Whether you’re playing on a console or PC, food is super important in this game. It helps you survive, beat challenging monsters, and explore new areas.
Let’s get into Core Keeper’s food basics and share some tips to help you farm and cook like a pro.
Food 101 in Core Keeper
Before you start exploring, remember these key food rules:
- Don’t eat raw food: Some raw foods, like Peppers, can harm you, while others offer minimal benefits, only replenishing your hunger bar without any added bonuses.
- Early game must-haves:
- Mushrooms: Easy to find and help you heal
- Heartberry: Boosts your max health and helps you heal faster
- Glow Tulips: Lights up dark areas and helps with magic
- Bomb Peppers: Makes you move faster
- Large Mushrooms: These special mushrooms offer a permanent maximum health boost, making them valuable as you progress through the game.
Remember, eating foods with the same effect won’t stack the benefits.
Where to Find Crops and What They Do
Core Keeper has lots of different crops, each with its unique benefits. Here’s a breakdown of where to find some of the most important crops and their primary uses:
- Carrots: Found in the Forgotten Ruins, these crops increase armor and enhance your defense.
- Bloat Oat: Found in the Azeos Wilderness, Bloat Oat is an upgrade to Heartberry, offering more food and doubling your health regeneration.
- Pungi: Found in Mold Biomes near Azeos or the edges of the Forgotten Ruins, Pungi reduces damage from bosses and helps with health regeneration.
- Pewpa and Pine Grapple: Located in the Sunken Sea, these crops improve physical range and melee damage, respectively.
- Luna Corn and Golden Sunrise: Found in the Shimmering Frontier, these crops enhance magic damage, glow, and minion damage.
Special Foods and Their Powers
As you play more, you’ll find even better foods:
- Marbled Meat: Dropped by cattle-like creatures, this food extends base damage for 10 minutes, making it ideal for hard battles.
- Lava Meat: Obtained from Lava Hives, this food increases critical hit chance and offers low-level health regeneration.
- Golden Crops: Golden crops provide rare and epic foods that significantly increase various stats, such as health regeneration, critical damage, and attack speed. These crops are harder to come by but are well worth the effort.
Mixing Foods for Better Results
To get the most out of your food, try combining different types.
For example, eating Lava Meat with Bomb Peppers can make you faster and hit harder.
Quick Note on Fishing:
While this guide primarily focuses on crops, it’s worth mentioning that fishing plays a significant role in Core Keeper.
Fishing yields various fish that offer buffs similar to crops, with some unique benefits.
Top Food Mistakes to Avoid in Core Keeper 1.0
1. Not Keeping Your Crops Growing
One of the most important parts of good farming is making sure your crops are always growing. It’s easy to set up your farms with sprinklers and forget about them, but stopping your crop growth can slow you down. Remember:
- Focus on growing gold crops. You unlock these as your farming skills get better, and you need them to reach late-game areas.
- Keep an eye on your seed numbers. When you harvest crops, you don’t always get the same number of seeds back. Early in the game, you have about a 25% chance to get an extra seed. Try to unlock the Expert Gardener skill to increase this chance and make it easier to grow gold crops.
2. Making Too Much of the Same Food
While it might seem smart to cook a lot of your favorite meals, this can cause problems:
- If you keep making the same meal, you won’t gain as much farming experience. Try cooking different things to level up faster.
- Golden meals are much better than regular ones. For example, a normal Hearty Berry Pudding gives you 2.8 health per second for 20 seconds and 25 max health for 10 minutes. But the golden version doubles the health benefits and increases your max health to 72, plus it gives you 24% more physical melee damage for 10 minutes.
3. Not Trying New Recipes
There are over 100 different recipes in the game. If you stick to just a few, you’re missing out:
- Try mixing different ingredients based on your character class to get the best benefits.
- Cook lots of different meals to learn what they do. This way, you’ll know which meals are best for different situations.
4. Forgetting to Improve Your Cooking Skill
Your cooking skill affects how good your meals are and what rare meals you can make:
- Cook meals regularly to increase your cooking skill. Higher skills let you make rare meals with better bonuses.
- Don’t sell your crops too early. It might give you quick money, but making meals is better for improving your cooking skills and unlocking better recipes.
5. Not Realizing How Important Fishing Is
Fishing is really useful but often overlooked:
- Fishing gives you food, but also ores, junk, and special gear. Spend time getting better at fishing to get these extra benefits.
- Better fishing rods help you catch better stuff. Make different types of bait to catch more fish and better quality loot.
6. Not Setting Up Your Farms Efficiently
Automating your farms can save a lot of time, but if you don’t set them up right, it can cause problems:
- Plan your gardens to use space and resources well. For example, putting drills and sprinklers in the right pattern can help you grow more crops and collect more resources.
- Focus on getting sprinklers and important farming tools before other upgrades early in the game to keep your production steady.
7. Not Paying Attention to Golden Crops
Golden crops are super important for the late game, but many players don’t realize how crucial they are:
- Invest in farming skills and equipment that help you grow more golden crops. You need these crops for the best meals and to access advanced areas of the game.
- Regularly harvest and replant golden crops to make sure you always have enough. This helps you progress steadily and gather resources.
8. Not Managing Your Cooking Resources Well
Using your resources efficiently is key to having enough food:
- Don’t waste resources making things you don’t need. Focus on ingredients that give you the best benefits and fit your playstyle.
- Choose upgrades wisely. Pick ones that improve your cooking abilities and give long-term benefits instead of short-term gains.
9. Not Combining Buffs Effectively
Mixing different buffs from food and other sources can make you much stronger:
- Pair meals that increase your health with ones that boost your damage or defense to create a balanced and effective set of buffs.
- Choose meal combinations based on how you like to fight—whether you prefer melee, ranged, or magic attacks—to be as effective as possible in different situations.
Wrap-up
Food is super important in Core Keeper.
By knowing the basics, finding different crops, and mixing foods smartly, you’ll be ready for any challenge that comes your way.
Keep growing, keep cooking, and have fun exploring! If you haven’t bought Core Keeper yet, let me tell you why you should get this gem of a game.
