Getting started in Dome Keeper

Just as Trombone Champ is still rocking the Twitchosphere with hilarious sounds, a new indie game is slowly making its way onto the streamers' channels. It's called Dome KeeperA mix between defence and exploration.

What is Dome Keeper?

Dome Keeper is a small independent game released on September 27th. This roguelike, with sublime graphics, takes you to an alien planet and proposes you to defend your base against hordes of enemies. Your camp takes the form of a small dome, which you must develop as the game progresses.

In order to improve this pied-à-terre, you have an exploration period, during which you dig the ground for resources. After a while, your dome is attacked by creatures of all kinds, such as giant bats. In a gameplay similar to Missile Command, you must then protect it at all costs, or risk losing your progress. By successfully completing a game, you can unlock new bonuses to help you during your next attempts.

The optimal strategy for good digging

As you can see, to perform in Dome Keeper, you'll have to dig... well, drill to be more exact. And drilling means drilling! To be efficient, you will have to improve this tool. We will return to this point in the next section. Before we explain how to drill efficiently, let's have a quick look at the resources you can collect. Iron allows you to improve your equipment and your dome. With water, you can improve technologies. Cobalt, on the other hand, gives you the possibility to repair the dome. Having said that, let's move on to the drilling strategy.

First of all, we advise you to create a marker just below your baseThis will make it easier to spot when you come up from the depths of the planet. For example, in the first row of land, you could remove the three squares next to the dome. Even if it takes a little time to dig out those few extra squares, in the long run it will help.

Now that this preliminary stage is over, you will go to the depths. To optimise your return trips, you will have to drill a central corridor, which goes up to your base. This can be two squares wide, but if you can navigate properly, one square should be enough.

This corridor is your nerve centre, your point of reference. You must digging on both sides of this corridor, in straight lines. When you drill a line, you see the resources in the boxes just above and below. Therefore, you do not need to drill the next line entirely. Retrieve only the necessary items. Eventually, you won't have to dig the next one either, as you'll see what's in it when you drill the next one. Overall, avoid labyrinths in all directions and dig every other line from your main corridor.

Choosing the right improvements

In Dome Keeper, you have access to several upgrade trees, which allow you to upgrade your dome, your weaponry, but also your character.

Of all the proposals, your first choice should always be the drill. By upgrading your work tool quickly, you will be able to recover iron more easily, and thus upgrade other available improvements. Also remember to take the proximity radar as soon as possible. Without this addition, you will be forced to check on your own whether your dome is under the yoke of the enemies or whether you can continue exploring. With this one, you will be notified automatically, which makes it much easier.

You will then need to considerincrease the life of your dome, andbuy the inventory (moving blindly is not very practical!). At this stage you should also increase the power of your jetpackIn order to bring in more and more resources. Before moving on to the other levels of improvements to the elements already mentioned, you must increase the firepower of your laser. If you have enough iron at your disposal, don't deprive yourself: improve its speed too.

What technologies should be developed?

By digging in the right places, you will have a chance to find the chests that contain technology. Before you can take advantage of this, you will first have to track the contents of the chest back to your base. When this is done, you can choose between two technologies, or opt out and get 2 cobalts instead. These technologies are important, if not essential, if you want to survive as long as possible and win the game.

They all have a different purpose, but some should be selected first. Here are the ones we advise you to pick up quickly, as well as their purchase order:

• The lift. This is a must-have for your resource search. You can easily pull up what you find. Also, by upgrading it, you can take advantage of its pulling speed to get back to your camp faster, which allows you to stay down longer.
• The shield. The less damage you take, the more likely you are to survive over time. To limit the damage quickly, this technology should be selected second.
• The laser stunner. This tool will save you time when several creatures attack your dome. You can deal with the ones that get in the way while others are paralysed.
• The capacitor. Water is a very useful resource. Being able to generate it will allow you to access certain improvements more easily.

Fighting against different enemies

Efficiency is the name of the game in Dome Keeper. You need to be precise in the depths of the planet first, and then on the surface as you defend your base. At the start of the game, you won't be able to defend both sides of your dome simultaneously, so you need to prioritise which enemies to eliminate first. To reduce these vile creatures to ashes, we advise you toopt for the laser dome. The weapon is much easier to handle than the sword.

Some enemies attack your dome from the air, while others must make contact with the walls to inflict damage. In addition, many creatures are slow, even very slow, while others will not wait for you to assault your base. All these elements must be taken into account to defend yourself properly. Give priority to eliminating flying enemies before land-based ones. The only condition that forces you to change your strategy is that enemies have already reached your dome, and its survival is at stake. When it comes to prioritising attacks on enemies on the ground, eliminate the fastest of them first. By doing so, you will probably avoid some damage that you would not want to suffer.

As we saw earlier, it is important toimprove your laser. As a reminder, you should focus on damage that it inflicts, as well as on its speed of movement. When you can unlock it, turn your attention to the laser-double.