Happy September, Explorers! Does anyone else feel like 2021 is just flying by? We won’t mention that it’s just over three months until Christmas…oops. It’s been another busy two weeks here developing Core Keeper, and we’ve spent a lot of time refining some of the core (we’ll never get tired of that pun) features of the game. We’ve also been having a lot of fun over on social media with our “choose your own adventure” game. This Friday’s video will be the fifth instalment in that 10-part series, so if you’ve not had the opportunity to join in yet, there’s still time. Outside of Core Keeper, the team spent this week’s game session playing Dark Souls the card game, which gave rise to this quote from our CEO and pixel artist, Sven: “Nearly died, highly recommended, 10/10.” We think that’s enough introductory ramble for now! Here’s what we’ve been working on… [h1]Game Testing[/h1] We’re hard at work play testing and balancing the game. Getting the pacing right and making sure that Core Keeper is challenging in all the right places and relaxing in others is something we’ll be focusing on throughout development. We don’t want to make things too easy on you, but we also don’t want you to get murdered by slimes in the first five minutes! We’re also taking a lot of time to listen to the community and understand what YOU want to see in Core Keeper while we’re making changes to the game. You’ve all done an amazing job of sharing your thoughts in the Discord, and we’d love to hear from anyone who hasn’t already done so – plenty of input from the community will help us make Core Keeper even better! Oh, and keep an eye out for info on the possibility of a closed alpha sometime in the future; we’ll be sharing [url=discord.gg/corekeeper]more on this in the Discord soon[/url]. [h1]Skills[/h1] There aren’t classes in Core Keeper, but that doesn’t mean that your character can’t specialise in certain areas of the game. That’s what skills are for! Whenever your character performs an action in game, you will gain experience in the respective skill. Levelling up skills give you a permanent bonus to your character. At the moment, we’ve implemented the following skills in Core Keeper, though these may still be subject to change before we go into Early Access: • Mining • Blacksmithing • Gardening • Running • Melee Combat • Ranged Combat • Vitality [img]https://i.imgur.com/b9PI4Nz.png[/img] [h1]Boss Scanners[/h1] There’s no telling what you’ll run into when exploring the underground. That’s why we recommend you take a torch with you rather than mining in the dark…but we know some of you like to live dangerously! While there are plenty of low-level enemies to keep you occupied, there’s always a chance you’ll run into a gigantic monster or a boss. Don’t worry too much, though. Since each game has a procedurally generated world, the risk is slim. For the more dedicated monster hunters out there, we have added boss scanners. These are artefacts that you can craft yourselves – with the right *special* materials. Using these scanners will help you track down bosses so that you can take them on in a fight. Just make sure you’ve got plenty of healing potions, some strong armour and even stronger weapons. Finally, we want to confirm that Core Keeper will now be coming to Early Access in 2022. We’d like to thank you for your patience while we work on bringing you the best possible version of the game. We hope you enjoyed this update, and we can’t wait to bring you more soon. Make sure you’re following us on Twitter ([url=https://twitter.com/CoreKeeperGame]@CoreKeeperGame[/url]) for even more Core Keeper content!