. Then you can make the Tin Workbench at the Copper Workbench, and so on.

Bedding Down and Building a Base

Your next step will be to place a Bed. Aside from giving you a spawn point, a Bed can be used to rest and restore your health over a few seconds. If you don't have a Bed set at your spawn point, you'll respawn at the Core if you die.

Generally speaking, it's a good idea to place your base near the Core. The Core has a Waypoint which can teleport you to other areas, and crafting your own Waypoints and Portals is expensive. You can't really make these items until you get to the mid-game, either, so take advantage of the Core's Waypoint in the early game and build your base near it!

Collecting Copper

Next, we want to focus on getting Copper Ore so we can make Copper armor, weapons, and tools. Getting your hands on a ranged weapon is a must, too; some of the early-game enemies can hit pretty hard!

Copper can be found throughout the Dirt Biome, and getting a full set of Copper Armor is enough to give yourself a chance against fighting Glurch. However, you can also progress to Tin and Iron before you even take on your first boss if you want to.

Fighting Glurch

Once you feel that you have solid equipment, you're going to want to start hunting for Glurch. Glurch is the first boss; it is a giant slime that is constantly jumping in place. You'll have to explore the area around the Core and listen for a slamming sound.

Once you find Glurch, you'll want to try to clean up the area near this massive monster. Pick up any slime tiles on the ground and kill any enemies in the area. Then, move in toward Glurch and start dealing damage.

Glurch can jump quite far; when Glurch lands, it can destroy any wall tiles nearby. You'll want to make sure that you don't accidentally lead Glurch toward your base. Make sure you have plenty of room to move around!

Killing Glurch spawns a chest with a few random items and a crystal. Take all of the items (and the chest!), then put the crystal in Glurch's statue near the Core. This will partially power the Core and open up a few new crafting recipes at the Glurch statue.

A Note on Enemy Spawning

When you fought Glurch, you may have noticed a bunch of orange slime on the ground. This is not just an environmental hazard — these tiles cause enemies to spawn.

Pretty much all enemies spawn based on the tiles placed on the ground. If you remove them, enemies won't spawn in that area any longer. Each type of tile spawns different kinds of enemies; you can collect these tiles and place them down elsewhere in order to make monster farms.

Placing the Merchant

Defeating Glurch will rescue the Bearded Merchant and give you an item called Slime Oil that can summon him at your base. Make a small room in your base and place a Bed and the Slime Oil in it and the Bearded Merchant will move in.

Aside from selling supplies, the Bearded Merchant sells items that can be used to re-summon certain bosses such as all giant slimes and Ghorm; you simply need to purchase these items and place them on the boss' rune to get them to reappear. Feel free to farm the bosses for fun and profit if you want!

Tackling Ghorm and Malugaz

With Glurch dead, it's time to move on to Ghorm and Malugaz. You can find the locations for them by crafting their respective Scanners at the Glurch statue near the Core. Each of these two bosses requires different strategies to fight them.

Ghorm is a gigantic worm that goes around the center of the map in a circle; it won't stop to fight you until you can do enough damage to it. I recommend having Iron equipment along with a bow in order to hurt it in the small window where it passes by a part of its tunnel.

Malugaz, on the other hand, requires a special item. You'll need to collect 3 Crystal Skull Shards, put them on your Hotbar, and right-click in order to craft a Skull of the Corrupted Shaman. You must then place this on Malugaz's rune in order to summon him.

Each of these fights are somewhat tougher than Ghorm and will require specific strategies in order for you to win; consult our guides on fighting Ghorm and Malugaz for some helpful tips!

Opening Azeos' Wilderness — and Beyond

Defeat Glurch, Ghorm, and Malugaz, then talk to the Core. The Core will give you the power to lower the wall surrounding the starting area. This will open up access to three new biomes: Azeos' Wilderness, The Desert of Beginnings, and The Sunken Sea.

Each of these three new biomes has at least two bosses to fight, new resources, and new challenges. You'll want to start with Azeos' Wilderness to get Scarlet Ore; you'll then move on to The Sunken Sea (which requires a Boat) to get Octarine Ore and The Desert of Beginnings to get Galaxite Ore.

Opening up the wall beyond the starting area is where the game truly begins, and this is where our Core Keeper Guide ends. Have fun exploring this massive underground world, and make sure to check out our other guides below!

What Happens When You Die in Core Keeper?

If you die in Core Keeper, 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.

Core Keeper Multiplayer Functionality

Core Keeper supports a total of 8 players in the same game at once with online multiplayer.

Core Keeper Save File Location

You can find the Core Keeper save file in:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Pugstorm\Core Keeper\Steam\

Where "USERNAME" is your Windows username. You'll find a numbered folder matching your Steam ID, and there are two key folders in there:

• saves: stores the data on the characters you have created
• worlds: stores the data on the worlds you have created

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Thanks for checking out our Core Keeper Guide — you can learn more about the game by checking out our other guides below!