Graveyard Keeper
Graveyard Keeper is the most inaccurate medieval cemetery management sim of all time. Build and manage your own graveyard, and expand into other ventures, while finding shortcuts to cut costs. Use all the resources you can find. After all, this is a game about the spirit of capitalism, and doing whatever it takes to build a thriving business. And it’s also a love story. Face ethical dilemmas. Do you really want to spend money on that proper burger meat for the witch-burning festival, when you have so many resources lying around? Gather valuable materials and craft new items. Expand your Graveyard into a thriving business. Help yourself — gather the valuable resources scattered across the surrounding areas, and explore what this land has to offer. Quests and corpses. These dead bodies don't need all those organs, do they? Why not grind them up and sell them to the local butcher? Or you can go on proper quests, you roleplayer.
Steam User 122
Pros:
- Beautiful, consistent visuals.
- Memorable sound design.
- Great characters/narrative.
- Satisfying controls.
Combine all that together and you get a truly immersive story.
Cons:
- Restrictive customization, especially with how you lay out your graveyard.
- No character customization, not even clothes/hats.
- There is nothing to do after you complete the base game. No ambient objectives, no big-ticket items to work toward.
- No specialization. You are expected to unlock everything, you only get to pick the order you do it.
Combine all that and you get a game that has zero replay value.
I can't recommend the DLC, and here's why:
- Customization is just as restrictive in the DLC areas.
- There is still very little to work toward. No new big-ticket items. No challenging areas.
- New money-making methods fall flat because of the lack of end-game goals.
- Specialization/decision making is still non-existent.
Graveyard Keeper is a beautiful game that I'm happy I experienced, but I probably won't pick it up again for years, if ever. There's not enough personal attachment because there's so little choice. There's nothing keeping me hooked because I already did everything. DLC just gives me more of the same.
I'd love to see those issues addressed, but even if they never are I do still recommend this game. The things Graveyard Keeper does right are so excellent that I've felt their absence in every crafting/farm sim I've played since.
Steam User 91
TLDR: If you like this kind of game you must play this one with the wiki open. And honestly, that wasn't even enough for me. Usually I ended up googling "How do I get RESOURCE" and getting the answer from Reddit or an article because the fan Wiki is kind of bad.
I like Graveyard keeper a lot. But this came very close to being a "do not recommend".
I like the goal of the gameplay loop. I like the way the tech tree works. I absolutely love that you can sleep whenever you want during the day to get your energy back.
I'm very use to playing games with a wiki open. I have thousands of hours in old school rune scape, a game where it is culturally considered mandatory to read about content on the wiki before trying it so you can get a good gist of what to expect. I use the stardew valley mod that basically puts the wiki in the game.
Graveyard keeper feels like it knows that players will use wikis and went "Neat, less work for me."
It felt like every time I unlocked a new tool or ability I was frustrated to find out that I need a new surprise resource I've never even heard of to use it. And a often times it wasn't anything I had seen referenced or mentioned in game by anyone, meaning I might as well just google "How do I get X" or "How do I make Y" because the game hasn't even given me the smallest hint as to where to start with it.
So many times I've unlocked an early game progression path only to find out "Don't worry about this. You still have to go unlock 2 other things to use this. See you then." Which just makes you want to hit your head against a wall. I would have just picked to progress those two other paths first if I had known!
I'm going to keep playing. I'm enjoying it, I'll just be defaulting to the wiki a lot sooner instead of trying to figure out anything in game myself to be honest, which does take a little of the magic out of it.
Steam User 118
goth stardew valley.
Steam User 66
I really wanna love this game, but it's stressful for me to play. It doesn't explain even remotely as much as it should. I have to tab out and Google something so often, it's hard to enjoy playing it. There just needs to be more information readily available in-game. There are also some irritating things about placement. You should be able to move things around. If you place something right next to the well, you can't walk around it and it acts funky when you try to use it. One of my zombies also disappeared when I tried to place him there for work. Definitely seems like an unpolished game. Like it should be in early access still. I don't like that the quest information is so minimal and as vague as it can possibly be, and for some reason, grouped with the NPC tab. I don't understand that at all. I'll have to Google every quest in the game just to remember or figure out what it needs because all it says is something like, "Help the witch with her memory". Okay?? Help me with mine! lol!
Steam User 73
I have finished this game twice.
There are some tricks for beginners:
1. Honey is the best food in nature. It is free to be gathered and it gives you +25 energy.
2. Make "Combo Prayer (Gold)" as soon as possible. It will give you a chance to have more money and more faith in game. The game will become easier.
3. Focus on refugees quests. Then the camp will give you more food. food = energy.
Steam User 72
Its like a macabre version of stardew valley thats less polished and late game was clearly rushed in development.
Got it on sale for $3.99 highly recommend it for that price. Got 55 hours of gameplay out of it
Steam User 97
Good points:
-The art style is truly beautiful.
-The gameplay is incredibly enjoyable, especially for the first 20 hours.
Bad points:
-The game becomes overly extensive as you progress.
-Although the gameplay is good initially, it becomes increasingly repetitive and boring as the game goes on.
Quest NPCs only appear on specific days of the week, which can be frustrating if you miss them and have to wait a whole week for their return.
-You can't sleep unless your character has no energy left, so, no easy way to pass time.
-The DLCs are necessary as they contain crucial content, but they are quite expensive.
Review
Overall, this review was almost negative, but I decided to give it a positive rating because the first few hours were genuinely relaxing and enjoyable.