Graveyard Keeper – [Review]

By: Thunderheavyarm

Going through life there’s nothing more wholesome than responding to your ringing phone while carrying a bag of groceries while crossing a street illegally. At least until you’re hit by a car, killed and sent to another world to be a graveyard keeper. At least that’s the scenario given by developer Lazy Bear Games and publisher tinyBuild in their new RPG adventure game Graveyard Keeper.

Gameplay

So what immediately struck me was a car. Followed shortly after by the realization that the game played very similarly to Stardew Valley. The similarities do not go far past the basics of farming and combat. Where in Stardew Valley you play as an overworked city dweller looking to escape from the drudgery of your everyday; in Graveyard Keeper you are trying to escape this world so that you can return to your wife. But in order to do that, you need to learn the mysteries of the world to unlock technologies to improve yourself while still maintaining the graveyard forced upon you.

So as I said before, much like Stardew Valley there is some farming, fishing, resource gathering and combat. Which makes you wonder why I didn’t call this a Stardew Valley clone with just a lot of tongue in cheek jokes and more cursing. While it does borrow heavily from well established mechanics for this genre, the new mechanics that it has actually set it apart. The things I saw that really made it became a game of its own was the technology tree, along with two new systems relating to the graveyard and the church.

The tech tree in the game is enormous. Split across 6 different upgradable paths, each opens up not only new craftable items in that tree but also opens up the other trees as well. For instance, if you wanted to improve on the shoddy rusty tools you start with—spoiler alert: you do-- not only will you need to learn how to mine for iron ore, but you’ll need to learn how to build both a furnace and an anvil. But to get these first you’ll need to unlock the ability to build those in a completely different tree.

On top of that, where in other games you pick up recipes by progressing the story, this game gives more benefit to grinding resources. Every time you craft, chop down, dig, pull up or bake an item gets you points dependent on if that item was crafted using machinery, if it was a nature based object or an item of faith and gives you points based on that. You then use those points to open up more paths to learn new crafts or perks. But be careful, as buying something out of order will prolong your grind as I found out when I bought a new sword upgrade without learning how to create the new metal I needed first.

The other new mechanics revolve predominantly around the graveyard and the church. As you start the game, the character Bishop entrusts you with maintaining both the graveyard and the church. Both of which are represented by a prestige level and a faith level respectfully. While at this time I haven’t been able to devise what the point of the prestige is, beyond a gating mechanism to advance the story, faith plays a key factor in the game.

Faith is used to power your prayers and make them work in the most obvious sense. From shilling more donations from your flock to improving the crops that you’re trying to grow, the stronger your faith score the more likely the prayer is to succeed. Faith also manifests itself into large glowing orbs that you use in combination with science—don’t ask!--to research items to get more points to level up the tech tree more. While it’s not overly complex, crafting the right prayer for your situation can help you progress through the many gates the game throws up at you slightly faster.

Characters

Might seem odd that I’m taking time to talk about characters in a very retro style of game. Especially since the only real time you talk to people is to advance the story rather than build up relationships like you do in Stardew Valley. That sad for a game where there is no voice acting the characters are enjoyable and unique. From the bishop with a very clear Narcisist problem to a communistic mule. All of the characters, despite the sheer amount of gating they impose, are very fun to interact with for the story.

Music

While it only has the one main track, the music that plays is very reminiscent of retro games. Very low and rythmic it fits the bleak scenario that the keeper is stuck in well. While it does get monotonous to the point that I’m able to easily tune it out, every once in a while hearing it again is still nice. Although having another track to listen to would be a welcome change, but that’s what future updates are for after all.

Pacing

This is the part where I want to say that the game struggles. But in actuality I think that’s mostly due to inexperience and poor choices I made in the opening moves. The biggest obstacle this game has is well, all of the obstacles that the game throws at you, gating your progress until you find either the item, technology or even the cash needed to buy my way through it. There were plenty of times where I would unbar my path only to have it immediately shut closed on me. But then I would find myself drawn in once again for several hours. Wanting desperately to overcome the latest challenge. Even understanding that doing so would just lead to another rage quit. I’ll say this for the game, if the pacing is used as a way to make the game replayability go up, mission accomplished.

Review

If you want to know just how much fun I had playing this game, while I’ve been writing this I’ve been playing the game at the same time on my main computer. The difficulty curve of the gates can be a bit steep for those who aren’t experienced with these kind of games might be a bit discouraged. That said, overcoming them you see an immediate jump in play speed for awhile and feel like you are making progress.

For those of you who are interested, the game comes out today on 8/15 and is available for both Xbox and Steam.  Experience the most inaccurate medieval graveyard simulator of the year! Embrace your inner capitalist and try to return home. And until I can actually break away from this game again…

GG, everyone!