Core Keeper News

[h3]Balancing:[/h3]

• Reverted the material costs for the Iron Equipment set to use fiber instead of wool to not block progression for players struggling to find goats.
  

[h3]Bug Fixes:[/h3]

• Cave in events will no longer happen close to the Core as it was not intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where no loot or loot from the wrong tier would appear in chests found in the melody mural rooms.
  
• Rocks falling from cave-in events can no longer be dug up using a shovel as it was not intended.
  
• Furnaces and other crafters now work correctly with automation setups.
  
• Several missing reference errors have been fixed, preventing crashes.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when petting a pet that was just unequipped.
  
• Fixed an issue where painted objects like the chests would sometimes get the wrong painted color when loaded.
  

- Fixed potential loss of recent inventory data on world exit.
- Fixed error when exiting a world while having a weapon that has a secondary use equipped.

Hatch a host of colourful companions, build your dream base in Creative Mode, jam to new tunes from Stardew Valley and Valheim, and more in Core Keeper’s Paws & Claws Update!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Exploring the underground is fun, but it’s even more fun with a furry friend by your side (or perhaps a feathered friend…or a slimy one?). This free major content update brings oodles of new features, mechanics, items, music, and more. With 5 species of companion pets – each with multiple colour variations – to accompany you on your journey, plus 3 breeds of cattle, the underground is looking more alive than ever.

Em-bark on an adventure with the scrappy Subterrier; turn the heat up in battle with the fiery Embertail; surprise your enemies with the darling-but-deadly Fanhare; enjoy the perks (or should that be “pecks”?) of travelling with the timid Owlux; and discover the oozy abilities of the various Jr Slimes! You can also make friends with the adorable Moolin, Bambuck, and Strolly Poly that can be found wandering the Dirt, Meadow, Nature, and Stone Biomes to reap rewards such as Milk, Wool, Plate Armour, and…Meat.

We’ve done our very best to ensure players won’t have to start new worlds to play the Paws & Claws update, but you may find you discover new content a little quicker in fresh worlds. Oh, and did we mention that you can name and pet the animals?

[h2]Let’s Get Creative[/h2]

Our awesome community has been requesting a Creative Mode for Core Keeper since day one, and we always knew this was something we wanted to add to the game! After lots of hard work and consideration, we’re delighted to reveal that players can now access the majority of the game’s items in dedicated Creative-Mode worlds and build to their hearts’ desires.

Creative Mode worlds are completely independent to other world files in Core Keeper and can only be accessed with Creative-Mode characters. They are available to play in multiplayer and come with features such as God Mode (where players can move through objects, place them faster, and destroy them in one hit) and the “Play world” button (which toggles the enemy AI). Get together in groups of up to 8 players and start building the world of your dreams.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]New Instruments and Sheet Music[/h2]

We’ve added two new playable instruments to the game in the form of the Piano and Drumkit, as well as new Sheet Music from beloved indie titles Stardew Valley and Valheim. Both sound awesome when played solo but really shine when you get together with friends and jam out on different instruments!

We’re thrilled to be able to add ‘Spring (It’s a Big World Outside)’ from Stardew Valley and ‘Meadows’ from Valheim as playable music to the roster of indie-game songs available in Core Keeper. We love hearing the amazing work indie teams put into their soundtracks, and it’s truly an honour to be able to replicate these in Core Keeper as a nod towards our industry peers.

[h2]Decorative Items, Random Events, Community-Requested Features, Optimizations, and More![/h2]

From new paint-brush colours and a new Glass material to the long-sought-after Bucket, we’ve packed Paws & Claws full of new content. Expect to see even more rotatable objects; a brand-new Guest Mode that allows players to safely invite temporary guests into the game; secondary functions to several weapons; and random events such as cave-ins. It could be a while before you uncover all the new additions or changes we’ve made with this update, so feel free to consult our patch notes for a detailed rundown on what to expect.

With so much new content in this update, we wanted to take a moment to mention some of the behind-the-scenes additions you can expect. For example, you’ll find a list of balancing and quality-of-life improvements within our patch notes. These include things like changes to material costs when crafting or the duration of certain effects, as well as the addition of information windows within certain menus to help players become more acquainted with the game’s UI. And, of course, we’ve also been hard at work optimizing the game with features such as our new sprite rendering and animation system for objects such as plants, pets, cattle, and trees.



[h2]Get Your Hands on Our Caveling Plush Toy![/h2]

We’ve partnered with the folk over at Makeship on a campaign to bring you something very special in the form of a Caveling plush toy! Want to know how to get your hands on one? Read on!

Makeship campaigns work a bit like crowd funders in the sense they’re funded by people backing the campaign by placing pre-orders. The only way to get your hands on this cuddly Caveling is by placing a pre-order before June 1st. When we hit our pre-order goal, the plushies go into production with a view to ship in August 2023.

As long as the funding goal is hit, everyone who backed the Caveling plushie on Makeship is guaranteed to receive one. If (for whatever reason) we do not meet our funding goal, all orders will be refunded within 2-7 business days – so there’s no risk to you. Pre-order your Caveling Plushie here!



[h2]Core Keeper is on Sale until the 22nd of May[/h2]

As if the Paws & Claws Update wasn’t exciting enough, Core Keeper is currently on sale at a whopping 20% discount until 05.00 pm UTC on the 22nd of May. This is the perfect time to start your underground adventure or gift the game to a pal, as we’ll be changing the pricing of the game a few days after the sale has ended (at 09.00 am UTC on the 29th of May).

Changes to the pricing of Core Keeper will not impact users who have already purchased the game. We’ve mentioned in the past that, due to regional variations, it is difficult to quantify the price increase as a flat percentage, but we do want to share details of the changes for key regions to give you an idea of what to expect:

Updated Price in GBP = £12.99
Updated Price in USD = $15.99
Updated Price in Euros = €15,99
Updated Price in CNY = ¥62 RMB
Updated Price in JPY = ¥1,800
Updated Price in KRW = ₩17,500
Updated Price in THB = ฿330

We hope you’ve found the information in this announcement useful, Explorers. Now’s the time to jump right into the game and get hunting for Pet Eggs or start building in Creative Mode! We’re already hard at work on the Crystal Biome Update (precise name and date TBC), but we’ll be keeping an eye out for your feedback here in the Steam Discussions, over on Twitter, or in the official Core Keeper Discord server.

[h2]Main Features: [/h2]

• Pets have been added to the game! These adorable creatures can be obtained by finding a Pet Egg in the world and placing it in an Egg Incubator to hatch into a Cracked Egg. Once hatched, the Pet can be added to the new Pet Slot in the character window, spawning beside the player.
  
  Not only do Pets provide companionship, but they also help the player in combat by fighting enemies and boosting the player with buffs. As they gain combat experience, Pets will level up, making them stronger and unlocking talents that allow the player to customize the Pet’s combat capabilities. Each Pet has nine randomized talents as well as several different skins, making every Pet unique. And, yes, the pets can be petted.
  
  [h3]There are 5 new pets in the game:[/h3]
  
• Subterrier: The egg for this dog pet can sometimes be unearthed from the depths of the earth, hidden away in obscure locations across the world.
  
• Embertail: A mysterious merchant, known only as the Slime Merchant, is said to possess the egg of this cat pet.
  
• Owlux: The egg for this bird pet is said to be a rare find, some say it can only be found in certain types of crates scattered throughout the world, but which ones remain a mystery.
  
• Fanhare: Those who seek the egg of this bunny pet must venture into the Azeos wilderness, where the flowers themselves may hold the key to finding it.
  
• Slime pets:
  
• Jr. Orange Slime: The egg has a chance to be found only after facing off against the monstrous Glurch the Abominous Mass.
  
• Jr. Purple Slime: The egg has a chance to be found only after defeating Ivy the Poisonous Mass, a dangerous foe that lurks in the shadows of the Azeos Wilderness.
  
• Jr. Blue Slime: The egg of this slippery slime pet can only be found in the depths of the Sunken Sea, guarded by Morpha the Aquatic Mass.
  
• Jr. Lava Slime: The egg of this fiery slime pet is rumored to be hidden within the Molten Quarry, guarded by Igneous the Molten Mass.
  
  
• Three different types of Pet Candy of different rarities can be found throughout the world, typically in chests, destructible crates and as drops from bosses. Feed Pet Candy to a Pet to boost its experience.
  
• Cattle have been added to the game! These gentle creatures can be found throughout the world in the new Meadow sub-biome as well as in the Forgotten Ruins and Desert of Beginnings. They can be fed plants such as Heart Berries and Glow Tulips, either by hand or by placing them in the new Feed Tray. Cattle can also eat plants directly from the ground, so be careful not to let them loose in your garden! Feeding the Cattle will, in turn, allow them to produce different resources over time such as Milk or Wool.
  
  [h3]There are 3 new Cattle creatures in the game:
  [/h3]
• Moolin. This cow-like creature can be found in the Meadow sub-biome and produces Milk when fed plants.
  
• Bambuck. This goat-like creature can be found in the Meadow sub-biome and produces Wool when fed plants.
  
• Strolly Poly. This roly poly-like creature can be found in the Forgotten Ruins and Desert of Beginnings biomes and produces Strolly Poly Scales when fed insects.
  
  
• Both Pets and Cattle can be named by the player in their respective UI.
  
• New sub-biome: Meadow. Can be found in the Dirt biome and Azeos Wilderness.
  

[h2]New Items:[/h2]

• Egg Incubator. Used to hatch Pet Eggs. Can be crafted at the Copper Workbench.
  
• New item: Bucket! Allows players to fill it with water or lava and then place that water or lava in another pit or water tile. Can be crafted at the Iron Workbench.
  
• New Glass base-building items that can be painted. Light passing through will catch the painted color of the Glass. The following Glass objects can be crafted at the new Glass Workbench.
  - Glass Wall.
  - Thin Glass Wall.
  - Glass Floor.
  - Glass Bridge.
  
• Glass Smelter: Can turn any sand tiles into useful Glass.
  
• Added a new Wonky Minecart as a cheaper alternative to the regular Minecart for early game progression.
  
• New item: Sledge Hammer. Damages walls and objects in an area in front of the player. Great tool for digging out larger areas of walls. There is a Sledge Hammer for every tier in the game, and they can typically be found in destructibles and locked chests throughout the world that correspond to their tier.
  
• New instruments:
  - Drumkit, crafted at the Music Workbench.
  - Piano, crafted at the Music Workbench.
  
• A new type of unique scenery has been added where the player will find a mural with some mysterious runes carved into it. Perhaps an instrument may help unlock it! Several unique instances of this type of scenery can be found throughout the world.
  
• New Valheim - Meadows music sheet. Has a small chance to drop from Ancient Crates mainly found in the Forgotten Ruins biome.
  
• New Stardew Valley - Spring (It’s a Big World Outside) music sheet. Has a small chance to drop from Overgrown Wooden Crates and Flower Vessels mainly found in Azeos’ Wilderness.
  
• New Paint Brushes: Orange, Cyan, Pink, and Grey. This means all paintable objects can be painted with these new colors!
  
• New decorative objects:
  - Wooden Pillar. Can be painted and is crafted at the Carpenter’s Table.
  - Wash Basin. Can be painted and is crafted at the Carpenter’s Table.
  - Floor Pillow. Can be painted and is crafted at the Loom.
  - 10 new decorative Potted Plants. Can be found throughout the world.
  

[h2]New Mechanics[/h2]

• Creative Mode has been added as a new mode for worlds. Creative Mode worlds are empty and allow players to spawn any item they want from the Creative Mode UI to unleash their creativity.
  
• Casual mode has been added as an alternative to standard and hard mode for worlds. This mode allows players to enjoy the game in a more relaxed setting where monsters have less health and deal less damage.
  
• Guest mode has been added. Guest mode can be enabled in the pause menu while running a game. Enabling guest mode means that any non-admin player in the game cannot interact with the world, and creatures will not interact with them, but they can move around in the world to view it.
  
• Combat improvements:
  
• Using the Shield right before being hit by an enemy will now parry the attack meaning that it blocks all damage while also stunning non-boss enemies.
  
• Several weapons now have a secondary function that can be used by holding the right mouse button or left trigger:
  
• Axes, increases the hit area and damage.
  
• Wood bow, deals more damage.
  
• Other bows and Scholar Staff, shoots several projectiles.
  
• Spears, increases hit reach and damage and launches the player forward.
  
• Fireball Staff, creates an explosion on impact.
  
• Blow Pipe, pierces targets.
  
• Flintlock Musket now pushes back the player a bit when used.
  
• Cave-ins are a new type of event that may happen as the player is exploring the Dirt, Clay and Stone biomes. A cave-in will cause rocks to fall down from the ceiling, creating holes in the ceiling and damaging any creature or player in the way of the rocks. The rocks that appear on the ground can then be destroyed by the player for a chance to gain some loot. Cave-ins will not happen in player bases.
  
• Dangerous Explosives Deposit walls now spawn throughout the Dirt, Clay and Stone biomes. Hitting such a wall will trigger it and, after a short duration, cause it to explode. The explosion will destroy any adjacent walls and damage any creature or player that doesn't watch out! Other adjacent Explosives Deposit walls will also explode causing a chain reaction of explosions. Explosives Deposit walls can also be crafted by the player in the Alchemy Table. These walls will not appear in already explored areas in existing worlds.
  
• Lanterns are no longer considered an offhand but have their own slot in the character equipment. Any currently equipped lantern will be moved to the new slot, freeing up the offhand slot to be used for any other offhand item.
  
• The map now displays world coordinates and distance from the centre of the world in the top-right corner. The coordinates and the distance are based on the cursor position on the map.
  
• Stalagmites, Jellyfish, Corals, Water Lilies, and other similar objects found in pits and water can now be picked up using the shovel and then placed elsewhere.
  

[h2]Balancing Improvements:[/h2]

• Many crafting options in the Workbenches and some other crafting buildings have been changed to make several systems available earlier in the game. Some examples of more significant changes are:
  
• A new Copper Workbench has been added in between the Basic Workbench and the Tin Workbench.
  
• The Railway Forge and Electronics Table have been moved to the Copper Workbench.
  
• The Automation Table has been moved to the Tin Workbench.
  
• The material costs for a lot of objects have been changed.
  
• Certain items have been adjusted to require Wool or Strolly Poly Plates to be crafted.
  
• A Wood Hoe has been added to the Basic Workbench and all previous Hoes have had their tile size increased to cover a larger area.
  
• The Wood Armor can be crafted directly in the Basic Workbench and both the Wood and Copper Armor sets have had their material costs decreased.
  
• Anvils now contain their previous tiers in their crafting UI.
  
• Increased amount of Copper Ore found in the Dirt biome and also added some Copper Ore to be found in the Clay and Stone biomes. This change is intended to reflect the amount of additional Copper Bars needed to craft many of the Railway and Electronic components that now cost Copper Bars instead.
  
• Increased the drop chance of all boss trophies.
  
• Increased mining damage of all bombs and both mining and explosive damage of Crude Bombs.
  
• Food Rations now give a heal over time effect.
  
• Reduced health of enemies and bosses in hard mode worlds.
  
• Increased drop chance of the Oracle Card "Aura" from digging spots.
  
• Slightly increased the movement speed of the Explorer Backpack.
  
• Slightly reduced health of Clay and Stone Walls.
  
• Reduced the duration of poison effects.
  
• Guardian’s Potion now costs Slippery Slime instead of Poison Slime.
  
• Reduced the cost of Go-karts and they now also require some of the new resources produced by the Cattle.
  
• The glow stats on the Crystal Meteor Chunk and Core Iris have been reduced or replaced with other stats due to lanterns having their own slot now.
  

[h2]Quality-of-Life:[/h2]

• A lot of objects can now be rotated!
  
• An information window with helpful hotkeys can be toggled by pressing S on keyboard or left stick on a controller while having the inventory open. The information window is automatically shown the first time a player interacts with a chest. This is only shown automatically once after starting the game for the first time.
  

[h2]Art and Animation:[/h2]

• An alternative version of the Radical Rabbit Ears has been added. Which is called Radical Rabbit Headband.
  
• Added a Ranger background that can be selected for new characters.
  
• Updated colors of red, purple, white and black paintable Chest sprites.
  
• Updated colors of red, purple and black Bed sprites.
  
• Updated colors of black Paintable Floor & Wall sprites.
  
• Updated colors of some of the paintable Lamp sprites & lit sprites.
  
• Adjusted color of light emitted by purple and black Lamps.
  
• Adjusted color of light emitted by purple Christmas Light Decoration
  
• Updated color of black Lit Floor sprite.
  
• The placement icon will fade out after five seconds if no input is done.
  
• Added new white and pink Cherry Tree sprites to add slight visual variations among multiple trees.
  
• Adjusted visuals of status effects on Caveling Brute and Core Sentry to better match their size.
  
• Plant/Grass wobble animation now depends on the horizontal direction to the entity triggering it.
  
• Tall Grass wobble animation now has more weight to it.
  
• All bosses now have updated death animations.
  
• Visuals for the slime slow-down particle effect has been adjusted.
  
• Some adjustments to the Puffungi ripe animation.
  

[h2]Audio:[/h2]

• New damage and destroy sound effects for tiles and environmental objects.
  
• New biome music added to the Meadow sub-biome.
  
• Made adjustments to certain attack sounds for weapons.
  

[h2]Graphics: [/h2]

• Implemented a new highly optimized sprite rendering and animation system. This allows for much more efficient drawing of many sprites and solves previous limitations where some animations were turned off to save on performance (notably for plants). Porting old content to this system takes time, so not everything is using it right away, but some objects that take advantage of the new system include plants, Pets, Cattle and some objects that are commonly found in large numbers (grass, bushes, some trees).
  
• Disabled the pixel upscaling filter when the game window is at or close to the internal rendering resolution, which fixes a bug where the game was very blurry under these circumstances.
  
• Added a startup argument for manually disabling the pixel upscaling filter (-nopixelfilter). Note that, while this may make the game appear sharper, it also (by necessity) disables the smooth sub-pixel camera movement the game normally uses, which can make the camera feel jerky. It can also introduce aliasing/pixel crawl if your window resolution is not evenly divisible by the internal render resolution (480x270).
  

[h2]Other: [/h2]

• Walls of different types will no longer have a seamless transition between them but instead there will be a border between the walls, as we believe this is overall more appealing to players.
  
• Cooldowns are now always shown for weapons, previously the cooldown only showed up on the weapon if it was longer than one second.
  
• Slime Bosses will now fight any creature that threatens them and not just the player.
  
• Walls no longer take a minimum of one damage but instead take zero damage if the player does not have enough mining damage.
  
• Improved targeting logic of nearby interactable objects allowing more accurate targeting using the mouse or joystick direction.
  
• Added options to keybind equipment loadouts. The keybinds are not set by default but can be set in the Controls settings.
  
• The repair and reinforce buttons have been separated from the salvage window to their own window to more clearly distinguish salvaging and repairing items.
  
• Changed German translation of Pants from “Beinzeug” to “Hosen”.
  
• Fixed a typo across all Galaxite items that said “otherwordly” instead of “otherworldly”.
  
• Enemies will now generally be better at fighting against bosses overall in the game as an implication of the Pets being implemented, as the Pets share a lot of combat code with the enemies.
  
• A chat message now appears when a Titan Soul is gained by the player.
  
• Using a Hoe or planting seeds will no longer kill critters if the Squash Bugs option is turned off.
  
• The crafting time for buildings, such as Furnaces, are now serialized. This means that the crafting duration will no longer reset when restarting the game.
  
• Wall and ground cracks now appear immediately, regardless of network conditions.
  
• Increase the network priority of the Bomb Scarab to fix movement not updated fast enough when ping is high and/or there are a lot of them.
  
• The delete option for worlds and characters has been moved to be beside the respective save slots instead of being done through a separate menu in the settings. To confirm deleting a world or character, the player must now hold down the delete option for a little while to avoid accidentally deleting a world or character.
  
• Added an explicit version check when connecting to other players and servers, to avoid unexpected behavior. Previously it could still work if the versions were close enough.
  
• A client that experiences an unexpected disconnect will now try to reconnect automatically before giving up and exiting the game.
  
• Added a “networkSendRate” parameter to ServerConfig file which allows setting a network packet send rate, which is lower than the server tick rate. This will lower network bandwidth usage at the expense of network latency.
  

• Fixed an issue where Tentacles spawning around the player in the Sunken Sea would spawn on tiles other than water.
  
• Fixed an issue where the screen shake would trigger for all players when Azeos was flying over any player.
  
• Instrument particles from the Piano UI no longer appear when the UI is disabled.
  
• Fixed an issue where a gap would appear between Bridges and ground when having Slime on top of the bridges, resulting in something that looked like black lines appearing on the Ground Slime.
  
• Fixed an issue where the player would hit the wall instead of the object hanging on the wall when standing close to the wall.
  
• Fixed a bug where the player would sometimes change its facing direction in the wrong direction when placing large objects.
  
• Added description and name for the Mold Cicada that was missing.
  
• Fixed a bug where creatures such as Cavelings would initially start sleeping at the exact same time after starting a game.
  
• Fixed a bug where the fishing requirements for the water in the Desert biome was not correct.
  
• Fixed a bug where the exclamation emote icon would show when the character said that fishing skill was too low.
  
• Fixed a bug where players could sleep even when Poison Slime Blobs were nearby.
  
• Fixed an issue where healing beams from Caveling Scholars and Azeos Crystals would not be visible at certain angles.
  
• Fixed a bug where the chat message would show the wrong amount of materials gained when salvaging reinforced items.
  
• Fixed Boss statues blocking a bit too much, which was causing pathing issues around them.
  
• An empty character is no longer created if exiting the game from the character creation menu after starting to create a character.
  
• Fixed a bug where water did not continue to spread to areas that had not yet been procedurally generated.
  
• Fixed not being able to connect to games with a fairly small amount of packet loss.
  
• Fixed bug where pressing aborting a join game attempt might make further attempts fail with an unknown error message.
  
• Fixed Ra-Akar Energy Projectiles getting stuck on players if the player successfully dodged the projectile hit.
  

Did you know there are just 5 days to go until Core Keeper’s Paws & Claws Update? We’ve been super busy getting everything prepared for this major content update, and we’ve been sharing lots of little teasers and fun things over on Twitter too!

[h2]Caveling Plushie Twitter Giveaway[/h2]
We teased our Caveling Plushie in last week’s wrap-up and we’re very excited to announce that we’ll be selecting 2x lucky winners to get their hands on one via our Twitter giveaway! You can enter here.



[h2]Watch out for Hungry Cattle![/h2]
We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, be careful when wandering around the Meadow-sub biome with food in your hands.



[h2]Discord Emojis[/h2]
We added a whole bunch of emojis to our official Discord server. How many additions from the Paws & Claws update can you spot?



[h2]Meadow Music[/h2]
A new sub-biome means new music. Our wonderful composer, Jonathan Geer, put together this jovial arrangement for the Meadows in Core Keeper. What do you think?

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Take a Stroll Through the Stone Biome…[/h2]
…and meet some cute-looking critters! These bug-like cattle are super friendly, and we’re sure you’ll all be keen to start a farm of your own.



[h2]“I’m Smeeeeelting”[/h2]
We’re adding more and more to Core Keeper with every update, but we’re also revisiting early-game content and making some improvements and additions here. Check out our new Glass Smelter.



[h2]What’s Your Favourite Idea? Ours is Being Creative![/h2]
Here’s another cheeky Creative-Mode preview to get you excited about getting creative.



[h2]Keep That Core Tight! [/h2]
Discord user, Earl_Here, shared this super cool pic of a Core-Keeper-themed workout top that their friend made them. We love seeing your arts, crafts, and creations!



[h2]The Armory[/h2]
Check out this awesome use of circuitry in Discord user, Kalabera’s armory.



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