Skull Cavern tips and tricks

  • Always go on a day with good luck or even neutral at a push. This ensures the ladders have a greater chance of spawning. The more lucky items you have equipped the better. A rabbits foot in your inventory does NOT count

  • Take coffee or espresso to make sure you can move around at speed

  • If you have any jade you can swap them for staircases on a Sunday at the desert trader. This will help you skip floors easily and get lower down to find iridium nodes and complete the QI quest. You can easily duplicate jades by putting them in crystalariums

  • If you have any rubies you can swap them for spicy eels at the desert trader. This will give you +1 luck and speed for ladders and treasure rooms. You can combine this with the espresso for much faster movement

  • Take bombs or explosive ammo to help you blow up rocks and find ladders. Try placing them in large clusters of rocks to make sure you have more chances for the ladder to spawn. Use your slingshot (equipped with explosive ammo) to blow up lots of rocks when you aim at the walls

  • Take some good food! Cheese is great but failing that, something like a stack of salads from the Saloon will be good

  • If you have the lucky ring you can equip that to give you +1 luck. You can use the Ginger Island forge to combine rings if you like. There are also other good rings which appeal to different play styles. For instance, the napalm ring will cause a small explosion in your radius once you kill an enemy

  • Use your first prismatic shard to get the Galaxy Sword from the desert. Stand between the three pillars with the shard in your hand and see what happens. This will make your life a lot easier

  • An hour in Skull Cavern runs slightly slower than outside. Use this extra time to find more loot!

  • PAUSE! If you are overwhelmed by monsters, pause the game and give yourself room to breath and select the food in your inventory

  • Just pass out at the end of the day. You don't lose any items and you will be billed a maximum of 1000g but you will make that back easily with what you gain from your run

  • If you die, reset the day and try again. Practice makes perfect!