Graveyard Keeper

This game is overwhelming. And not in a good way. Because it keeps you busy forever. This is not a "game", its more like a "job" you have to do. + Nice graphics, this is pixel art done right - Its just a chore. Where is the gameplay. Do this, done that... that is not fun.

I really wanted to like this game. Titles like Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, and the Run Factory series are some of my favourites. I love the melding of slice-of-life sim with relationship building, and I thought Graveyard Keeper's focus on crafting would be a fun new spin. Unfortunately, the fun to be have in Graveyard Keeper is hidden behind an endless grind. Every item you construct needs certain resources. In turn, acquiring or creating these resources require you to have crafted other buildings or unlocked parts of the tech tree. Unsure where to find a particular resource? Better Alt+Tab out to check the wiki, because the game doesn't have anything like mousover tooltips to tell you how to create different ingredients and components. Want to complete a job for one of the villagers? Keep that wiki handy, because it's likely that completing one job requires you to complete a different job in order to unlock a quest item. Some reviews warned me this game was wiki-reliant, but I thought that meant I'd be tabbing out as often as I do in Stardew. In Graveyard Keeper, the wiki may as well be built into the game itself, because it's critical to figuring out what to do or where to go next. It's a shame, because there are a lot of pieces I enjoy. I like the art style and the dialogue is well-written. The characters drop a lot of breadcrumbs hinting at how the world works and why you've wound up looking after a graveyard outside a village, but making progress in the story is just such a grind that I'm not interested in hearing it. If all this doesn't put you off, give it a go, but I went in unprepared for the tedium baked-in to the design of Graveyard Keeper. I liken it to a mobile game, where progress is gated by timers that can only be bypassed if you swipe your credit card. In Graveyard Keeper, you don't even have that option.

Graveyard Keeper shares a lot of similarities with Stardew Valley, however the game shines with NPC interactions, all the NPC characters in this game have their own nonsensical voices, which remind me of the game, Chulip on the PS2. Your role as the Keeper slowly evolves as you collect more items, expand your home, expand the church and make blocked paths accessible. You collect materials to do this, and money is obtained by burying bodies in the local cemetary. The game seems to hold a TON of content, and you often have to wait until you collect the correct materials or wait until a path is unblocked for you to do more in the game to let you unlock stuff that you couldn't before with NPC quests. If you are a fan of Stardew Valley, you will love this game!

I was worried because the top reviews were about the game from quite a long time ago. The game in 2024 is really nice, and it's a blast to play. Great graphics, creepy mechanics, fun game.

Be aware: I only played this game with all the DLC installed, which include major gameplay features. The game is very enjoyable, thanks to its beautiful pixel art, nice soundscape, the characters and their mysteries, as well as a dash of humor. There's some truly disturbing stuff going on here, if you think about it too much, so I'd recommend that don't. The main gameplay is a lot of fun and quite addictive, with a ton of variety in how to run your graveyard/farm/vineyard/tavern/quarry/church/secret laboratory/refugee camp: There's always a ton to do and there are so many options, sometimes it can get downright overwhelming. Thankfully, there don't really seem to be any timed failure states, so you can always come back to a particular project later. That huge variety is a large part of the appeal, of course. You should bear in mind, though, that a lot of the interaction basically boils down to holding down a button while at a workstation of some kind. Also, the entire thing is a grindfest by design: Expect most quests to be about delivering more and more complex and pricier goods. Usually, there's some funny dialogue or story tidbits thrown in, though. Some mechanics (like item quality or fishing) can be a bit confusing at first and aren't properly explained. Worse, nobody tells you what workstation particular items are created at, which can lead to a lot of searching around. It would also be a great help if there was a way to see what ingredients are needed for crafting, outside of the appropriate workstation (in the tech-tree or a journal or something): Too often did I walk up to a workstation, only to realize I didn't bring the right ingredients. Buy a teleportation stone to avoid tons of walking around, by the way. I suffered no crashes and I only really noticed one bug, where the black bars of a cutscene persisted into gameplay afterwards; restarting the game fixed it, though. Overall, a fun experience, but lots of grinding; which is expected in the genre.