Graveyard Keeper

The comparisons to Stardew Valley are inevitable. I really like both, but for different reasons. Still, since I imagine most people who're considering this have already played Stardew, that'll be a good frame of reference. Where Stardew is very zen, Graveyard Keeper keeps you much busier. There is still an energy meter, but I find it much easier to fill. You can sleep whenever you want, and only for as long as you need to fill it up (or less, even). The day/night cycle exists and affects what's going on, but I've yet to come to a point of being forced to sleep. Crafting is also a much bigger part of GK, and I'm cranking out bread and other foods which give a good return on energy. Gathering has been much easier as well. Stardew, to me, involves a lot of just waiting for things to happen. It's fun, but at least in the early game you get into a routine. In GK I feel like I have 800 things going on, but in a good way. I haven't encountered any deadlines yet, instead it's "oh yeah, I wanted to do that" or "maybe I'll try this today today instead." The NPCs are well-written enough, although building relationships doesn't seem to be a core mechanic like it was in Stardew. I also haven't found the learning curve to be particularly steep. Money barely matters, since you can build basically everything yourself (or at least I haven't hit anything I couldn't in my few hours so far), and you don't need money for new crops (or bodies in this case). I've gotten some cash from burials, but have only needed to buy some beer for a quest and I just grabbed an iron ingot since I haven't farmed the mats to make my own furnace yet. But this was convenience rather than necessity, and the ingot was 80 copper out of my 5 silver. You also get research points by doing the stuff you'd be doing anyway: crafting, gathering, which lets you unlock new skills or buildings. And remember: if you don't want to bury someone or you run out of space, there is a river nearby....

I bought this game in 2020 and after near 60 hours of gameplay, finally managed to finish it. What can I say about this game? Well, in my opinion it is an amazing game that I enjoyed in every minute of gameplay. The graphics are just beautifull. The game has a pixelated art, which is a pleasure to the eyes. In a first moment I tought it was too simple, until I realized that every aspect of the graphical part of the game is a minucious work, with details that make the game world to look alive. The sound is a good work, with many sound effects that complement the experience and fits exactly the way a think they should fit. Game mechanics is really interesting. Although the game may look hard in the beginning, with the player having to do many activities (like cutting wood, mining stone and constructing tools and itens) it change completelly once the player achieves the capacity of creating zombies. Then, the zombies can be used to automate many of the activities, leaving more time to the player to do other activities. The experience system is excellent, following the concept of tech trees that can be unlocked accordingly the player needs. And the storyline is a nice job, with a solid main questline and some side quest that unlock new skills or helps the player to achieve parts of the main quest. The game difficulty is excellent. Not so easy that makes the game boring, nor so hard that makes the game annoying. And, to my pleasant surprise, the game is available in Portuguese, with a excellent translation, in wich I could found only one error. Resuming, the game was an excellent addition to my collection. In my opinion, a solid 5 star game. I just wishlisted the DLCs, which I should buy as soon as I finish other pending games, or as they go on sale.

Stardew valley with much better theme, more interesting story but gameplay-wise it feels a bit shallow. Nevertheless, enjoyed every bit of the game. Great soundtrack.

This game is awesome! I love the dark nuances and the questlines are entertaining. But i understand when peoples say that its too grindy, because you often see youself in veery long crafting chains (you want to build an anvil, but first you need iron and iron ore is behind a broken bridge, so you need wooden planks but you need the crafting device first etc...) and thats why is say: Use mods! There is one named keepers needs and it adds for example a running function wich shortens the grind and makes the game perfect imo :)

I'm seeing a lot of reviews from early in the game which say it's unfinished and unpolished -- I played it after all of the DLC had been released, so I can't talk about what it was like at release, but this game took over my life for a while in a really good way. I like Stardew Valley fine as a whole, but I took to Graveyard Keeper a lot better, possibly because I was goth in high school. I'm less into farming, which is very much there in GK but a little bit less of a focus; GK is more about navigating crafting trees. It's very similar to Factorio in that regard, but it's a lot less...Factorio about it than Factorio is, if you know what I mean. I did love itvery much, but there is a line -- and it's different for everybody -- that most people hit with it where you're perhaps too stupid for it and you never pick it up again and it sits in your library quietly judging you and you just go on with your life, a little weight off of your mind. GK is plenty intricate and you'll need to make some diagrams, but it's more about organization and management than comprehension. GK is also lovely -- look at those screenshots! That's some beautiful art! -- and I found it a lovely world to hang out in. There's a ton of fun characters to befriend, everybody has these quest lines that are really satisfyingly journaled and laid out -- as a Capricorn, I do love a game that makes you create a routine for yourself and a bunch of to-do lists and lets you complete them at your own pace. There's a pile of stuff, and you can tackle it however you like. The wall I *did* hit was because that pile is a little TOO large with all of the DLC installed at once -- each has a new mechanic and storyline, and there's just so much of it. Breaking Dead contains zombies which act as automation and are a fairly essential QOL feature, but I'd advise holding off on the others until further in the base game -- if I'd paced it better, I would have been less overwhelmed. In short, I highly recommend it!