Review - GRAVEYARD KEEPER - Bring out your dead!
You have enough of the cheery atmosphere of Stardew Valley? You'd like to imagine that for once, you would play a bad guy doing terrible stuff instead of being your little goody two-shoes? Then, look no further and give a try to Graveyard Keeper, in which you'll carve into warm corpses and feed their rosy ass-cheeks to innocent villagers, before digging graves and throwing extra corpses in the nearby river.
A nice program, isn't it? Say thanks to Lazy Bear Games, a great young developer which already gave us Punch Club a few years ago! (nice but grindy "fighting/management" game!)
| Store | Platform | OVERALL RATING: 92% |
| Buy it on GOG | PC |
+ THE POSITIVE
+ The best pixel art ever?+ Easily understandable UI + Dark humor, sometimes a la Monty Python + RPG-like skill tree + The game doesn't hold your hand + Potentially very long gameplay time + Soothing medieval OST + Constantly updated! Buuut...
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THE NEGATIVE
- Despite the updates, still a bit grindy!(that's the main problem with Lazy Bear Games!) - Needs a bigger inventory! - Carts and horses would be great to transport large amounts of items... |
| Buy on Microsoft | Xbox One |
HARVEST CORPSES🥩Basically, we're dealing with one of these countless Harvest Moon clones, in which you manage some kind of farm, harvest your vegetables, raise your pigs or something...
....
Except this time, you manage a graveyard, you harvest corpses, and the only meat you'll get will be from these very same corpses you have to bury in your graveyard, next to your own house. Yep, it's the dark side of Stardew Valley that they didn't want you to see.😅
Did we mention you'll also profit from the dead and even try cannibalism sometimes?
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| Best pick-up line ever. I'm trying it at the next local celebrity burial. |
Note!
The game is 100% playable with a gamepad! There are only a few tasks which don't feel very intuitive, like selecting what quality you want to craft certain items. (Recommended gamepads: CLICK HERE)The game storyline is actually a bit confusing, especially for the main character himself..
You die in a stupid accident, and you're transported from modern times to some kind of messed up medieval European town. (I think it was a bit unnecessary... Just starting the game directly in medieval times and focusing on being the graveyard keeper would have been enough...)
Anyway, very quickly, you're being assigned to the local cemetery and church, and your first task will be to find Gerry, who is a rather amusing floating skull(which reminded us a bit of "Morte" in Planescape Torment, which you can get here), and also your only real friend...
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| At some point, the body resurrected, and I told him "hey it's a bit late to be asking for a second opinion. This is an autopsy, dude." *removes his spleen* |
Gerry is actually the former graveyard keeper, and he'll give you your first basic "missions", which are in fact neatly designed tutorials. Go back to him if you're stuck, as he'll often give you nice hints and tips at first, like what to do with corpses...
Well, for example, for your "initiation", Gerry will ask you to go pick up a corpse which was just being "delivered", remove some chunks of flesh, and then sell them to the local tavern for money, AND the most important, don't forget to bring back him a beer!
If this couldn't set perfectly the tone of the game for you, maybe this video will!
Complete some quick amusing tutorials, and then, you're finally on your own, eager to build your dream graveyard!
After Gerry, your second friend will be a communist talking donkey, complaining that he's not paid enough to deliver you corpses! Oh, and you'll also meet the bishop, who will ask you to improve the rating of your graveyard. Everything comes down to this.
Some people will feel lost, others will be in paradise: the game doesn't hold your hand. YOU'RE TOTALLY ON YOUR OWN.
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| See? I wasn't lying to you when I said there would be family-friendly activities! By the way, here's a tip: if people make you sick... COOK THEM LONGER.😋 |
FIRST THING YOU NEED TO DO!
As early in the game as possible, try to get the UPGRADED TOOLS!
1) Build
the wooden anvil,
2) Buy some iron bars from the blacksmith
3) Craft
materials to build the furnace
4) Use furnace and anvil to craft the
upgraded tools!
The iron tools will make your life immensely easier, as they're a considerable upgrade, allowing you to accomplish MUCH more with your time.
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| Damn it... Just because I didn't cover his grave, the ghost of the town's tax collector is stalking me everywhere now! Ugh! |
But the UI is so easy and functional, you never feel lost, and you always know what are your quests, how to perform tasks, etc. Okay, If you're one of these guys who like to be shown clearly on the map where to go and what to do, you might be annoyed. You do have to use your memory a lot. Others will appreciate the old-school approach, letting players discovering mechanics themselves, experimenting strategies and uncovering unexpected secrets!
Also, the game isn't that big, and as soon as you're used to the map, you'll know where to go to get your stuff.
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| Don't mind me here. Just digging my own grave. *whistles* |
HOW TO PROGRESS FASTER EARLY IN THE GAME?
- To progress early in the game faster, try to focus on improving your graveyard points first!- To progress even faster, focus at first on collecting red and green tech points.
Clear vines(lots of them around your house and graveyard!), they'll give you lots of green points!
The beautiful day/night cycle (you don't have to go to sleep, though! But you do have to sleep in order to save your game!) and the time limit you get about handling corpses adds an interesting challenge, and will often lead to interesting situations in which you'll ask yourself:
"do I bother to bury that guy, or do I just throw him in the river, and gain considerable time, and avoid getting a stupid lumbago?" 😂
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| Tip: invest your first points in "Building"! Then a bit in "Theology". After a week, invest in "Smithing"!(sharper tools!) |
- Farming!
- Fishing!
- Building decorations for your cemetery!
- Giving sermons and get cash!
- Explore your cellar, and dungeons!
- Talk to lots of npcs who will give you hours-long quests!
SOME THINGS WHICH COULD BE IMPROVED
The biggest complaint the game got was about being too grindy.
The developers have been updating the game daily though, and the game is already way less grindy as of version 1.029. Tools are much more efficient, some crafts are shorter, days are longer(which is very important and some quest givers are available only at specific times of the day), some requirements have been decreased, etc. Overall, the game is very enjoyable now.
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| My arch-enemy in games, bats! Will they ever stop tormenting me? |
Clearly, the inventory always feels too small, no matter what. There are trunks conveniently scattered everywhere on the map, but you tend to forget what you put inside after a few days, and your items end up being a bit everywhere... Sometimes, we ended up just putting items down to see clearly where they were.
So, either making the inventory bigger, or giving the ability to carry a backpack, or maybe even a horse/cart, would improve the gameplay by a large margin.
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| So, yeah... This is one of the cases I would have appreciated a bigger inventory or a cart and a donkey, see? #SAVETHEFOREST (credits: some guy on Steam...) |
Also, although we said the map is small and it's easy to remember places, just making a better interactive maps showing instantly who sells what would help lots of players.
A little detail: we appreciate the teleport stone immensely(which has just been added in a recent update!), but since we have to wait for it to recharge, being able to sprint infinitely would make little trips more enjoyable too!
Or, AGAIN, having a horse, which would make sense...
TIP!
If you have a corpse that has a negative effect on your graveyard, you may toss it in the river, it won't have negative consequences! |
| Aahhh... My favorite place for fishing, and peeing. Wait...🤔 |
GRAPHICS - STARS IN MY EYES! 🤩
One of the most visually pleasing 2D games ever made. It's hard to find anything wrong with it. You'll be blown away by the gorgeous lighting engine when the first night comes.
We LOVE the mix of ironic macabre and satiric grotesque atmosphere, which reminds us a lot of Discworld 2(and therefore the Monty Python as well), as Lily mentions in her mini-review.
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| The developers of "Lazy Bear Games" should be renamed "Creative Bear Games". They really created one of the most beautiful 2D games ever. |
Just a personal thought
Actually,
between you and us, games in the 90s had more character, really... The developers of Graveyard Keeper could have gone a bit more crazy and added more crazy characters like in the Discworld games, it would have been very appropriate.
We could complain about the limited character animations, but everything else feels very lively. Trees and twigs waving around when the wind rises, little riddles on the surface of the water, Graveyard Keeper's world breathes like a living entity!
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| Unlike Stardew Valley which looked very vibrant and colorful, which made it a bit childish(in a GOOD way!), Graveyard Keeper uses a much more realistic and diverse color palette. |
MUSIC - SOOTHING LUTHS! 😌🎶
Very soothing high-quality medieval music, which fits the theme of the game perfectly.
Just one complaint: we want more tracks! 😋
Because there aren't enough tracks, it might sound a bit repetitive after a while.
Hopefully, the game might get additional tracks in future updates!
SFX are extremely discreet, but the few of them you'll hear are good, and tend to be realistic. As it's too often the case in most 2D games, environmental SFX are lacking, and it's even more obvious if you turn the music off, making the world a bit more "dead"...
LILY'S OPINION - CAN'T STOP PLAYING IT!
This game is ADDICTIVE, and although I used to think it was just a Stardew Valley clone, the unique art style, extremely satisfying mechanics, and overall atmosphere make it stand out from the crowd and puts it on top of the podium of 2D sandbox games. (Terraria is still #1 in my heart, though.)I LOVE the black humor, especially in the dialogues, and although you perform terrible acts(who doesn't love to cut bodies apart and eat their meat?), the game never really takes itself seriously, and feels almost like a Terry Pratchett story. Even tasks which would seem horrible in real-life are kinda hilarious in this game!
I can't wait to see what the developers are cooking for the next updates!
RATING BOX
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VERSION TESTED:1.029
Publisher:
Developer:
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| GRAPHICS: 96% | |
| Not sure if it could look better than that. Besides some old semi-realistic strategy games like Desperados, such masterful pixel art is a very rare sight nowadays. | |
| MUSIC: 85% | |
| Very nice medieval music which fits the atmosphere very well. | |
| SOUNDS: 74% | |
| You don't really pay attention to them while playing. Good, but nothing out of the ordinary. | |
| GAMEPLAY: 89% | |
| One of these "just one more day" addictive formula! The game rewards experimenting, and the very various mechanics offer you a long gameplay time! | |
| OVERALL RATING: 92% | |
| Overall, a very satisfying game served by gorgeous aesthetics, offering you never-seen-before(or rarely-seen-before?) questionable quests! One of the best management/farming games of the 2010s! |
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