Graveyard Keeper

Good humor and atmosphere

I love exploring and learning, but the game refuses to teach you anything.
Hey go defeat some slimes, but I won't tell you how to attack.
Hey you need to research asap, but I won't tell you how to get all the required resources.
Hey you can use zombies for labor, but I won't tell you how to get zombies.
Hey go dig up this grave. Which one? Dunno, I will never repeat it and not keep track of it.

Every time you start having fun, you realize it's because you aren't doing any progress.
How does one progress? Google it, or keep guessing for in game WEEKS

Nice story, easy to play but need a little open graveyard wiki to make it fun.

Good Stardew-like game but with a darker theme. While the farming isn't as pushed as with Stardew or similar games, the crafting experience is a lot more developed with unlocks and science grinding.

This game is grindier than most, but to me, personally, it was easier than stuff like Stardew since the game gives you clear quests objectives with an actual ending. There are a few mods out there, some of which can help you move faster or reduce some of the grind if it's too much for you, because I do think the game is fun and interesting.

There's so much to discover and do in this game, I can easily play it for consecutive hours on a row. It lets you play at your pace, which I find refreshing as most games nowadays can be so time sensitive/ anxiety inducing. Highly recommend it if your looking for something to relax and explore the world.

Good game with lots to do. Eventually it starts to get grindy, but by then you should have zombies to help ease the burden. A little confusing on how to do most things... there isn't great guidance throughout, but some things are able to be figures out on your own eventually (some things I had to look up bc after 28 hours I still haven't figured them out.)

Love the game. It is more in depth than I was expecting it to be. I am enjoying it very much.

Very good, better with mods

I played this game for more than 50 hours. I expected to be somewhat like stardew valley or other games like that, but this game has none of the freedom of casual RPGs like stardew valley.

The plot is linear, every play of the game will be almost the exact same save for the endless amount of time spent trying to figure out how to progress a character story or waiting for the week system to pass. It seemed cool at first, like the stardew valley holidays, but its every day. For some quests if you have nothing else to do but wait a week for a single person to reappear, and it gets exhausting. By the end of the game, I was literally begging for it to end.
I feel completely unsatisfied after playing this game. No personal development, no candid interactions with any important NPCs, I hate the "relationship" system because its just a measure of how far you are through linear quest based story, with no other purpose for raising relationship other than to finish the goddamn game.
I like the games graphics, it has cool art and unique mechanics, but by god the world is full of nothing but tedious tasks that lose their flavor after you figure out how they actually work.
With games like this i expect to have to look stuff up to find out how to get certain things done, but the things I had to look up were rediculous. Things that should be noted in the NPC quest menu often weren't there, and you had to wander around doing whatever until you could either meet with them and discover a box over their head, or until you make the goddamn beer and burgers for the inquisitor.

If you want a time sink, I'd say this is one of the better ones out there, but I feel empty after playing this. I feel so unconnected to the characters because all they would ever say to me was "give me this" and "i have this relationship with another person". I get the point is it's an undesired isekai, but you could at least have the NPCs be something other than tedious quest givers.

Sorry devs, I can tell a lot of work went into this, and I did enjoy parts of it, but ending it drained my soul.

Great game to prevent Alzheimer's. You keep a lot of things in the head :)
And good for nerves. No rush, no pressure.
And a LOT of fun :)

This was a fun but also difficult game for me. The most difficult part was figuring out the altering corpse quality stuff. Hurt my brain. Constantly taking out different intestines, brains, and hearts only to be worse or back where I started. LOL, not my thing. I looked through several youtube videos and typed up guides to try and figure it out.
Another hard thing was quest tracking and losing my place. Being able to track a quest on the screen would have been a plus. Same with when losing my place. I would be crafting an item and completely forget what I was crafting it for, because I have like several quests going. Then all the quests chain into each other. You can't do this, this, or this without talking to this person in 6 days LOL.
Anyways, I started playing a while back, had a hard time, and came back to it recently and beat it. The story had me curious and I enjoyed the humor that came along with it. I love farming, cooking, and fishing (although I despise fishing games, I wish some games would give you a checkbox if you don't want to play that way).
Somewhat of a similar vibe to SDV, but it is NOT SDV.

good game well played, YOGYAKARTA tetap ISTIMEWA

Graveyard Keeper is funny, charming and addictive.

It has a mild replayability since it has a pretty heavy linearity to the storyline and not a huge amount of wiggle room for branching out from completing certain tasks in a certain order to continue the questlines.

It can be very satisfying to level up the tech tree, upgrade your work yard, optimise your resources and farming, but starts off very grindy and the days go by very quickly which can feel stressful.

If I had to highlight two bits of essential advice that the game won't tell you up front:

Dont use up your first simple iron parts you salvage from inside your cellar on random shit, use them to make the furnace (so you can melt iron, make an anvil, and then be able to replenish simple iron parts) If you use them up before doing this, you'll need to purchase more from the blacksmith just to progress further which isnt the end of the world but it is hard to make money in the early game so will set you back hugely.

And the second bit, buy the dang teleport stone from Horadric. You buy it once and use it forever, it is game-changing for making the constant running around the game manageable when you can just jump across the place to a list of locations (as long as you have visited them once before) in a few clicks instead of spending two in game days walking there just to miss the timing of the person you're trying to visit or the time of day you needed to be there to trigger an event.

A not so essential bit of advice but still something I find helps, you can get blue tech points from crafting stone grave fences. Its grindy, but with just a bit of a grind you can unlock a bunch of tech tree items way sooner (and cheaper) than if you rely on just organs and books.

I absolutely loved this game, I don't understand any of the negative comments about it, it's not grindy in comparison to other titles of the same genre. In fact, the other titles in the genre don't have the hilarious and engaging story that Graveyard Keeper has. This game doesn't hand hold, you do have to figure things out on your own but I enjoyed that, you can use the wiki to make it easier on yourself but I didn't do that except once or twice, it's really NOT needed to play and enjoy the game. I highly recommend the DLC's as well, I would suggest buying them all then starting the game so you can progress along in the story whilst getting boosts from completing DLC parts. The DLC's aren't necessary to enjoy the base game but I definitely thought they were a great addition and added to the fun. Graveyard Keeper is a finished and polished game that I highly recommend.

good pixel graphic style game very complex and a ton to do

It's fun to play Lost the do creating the Zombie Army was really fun

don't get this for a quick and tight indie game. God this game is so bloated. it does NOT have to be this long. it keeps trying to do EVERYTHING. cooking, health, stamina, wood working, ADVANCED wood working, then masonry, DIFFERENT masonry, going into fishing, and then ALCHEMY - that's NOT ALL!!! You have to manage a tech tree with 3 different point trackers, along with all the quests!! I'm not evening tending the actual GRAVES because the 'plot' keeps me moving everywhere else! Then the zombies! who HURT your game play because they take your tech points! There is SO MUCH BLOAT. I would never recommend this, it's got so much shit going on I don't even have an idea of what the hell to progress so it makes the whole game screech to a grind when i have to go back and grind over and over again to barely advance one quest - I'm not even clear on which quest is the main one. the bishop? insiquitor? the astronomer? all of them at one? is there morality?? this game has no idea what it wants you to focus on, or what you SHOULD focus on. omg and then the dungeon.... there shouldn't be any possible way to soft lock yourself in a game today... it's all too much. im going to keep playing to see if it gets better, but i can't say to buy this to anyone at all because the grind for the first FIFTEEN HOURS is mind-rottingly boring.

Funny, there are some bugs, not polished and grindy. It's not a game for everyone, but really fun. A LOT of stuff to do.

evil stardew


grindier, missing some quality of life, and a little hard/slow to find things to progress. fun as grindy chill out stardew. love juggling all the different chores

If Stardew Valley had a grindier, more confusing, 'darker' sibling.

At first it was fun. Addictive even. But like I said - super grindy and confusing. You'd be pulling up multiple tabs of google/wiki/reddit bc the game isn't very helpful *at all* in providing info. And whenever you wanna do something, you can't bc you gotta do something first, and before you can do *that* thing, you gotta do some other thing as well, and then some other thing before *that* - and it all needs some researching. Yet somehow, you just can't stop playing! There's so many things to do.

But after a while, playing started to feel like a chore until eventually it was just like "I can't fucking wait to break free from the clutches of this goddamn game." So I did, and simply resorted to youtube for the ending. Apparently, the ending is sooo unsatisfying as well. Many others echo this sentiment.

I'm just pissed that I wasted 60+ hours on this game. It's just not a game that's worth starting/playing.

tl;dr Mods solve basically all issues I have. Overall had an okay time playing, but wouldn't recommend it because the game feels like it's actively trying to be frustrating whenever you start to enjoy a part of it.

There's no decisions to make in this game, either you do the thing to complete a quest or you're just locked out of it. Graveyard Keeper has a lot of fun mechanics on its own, but every time you start to enjoy something it either becomes useless or it forces you into doing something you don't care for. Every part of this game feels like a different developer had an idea and decided 'oh this will be fun!', and then every future developer forgot about that mechanic and it's instantly obsolete after using it for that 1 item you can only get with it.

The biggest example is how there's entire characters, who's only purpose is to tell you 1 thing and then go back to being decoration. They might as well not exist, and be replaced with a letter or book you find.

Want to be a farmer? Your crops sell for pennies.
Want to focus on the graveyard? It's obsolete after day 50. The money doesn't scale for some reason, so it becomes a waste of time even burying corpses. It'd be so easy to give you more money as you upgrade the church imo.
Want to focus on being a priest? The best prayer you learn is the 2nd prayer you unlock, and then there's nothing to improve.
Want to decorate? Your building space is incredibly limited for (afaik) no real reason. You also can't move any items after placing them, and when you start you (obviously) have no idea what the later items will look like and either have a terrible looking layout or continuously remove + rebuild items.
Want to enjoy the story? It's somehow much too serious, and constantly making fun of itself. It's a kinda fun and interesting story overall, but whenever you get into it they make some joke about how serious it is and send you to do a random errand. The story becomes inconsistent because of the DLC too, the biggest part is how you desperately need an Aristocrat but for some reason can't ask the aristocrat refugees you've spend weeks helping out. Every quest is hard locked behind other quests. You can't ignore mrs charm, because literally every other quest will eventually lead back to her. There's no choices to make.
Want to fish? For some reason that's a mechanic you get introduced to once and then can forget about aside from 1 quest.

The combat is entertaining, but why am I fighting slimes, bats and spiders instead of ghosts or something more graveyard-y themed? It's required for 1 specific quest, and then completely ignored. Enemies don't respawn, and dying is a benefit, because you lose nothing and it saves you (ingame and out of game) time from not running back to your bed. You just die and teleport back there instantly.

Zombie automation is very fun, but there's no real automation for anything important things, so you still constantly have to deal with it.
You need to bring water + wheat to automate beer, since the zombie porter only supplies hops/ grapes.
You can only build 1 of each zombie brewery/ winery, so eventually they'll get backed up and you have to manually make alcohol.
You can't automate Booze.
Your zombies eventually run out of seeds (this is the most annoying part) so even if you're automating crops, you'll have to keep farming to upkeep seeds.

The interfaces are inconsistent and annoying too. You can only give 10 carrots to the crate per click, instead of just dumping your entire inventory, so you'll have to spam open + submit the crate to deposit all your carrots.
You can only set quantities by clicking 1 extra at a time, or making 'infinite'. If I want to make 200 firewood, that's me clicking 199 times.
You can deposit/ withdraw items from chests either by depositing literally every item in your inventory, or 1 item at a time.
You can't queue up any items with rarities, so to make a bunch of books/ wine/ whatever at higher tiers, you're clicking 5x per craft to set it up. What's the point? Just let me queue up 20 golden books using the recipe I clicked on at the start.
There's tons of un-deletable items you can't destroy, sell or get rid off aside from dumping them in a chest and hoping to forget about it.

I liked so many parts of this game, and I went into this expecting to like so much more, but there's no decisions to be made because nothing has consequences. Being a graveyard keeper is such a small part of the game, and absolutely useless towards the middle/ end of the game, where it turns into a tavern keeper or nail crate selling franchise instead, because you need so much money for progression.

I love games like this but and definitely had moments where I really enjoyed the gameplay but unfortunately there were too many strikes for me to want to keep playing. I wish the game integrated more information on how to get certain resources into the game play instead of having to go through the frustrating process googling on my own how to get science points or make oil etc. I also found the days to short so I am constantly racing the clock and have a billion things to do and never feel like I fully accomplish anything because I'm always racing to the next thing. Also, the item placement annoyed me to no end. Why can't I move a building once I've placed it without destroying it! Why are the placement options so limited! Placing buildings in the church basement in a pleasing, user friendly way feels like a puzzle with no answer and was ultimately my last straw.

Este jogo é stardew valley com o foco na história. O enredo é interessante e com tons de comédia, apesar de não contar com uma trilha sonora relevante, a progessão durante o jogo é muito satisfatória, desde que você tenha as dlcs.

This is a mixed review honestly, the game starts off great but really falls off near the end unfortunately. It has a great art style and a good soundtrack, the writing is above average, overall it's a chill and relaxing game.

The shortcomings it has are small but numerous, such as tasks becoming a slow and painful chore, poor UI such as workbenches not being able to bulk craft some recipes for no real reason, not being able to cancel crafts, e.t.c. It's a lot less sandboxy that what I expected, which was a letdown, as the Church turned out to be a disappointment in the way you can build inside.

Overall, decent game, not for everyone, but not bad... 6.5/10

This game was one of my favorites to 100%, the mechanics were great and intuitive. Overall I heavily recommend this game

I wanted to like this game so badly, and I played with an open mind for as long as I could. Unfortunately, after several play sessions filled with many negative and frustrating experiences, I rage quit and uninstalled the game during a live stream.

Yes, I love the dark humor and little quirks that make the game cute. However, the humor and cuteness are FAR overshadowed by the hours of frustration you will likely experience. Every single quest is a wild goose chase, telling you what you need to find without a single tip or hint as to where you might find the thing. Your choice is to either spend tons of time wandering around searching or to look up the answer on the wiki (which ruins the whole point of needing to explore to find the item). When you finally do figure something out, it feels like it was more by random luck than it was any deliberate choice or action on your part. Some of these quest items might come from harvesting something during a specific time of day that you will never need and never think to harvest, or you might spend lots of time searching the world and checking every available store to see if you can buy something just to find it as a free drop later in an area you could not access before. The grind to craft some things is HORRENDOUS, and then you learn 5 minutes later that there was a much easier process to craft it a different way that was only two steps instead of ten (see black paint).

The game is also extremely unpolished, and not just with the missing hints and directions. For instance, there is a type of fish that in one spot you can fish for free without bait, but in another fishing spot you have to spend a type of bait to get the same exact fish (and it didn't tell you that same fish was the reward until AFTER you have wasted the bait). That was honestly what did it for me, personally I felt like that was the biggest middle finger to be sold a completely finished game that's not in early access which contains a major oversight like that. I felt so cheated having to go fish up one fish type from the beach, walk all the way back across the available map to a different fishing spot, and then find that the fish I caught while using the other fish as bait gave me a fish that I could have caught without any bait in a different spot. That's completely on the dev to let something like that fall through the cracks.

So if you enjoy every step of a game being a wild goose chase that will always leave you stranded with no sense of direction, this is a great game for you. If you enjoy the feeling of having a game developer stick a giant middle finger in your face with how many times you will feel screwed over with unpolished gameplay, missing descriptions, and a general sense that the quality of life in the game would be so much better if they had just spent a little more time polishing the game, this is exactly the game you're looking for.

Me? Nah, I'll pass. Whatever ending the story has just isn't worth all the frustration this chore of a game forces on the player. This game is for masochists and others who enjoy being tortured.

Graveyard Keeper is an engaging indie simulation game that combines elements of resource management, crafting, and light-hearted humour with a unique, quirky storyline. You play as a medieval graveyard keeper who unexpectedly finds himself in a strange, fantastical world after being hit by a car. Your main objective is to manage the graveyard, which involves burying corpses, tending to the land, and crafting various items to improve your operations. As you navigate through this odd and often hilarious journey, you uncover the mysteries of the town, interact with its eccentric inhabitants, and explore various quests that challenge your moral compass. The game’s charm lies in its ability to blend dark themes with humour, creating a captivating experience.

Positives

• Interesting Story: The narrative is rich and engaging, filled with quirky characters and unexpected twists. The backstory of the graveyard and its inhabitants keeps players invested in the unfolding events.
  
• Great Straight Man Character: The protagonist serves as a perfect straight man within the absurdity of the game. His reactions to the bizarre situations and characters around him provide a grounded perspective that amplifies the humour.
  
• Funny Overall: The game is filled with witty dialogue and humorous situations. The absurdity of managing a graveyard while interacting with whimsical townsfolk creates a delightful contrast that keeps players entertained.
  
• Vast Crafting/Upgrading System: One of the standout features of Graveyard Keeper is its extensive crafting and upgrading system. Players can gather resources, create new items, and improve their graveyard and workshop, offering a satisfying sense of progression.
  
• Creepy Elements: Despite its comedic tone, the game does a remarkable job of subtly incorporating creepy elements. The atmosphere, combined with the underlying themes of death and resurrection, adds an intriguing depth that enhances the overall experience.
  

Negatives

• Cutscenes Drag On: While the story is engaging, certain cutscenes can feel prolonged. Some players may find themselves losing interest during lengthy dialogues that could have been more concise.
  
[*]Dialogue Can Also Drag On: Similar to the cutscenes, some dialogue exchanges can feel overly drawn out. While the humour is often spot on, certain conversations may test the patience of players who prefer quicker interactions.

Conclusion

I love this game. There's just something so fun and addicting about playing it. I originally didn't think I would like it, but now I'm in over 30 hours (15+ on Switch as well). Would 100% recommend it to anyone, it's really good.

Complex yet simple to learn.
Its way easier to reach automation comparing to the similar games in the genre. and heck thats satisfying!!!
if u love stardew u will love this as much! 10/10

Great game, Funny story line, fun game play, great add on's, one of my favorite games of all time.

The game was a bit long and grindy, but it was so worth it. The story is amazing, the characters are written to well, and for such a morbid concept, it's very cute and cozy! The DLCs, while some a bit lackluster, really added on to the story and it was a very enjoyable experience. I rarely fully finish games, so the fact I did finish this one really speaks to how good the game is. I think I'll even replay it in a few years! Highly recommend this game, and hope that Lazy Bear comes out with another game like this one!

Love the grind and funny characters

It's a fun game. There's a decent amount to do and mess around with. Some of the decisions that you make can also affect how things go which is also a nice touch

The only real gripe I had about this game walk how a lot of it felt like a walking simulator. There are no food buffs that increases movement speed, no running, or mounts

Graveyard Keeper is a delightful throwback to classic adventure games like Quest for Glory, combining the nostalgia of those beloved titles with a fresh, darkly comedic twist. As the self-proclaimed graveyard keeper, you'll manage a cemetery, craft items, and explore a quirky world full of bizarre characters, all while unearthing mysteries that keep you hooked.

The pixel art is absolutely stunning, with beautifully crafted environments that perfectly complement the game's eerie yet charming atmosphere. The attention to detail in the visuals is impressive, and it’s easy to get lost in the game’s immersive world.

One of the highlights of Graveyard Keeper is its excellent sense of humor. Whether it’s darkly ironic dialogue or clever references, the game never takes itself too seriously, and it’s always good for a laugh.

The DLCs add even more content to the game, expanding the world and offering fresh gameplay mechanics and challenges. They each introduce new layers to the experience—whether it’s managing a tavern, dealing with more eccentric characters, or diving deeper into the mysteries surrounding the world. Each one feels like a natural extension of the base game, adding hours of enjoyable gameplay.

If you’re a fan of old-school adventure games or enjoy a quirky, humorous take on life (and death), Graveyard Keeper is a must-play!

This game is hard to recommend so I won't. TLDR; Feels like a game that had a rushed and patchy finish with features being dropped or stripped. Late game is a huge disappointment. Zero replay-ability.

Late game brings what initially promises to be automation using zombies. But apart from wood collection all other zombie jobs just make more work for you. So the early game grind gets replaced with late game grind supporting the zombies. The zombie farmers need to be restarted each time and the gold seeds they're using slowly diminish leaving you with the side job of hand growing more seeds. The vineyard is up a cliff right next to your house but you have to run half across the map to get to it. Gets very annoying and there is no late game staircase to get you up there quickly.

Corpse processing becomes a bore and almost pointless once the graveyard is full. I would have expected ashes to be handled properly such as needing to put them in an urn right after you burn the body. Instead you just collect your ash arbitrarily in stacks and craft the urns in your...kitchen? In the end I found myself processing corpses only to collect blood to feed my speed potion habit because the game quickly becomes intolerable without it. And with a maximum of one blood per day available you need to conserve those potions.

The dungeon is a random collection of halls leading to pointless rooms with no rhyme or reason. It feels like a complete afterthought. Maybe just checking a box for the screenshot. The lighting is bland and uniform throughout. No mood lighting. No ambient sound. On the plus side combat is much better than most other games similar to this.

The restrictions on placing workbenches etc seems like a half baked idea which just ends up being annoying. You can't move things, only destroy them, losing most of the materials. Since you have no idea what you're going to add later in the game you are forced to destroy and rebuild in order to fit new stuff in. Quality of life aspects like this seem to have been overlooked.

The church was the biggest let down for me. I was so keen to get the final upgrade and bling out my cathedral to the nines. But that never happened. There are very few late game things that can be added. You simply don't get extra bench rows. There are no crucifixes, no fonts, no bells, no memorials. The stain glass window was in my build menu for a long time and I was looking forward to the moment a glorious and massive, bright new stain glass window would twinkle in the central position at the head of the church. It would be it's pride and joy! Nope. It's a tiny, dull turd of a sprite with no effects that you can only only place on the side. The church is one of the central things in the game and a wonderful opportunity to let the player get creative. It failed to provide that.

The alchemy felt like a lot of extra bloat was added by making it so each reagent has a powder, liquid and extract form and sometimes a goo form. The trial and error style of finding new recipes is asking way too much of the player forcing wiki lookups in order to maintain sanity.

Quests were a mixed bag. Some were ok but many can be summarised as fetch quests involving many people and so many things to fetch or make or grow in a sequence. Some of those characters only show up once a week leading to annoying delays in story progression. Some quests will even have this delay with a single character who will say something to the effect "Ah, great, you got that thing for me. Come back next week and I'll give the thing I promised" Ugh!

It's a no.

A big, fun, expansive game. From min-maxing zombies to progressing the story, this game kept me entertained.

It was a fun experience. I was looking for a successor to Stardew Valley. So I was very much into the farming side of things. I never created a single zombie. As shops gave less and less for crops, it was starting to become an aggravating grind, but sure enough industry prevailed. I still got to the end without a single zombie. Should probably get some sort of achievement for it. Haven't actually played it for years. I half wonder if it was till in beta at the time or something like that. Anyway, thought I'd leave a review. I enjoyed it!

I highly recommend this game a whole lot. my two gripe with this game is that it starts slow and and the day specific characters hinders progress. However even with those setbacks it's fast and easy to understand. and I really enjoyed this from beginning till 100%.

This game is so addicting. I can't believe I didn't know about this game sooner, I am hooked. There is so much to explore and discover, I feel as though I have yet to scratch the surface and I already love it

I love Stardew Valley, I don't like graveyard keeper. For me, the difference is that in Stardew Valley I do things in my pace, it's easygoing, even simple. But in graveyard keeper, by nature of bodies constantly coming and days of week rotating, you're forced to rush and work and keep track on what needs to be done at the moment. It's just work and constant "stress".
Nevermind the complex tree of skills you're forced to unlock and items that are mostly used once for the sake of moving quests forward. Maybe I haven't played long enough but it just feels like complexity for the same of complexity (and having something to unlock and find for).
The game does feel "rewarding" but not fun (if that makes any sense).
So do I recommend it? Not if you value your time.

Highly recommend 9/10

Game is really relaxing, characters are well written and story is really immersive. It have some negatives like gameplay feels a little clunky and many things are not explained enough, but if you don't play it blindly (using external internet wiki) it won't bother you. I played it blind and still finished it.

like an isekai anime but instead of a harem of anime girls u get rude medieval townsfolk who send you on endless fetch quests

This is a really nice game to lose yourself into. It is not stressful at all and truly a cozy game. While I only have 108+ hours of gameplay in steam, I have actually played this on Switch and Playstation as well. I don't know what it is about this game that is so addicting. This is definitely a game that i will play again in the future when i want to relax

Some things about the game were frustrating, but once I changed my mindset from finishing quickly to just enjoying the ride and story, I fell in love. It's cozy with reasonably difficult little quests, just keep in mind that many quests will take quite a while. Learn how to make zombies early, as I didn't think they would be as helpful as they are. 10/10 would recommend to anyone who likes spooky-ish vibes and stardew valley

Very addictive once you understand the core gameplay and mechanics, though some fundamental parts of the game feel poorly designed or lacking depth. One example how it fails to make a real day/night cycle, since you're not forced to sleep through the night and end up sleeping simply whenever your energy bar runs out. Balancing in general is quite off making the game needlessly grindy.

Writing, on the other hand, is actually quite fun sometimes and takes advantage of the original premise of the game. Sadly, most npcs exist just to give "bring me this item" quests which is not ideal.

I had a lot of fun playing this game hence I recommend it, but I do think it has much more potential that's being wasted atm. That said, I literally couldn't stop playing this game for a few days trying to max my graveyard lmao. Grabbed it along its dlcs for like 5 euros which is complete steal so yeah give it a shot if you see it on sale.

Well the game kinda disappoints in everything, actually.
The story is basically not present - I mean it's just some dozens of fetch quests with a couple lines of text each; If you were to read the entire story line for every NPC on one screen, it would be comical, since each would take like a minute maximum.
But that's fine - well, the game itself starts by telling you it's not going to be making any sense;
However, the actual gameplay.. has a massive load of completely unhandled rough edges.
The core gameplay of gathering resources, crafting new stuff, building production facilities and taking care of the graveyard and a church is fun. buuuuut...
1. You are going to spend a vast majority of time in this game holding "F" and staring at a progress bar. Say, crafting food (to save time, ironically) or nails or planks or whatever. This is fine at first, but the game turns into a grind with no acceleration mechanism, and you start questioning why are you even still playing, if it's just turn the game on and basically hold F for two hours. There are zombies, that are supposed to be what allows you to accelerate by making them do stuff and avoid staring at progress bars, except the game has no option to queue production of anything in late-game. Like, you need a million of carved marble pieces, and you have to make them one by one. It kills the entire point of a zombie even being there.
2. Half of the stuff you build has only a very flimsy excuse for why even do that (meaning you will need it once over the course of the entire game in a fetch quest and that's it). Like, winery, or brewery, or any farms beyond the carrot farm;
3. The trade/money system is not actually making any sense. I've barely bought anything except for seeds, but then you need huge money for specific things like becoming aristocrat. Which is stupid. And the way you get the most money is also not making any sense: you sell nails and fitches, two most basic things you can craft, and you get more for that than selling complicated goods that actually require effort. You also have basically no money, and then once you advance the trader questline you have a money printer.
4. The food recipes are not actually making any sense. There is basically no reason to craft anything complicated. It doesn't matter how much energy the food restores, if you can just produce infinite carrot cutlets or breads or whatever. The dumbest thing is that everything that has "quality level" cannot be queued and has to be crafted one at a time. The buffs from food are also highly irrelevant and generic. They exist, but they don't actually change the game.
5. The technology points system is also not really making much sense. Green points might as well not exist - you literally have way too much of them; Red points are hard to get at the very beginning and then it's the same as green; Blue points are the only actual requirement for techs, but for some reason you get only like a couple for high level crafts or anything else, and 5 for an ordinary stone fence. So I just made like 200 fences and unlocked the entire tree. And now points just clutter the screen. By the way, they tend to fly behind the edge of your home and get stuck there forever on your screen.
6. The dungeon, representing the entirety of the combat in the game has WAY TOO LONG corridors for no reason, and is highly irritating because it makes you run back and forth through them. It also has only 15 levels that look the same, and most stupidly, if you just run in, kill a monster, die, repeat, you will clear the entirety of it in, say, an hour maybe. Which is less than what you need to unlock and craft all of the gear and battle potions. This is silly. Battle potions are very very irrelevant - the dungeon is just too small. The damage scaling seems generic and not thought out at all: you just get +1 dmg for a sword level. Except, I was killing the iron statue enemy in two swings, and it still takes two swings with a final sword. This is stupid.
7. The alchemy system is made for you to discover by trial and error, but it's just way too bad and shallow to not use wiki. What's the point if you won't even need most of the recipes and "progressing" means holding F and staring at progress bars, or endlessly fetching things from one room to another?
8. The corpse quality is purposefully made to be arcane and confusing. They make a visual representation of red and white skulls and then it turns out, red ones can be negative, which completely messes up everything about them and forces you to use a very specific series of steps from a wiki. And then you realise that while it isn't that bad, unlocking max level gravestones and embalming solutions. the graveyard is ridiculously huge. I have all of the infrastructure set up for filling the graveyard with maxed out corpses, and it seems that I need like a whole goddamn day or even more just to do that. Real day, not in-game day. And it is made worse by the fact that embalming is specifically preventing you from doing anything fast. You can do any operation involving corpses fast, but embalming takes forever. Even with a bunch of tables. I just don't want to continue.
I bought the game with a massive discount, and I guess it was fun at the beginning, but I'm certain it isn't worth the full price. DLC - I don't even want to check them out. More progress bars? cool.
Also just keep in mind that there is a massive lack of quality of life. Random "i wish there was a hotkey for that" and things like the fact that you can not get rid of your old armor. congratulations. Undeletable, and nobody buys it. Yay. Very obvious lack of care. But instead of stuff like that being fixed, there are three DLC priced like the game itself and there is no way they can possibly be worth that much when the game isn't worth it's price.

Extremely intricate mesh of quests that tie almost every character into the story (barring 1 or 2 people) and i quite enjoyed the plot and lore

Everything about this game is a constant boring grind most of which seems to be designed simply to waste your time. I bought this game on sale having remembered watching some gameplay on youtube several yeas ago and it looked interesting, I wish I had bothered to research a bit more recent info about it before buying as it was a waste of money. Even using mods to help mitigate and remove some of the more annoying aspects of the grind the game is still a tedious waste of time.

I like it, it's a fun game where planning and strategy is sentral aspects.

Great sandbox with a wee story.. games like a chill Stardew Valley with no time constraints you can take things at your own pace build how you want beat it in whatever order you want this defo one of my fav's!

Hidden gem of a game. Don't be fooled by the simple graphics there is a lot of story and gameplay here. Also worth getting the cheap DLCs