Premise

Terraria meets Minecraft meets Stardew Valley - Corekeeper is an outstanding addition to a pixel-art graphic indie lineup of games.

High-Level Thoughts

The interesting intersection between a variety of beloved games that could have easily done too much and muddled things up managed to expertly avoid doing so. Pulling the mining and block like structures from Minecraft, the slice of life simulation of Stardew Valley, and packaging it neatly with a light RPG ribbon on top, Corekeeper delivers at everything I expected it to when I bought it. The cherry on top is the Dark Souls-esque delivery of lore wherein the player isn't outwardly told anything, but uses context clues and item descriptions to piece things together.

Difficulty

I played on hard mode in my first world in Corekeeper, and while I wouldn't call the game outwardly difficult by any stretch - there is absolutely no handholding. The game drops you in at the start and it took me a minute to even realize what I was supposed to be doing. At first this irked me, but upon thinking about it a little bit more I kind of respect and enjoy a game that doesn't feel the need to beat me over the head with information in the first five minutes of gameplay.

The Standout: Automation

Corekeeper really hit the nail on the head of automation with this game. In Minecraft, setting up automation can be rather cumbersome and annoying, sometimes feeling like you need a PhD in redstone for the purpose of building simple farms. Corekeeper comes with none of that difficulty - the automation is very simple to set up and yet surprisingly complex in what you can do with it. Players are able to customize how intense they want their automation to be but simple farms for various resources are still more than effective enough for success. This is perhaps the strongest system in the game in my opinion.

A Small Criticism

I've come to really appreciate video game music, even indie games like Stardew Valley these days have addictive and interesting music and sound design. While Corekeeper doesn't fail on this front, I can't remember a track from memory and I played it a few hours ago. It's a very niche detail, but better music would really uplift this game to an all-time great level. When I think of indie games with absolutely fantastic music, Thronefall would be the 5/5 example with exemplary tracks. Corekeeper not reaching that high does warrant a small demerit in my final score.  

Final Thoughts

Corekeeper isn't a game I can see myself coming back to after I beat it, but should more updates be released I can definitely see me taking them for a spin. It's definitely good for 20 hours or so of fun (but much, much more if you're really into creative base building).

4.5/5