izigame.me

Extremely well polished for it's entry into Early Access. If you're looking for something very chill to play slowly, or enjoy with friends, Core Keeper is already in a great place and worth the low price tag of 12.99 USD.

The Good

Honestly there's so much to cover here so let's take it in sections.
Sound Design: Beautiful and stylized. The sound design was one of the first things I noticed while playing the game. From the sound of walking on slime, to the sound of stepping on a bug, to the chill tunes that help make this dark world feel like a nice place to call home. Everything about the sound in this game is already pulling me in.
Graphical Design: The mesh between the way things sound and the way things look is so impressive to me. I love me some crunchy pixel graphics, and the game not only gives me every last crunch I wanted but still serves up pretty and responsive feedback. The consistency between the style of the visual art and the audio is what really won me over though. This game knows what it's style is, and cranks it to 11 in the process.
Gameplay: Simple but rewarding. Although I feel some mechanics need tweaking (we'll cover that in "The Bad") nothing about this game feels upsetting to me. I can chill and feel a constant sense of progress. There is challenge without feeling punished and I love that in this kinda creative-exploration game. It can be a little off-putting at first to figure out what you need to do but that's part of the charm. You're not given instructions. You're dropped in and you just start going and it's very easy to figure out. Your objectives become clear as you play, even though you are never told them.
Potential: This game has a LOT of potential. I could see myself spending hours making cute bases and grinding my skills up. It will be really interesting to see just how they continue to expand on the ideas already present, and what their plans for a full release entail as the vision is made before our eyes. What amazes me the most though is for how early the game is in it's life cycle, it still feels worth the money. Lots of games have "potential" they never reach. This game has potential and even if it doesn't reach it, it still feels like a good game.

The Bad

Let's get into some of the things I didn't love, and we're gonna be really specific here because honestly the game is so great we gotta nitpick to talk about what's bad. Grind grind grind grind. Sometimes a grind is a good thing, but only when you feel a real sense of purpose and value. Some of the skills in the game (I'm looking at you fishing) feel more like a chore because they are slow. The devs have made fishing far more forgiving which makes it less of a drag on the game however leveling it can still feel like a lot of doing a repetitive minigame just for some buffs.
Crafting tables EVERYWHERE. Which table did I need for that thing I wanna make? A second base needs HOW MANY tables to be remade? This is a PAIN, and honestly a drag. Making a crafting table and seeing 12 new things, and 6 new crafting tables... Either these need a lot more stuff in them (it's early access, initial release, there's time to grow) or we need some way to combine some of these tables... Why can't higher tier tables make the things from the previous tiers? So I need my wood table, my tin table, my iron table... No thank you. I want one place I can look and see MOST of my crafting.
Let's talk lighting. Obviously the game takes place in dark caves, so we expect it to be, well, dark. It's SO HARD to light up a home though. I don't want to have torches every 4 blocks making the place look kinda ugly just so the place doesn't look dark... I don't think we need torches to be brighter, but we certainly need some fancier lights that work better and look better. I want my home to feel like a home, not just a part of the cave I put a floor on.
Lastly a lack of items is an expected bad but has already started to get better. I want lots of pretty things to deck my hall out in. I want lots of choices for walls and floors and to have lots of them be able to be recolored. Fancy furniture and lots of options that are just for looks. But I'm not shocked by this. Infact the game has already done a decent job at adding new decorative items and making existing items like carpets paintable. I just can't say that this is up-to-par with where I want to see the game and that's okay! If they keep on course I'll be removing this section from my review soon.

Overall

The game is a chill experience that gives you a sense of exploration, adventure, and development. It's great to play alone while just vibing, or with friends. For where the game is at in it's development life it's surprisingly well made and more complete then I have come to expect early access to look like. I'd dare to say this game is more complete in it's first public stage then some games are at their 1.0 launch. What it offers you is well made, beautiful, if not a just a bit hollow right now. For the price tag I think it's a great option to spend time with friends.

EDIT(s):
- 11/23/2022: UPDATED fishing section as it's been made more forgiving. REMOVED food section from "The Bad" as updates have made more basic food available in game as there is ground that grows mushrooms now (previously a limited resource). UPDATED section about lack of decorative items as updates have added more.