One dungeon that may give players some trouble in Stardew Valley is the Skull Cavern. Players can access this dungeon after getting to the bottom floor of the mines and unlocking the bus to Calico Desert.
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While the lower levels of the mines in Pelican Town had some tougher enemies, the Skull Cavern can be a huge step in difficulty for many players. If players aren’t careful, they can find themselves losing their health, items, and time.
The two most important things for players to bring to Skull Cavern is a strong weapon and healing items. The best way to get healing items in bulk is to create various cooking recipes as many of them provide good amounts of health, energy, and passive benefits. Weapons can be purchased from the Adventurer’s Guild up by the mines as well as gotten through other means.
As players go through Skull Cavern, players should make sure that their pickaxe and weapon are next to each other. This is so players can quickly react to anything trying to ambush them while they mine for resources. On the other side of their weapon, players should keep their available healing items so they’re less likely to lose all their health at once.
Unlike the mines, there are no elevators in Skull Cavern. This means that players need to start from the beginning of the dungeon every time they enter it. With rewards more likely to be better the further players get in the dungeon, there is a faster method to move forward than ladders. If players find a hole in the ground, they can use it to go down a random number of floors. In exchange, players will take damage with more damage being dealt the further they fall.
The Luck stat is also a helpful thing that can make finding helpful items in Skull Cavern much easier. Players can check their daily luck by watching the Fortune Teller channel on TV with certain foods also increasing Luck. The Special Charm obtained from the Secret Note #20 Puzzle also gives players a permanent luck increase.
The last thing that players need to consider is the clock. Unlike the mines where players can enter at any time they want, players are limited by when Pam arrives to work. This is because Pam is the one driving to Calico Desert. Unless players are able to teleport to the desert, this gives players much less time to explore the caverns.
Stardew Valley is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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