Graveyard Keeper

Likes:
- Wonderful art style
- An interesting take on the Stardew Valley formula for those who are looking for something a little more morbid
- Addictive gameplay, especially once you start to get the hang of it

Dislikes:
- The early game can feel kind of overwhelming
- Keeping track of where you stored certain items and remembering which items you need to craft something in a different location can be a source of frustration
- Dialogue boxes sometimes disappeared before I had the chance to read them
- While I am almost always in favour of including lots of content, the game almost includes too many different mechanics; I would have preferred if it focused on fewer mechanics but fleshed them out more

Verdict:
Graveyard Keeper is a fun take on the Stardew formula and you can easily lose hours playing the game. It does, however, feel a little thin at times and there are some quality of life features that could be improved upon to make parts of the game a little more manageable. Taken together, I would definitely recommend this game to lovers of farming-type sims (even those who are not sure if they will enjoy a graveyard-focused title).

One of the best games in pixelart category I’ve played. Played it somewhere in 2020 still have the good impressions about it. Hope they will release a part 2 of this game.

A nice game! I ran all over the place to do anything and this game has a lot of stuff to be done! I also enjoyed playing the main game and the DLC together. It made the main game less repetitive as new mechanics made it easier to automate some lower-level chores.

I enjoyed 80% of this experience, but it was very labour and learning intensive. The amount of tasks and quests are overwhelming. I find time quickly passing with heavy consequences with missing opportunities, very challenging to balance everything. It was fun until it became overwhelming, farming logs, stone & iron slabs is tiring. Lack of explinations, I dont know how long I was held back because I didn't realize I had to click on "seed oil" to get "oil" I had to use an external source (Which I HATE being reduced to doing!) for a very simple solution. I wish I could cut logs where the trees are instead of having to carry and push them across the map tediously. Clearing out the second half of the Church yard of logs was the absolute most tedious, ( I have the picture of the completed struggle posted to my profile ) moral declining, enjoyment draining part where I started to withdraw from enjoying the game. I'm sure i'll be curious to challenge myself with it again someday.

There are still some bugs left, and it seems that this game is no longer being developed. That being said, it is amazing.

It has a great relaxing atmosphere; it is unique, fun, and funny, and there is plenty to do for a long time. I have over 100h in the game that i have spent doing all the quests and 100% achievements and i could spend more just to "play" (now I would just optimize and upgrade all my stations, zombies etc)

I would recommend 10/10 if you need to chill and cure your "burned-out" state from different games.

The game allows you to play it at your own pace, as it has no time limit on anything, unless you count some of the npc schedules. Missed an npc? Just go afk for an in-game week and they're back.

ill recommend this game with an *. Is this game enjoyable? yes, BUT. It is very grindy. most of the time in the end game you will be spending time in the meditation pit to simply pass time to get to a certain day just to finish it. This game was pretty annoying to 100% and it even has a missable achievement near the end which gives you no hint that it exists unless you searched it up before. So if you miss it then you better pray you have a seperate save otherwise its all the way back to the start with you bud.

Graveyard Keeper is one of those games people tend to underestimate. While still a farming sim with many relaxing elements, things don't come as instinctively as other farming sims. There's is SO much to remember, understand, and plan to have the best experience possible. I've played for 10+ hours just to restart after understanding how things work (maybe read a beginners guide if you're new).

That said I do highly recommend this game for anyone looking for a spooky challenge, a good story, interesting characters, and probably a few laughs. This game will always be one I'll revisit over and over again, and I'm thankful the developers made something that feels truly original.

This is a slightly tough one to recommend. I can't deny playing it somewhat obsessively, but I don't know that I can say I have a ton of fond memories for playing it. Short of the very end of the game, when some automation starts taking off, there is just always so, so, so much that needs to be getting done at any moment. And it's not in the Stardew Valley way, where you'll get to it tomorrow. It's just always piling up, more and more to do, and some of it has to happen on certain days of the in game week, and it's just a lot to keep track of and do. It doesn't encourage healthy gameplay.

The game is also very bleak. From helping burn witches, to helping neighbors do bad things to each other because they hate each other, you'll be forced into doing a lot of bad things if you want to progress the plot. Not even bad for the greater good, but just being rotten.

It's not the break I was looking for from a sometimes bleak and overworked life. I hoped it would paid off, but it really didn't.

But the gameplay is fairly solid, so I'm sure it's the right game for some people. Complements to the devs for making your basic tools not take up valuable inventory slots, and for using the E and F keys to "do" rather than endlessly having to switch between the right tools.

The depth of the trees for upgrading what you can do is really good, and the barriers to getting to the next part of it seem really well thought out. It's a pain to work around, but one that's pushes that Fun button every time you figure out how to get the points you need.

Crafting is really neat, and the ability to automate it later is a huge boon.

The fact that they block you from getting too rich too fast could be annoying, but I think is a good mechanic in the end. It keeps prices from having to ascend into the millions of gold pieces to keep up with what you're bringing in.

While I complain about the schedule with some people only being available once a week, it does keep the town fresh, with specific things that you can only do that day.

It's a good game, with solid design and a lot of plot in it. It wasn't really for me, but I think it's worth a try.

Game starts off well but grinds to a halt and turns into a slog, in my opinion. Various NPCs that are important to game progression appear only once an ingame week, which I found it to be way too restrictive and tedious for a game that dumps a ton of tasks and things to do right from the start.

Doesn't respect your time at all.

After 6 hours of playtime I don't feel like anything has helped me progress in any meaningful fashion.

Maybe 5% of that game time has been actually keeping graveyards (I'm running a church/farm/apiary/workshop/blacksmith too?). It's mainly waiting around for things to happen with artificial time gating.

Your (communist?) donkey refuses to deliver corpses until you arrange a regular supply of carrots for him after delivering corpses happily enough for weeks until this point. So plant those carrot seeds, wait until they're grown, harvest them, give them to the donkey and make sure a regular supply of carrots keeps coming, meaning more stamina/time spent gathering seeds/planting/harvesting going forward forever. Oh also he needs some oil for his wheels now. The squeeking is annoying him. So run aaaaaaall the way into town, find someone selling oil, with money running low because your donkey isn't delivering corpses, which is the only way I've found to make even meagre money from burying them. Then he'll start going on his way. Etc etc.

Most NPC's and their questlines will be similar to the above. Waiting an in-game week to speak to someone (who may or may not even appear, one dude just wasn't around on his designated day?) to advance a quest line 0.5% forward after completing his grindy task, resulting in waiting another week to speak to the same guy to advance another 0.5% forward after another grindy task. Certain technologies are locked behind this time gating. Etc etc.

Iron ingots taking literal in game days to smelt, running out of energy every 5 mins unless you farm mushrooms (costing energy!) to then cook, which requires firewood (costing energy to make!) which requires chopping down trees (costing more energy!) Etc etc.

I could keep going on and on about things I dislike in the game, be very wary about buying this game, even on sale like I did unless you enjoy long slow tedious grinding, bloated progression systems and time gating.

The art/music/aesthetic etc are nice though! I'll give the art team their due.

This game is really fun. Satisfies my morbid side too. I will say though that I've had to Google a lot for this game because I don't feel like it's as intuitive as other games.

This is a really good game for people that like gathering materials and building stuff out of them to get better at gathering said materials. The pixel art is incredible.

The gameplay loop revolves around getting "quest" either from NPCs or something like a roadblock that require materials, which need to be gathered and produced at workstations. To do so you unlock new technologies with points you get from gathering and producing. Later on there is even automation to do.

On multiple occasions i was surprised by the great way the game teaches you stuff. First you think the game is throwing rocks in your way, but soon you realize the benefit of dealing with this minor obstacle early on.

I can 100% recommend all DLC except "Better Save Soul". It doesn't really add much of value to the gameplay and just feels lacking storywise .

It's like Stardew Valley, but it's an actual adventure with a purpose and meaning, instead of just a "entertain yourself" playground for wannabe farmers.

Charming atmosphere for a game about managing a graveyard. Lots of things to do in the base game: NPC questlines are connected, making you alternate between objectives; points system to unlock new things based on your actions; farming, dungeon crawling, fishing,winemaking/beer brewing, trading system, task automation, etc.

like a darker and funnier stardew valley. easy to sink time into

Beginning curve is rough. Unless you know what you are doing it is easy to get side tracked in the start but it's not like you can't recover from making a minor mistake when you buy skills or spend parts. However, this game snowballs into the goofiest game ever that is only [ii] minorly [/i] related to actually tending to your graveyard. Coupled with the DLC and you really have no fucking idea what's going on. Speaking of which, buy the DLC, support the devs. Masterpieces like this only come out of the woodwork once in a blood moon.

The games really fun but they missed out what could have been an interesting conflict between good and evil. The games description says you'll have to make big ethical choices, but in order to actually advance the game story your railroaded in one direction.

Evil Stardew Valley. It's fun, and funny. I think that once you get to the end of progression, you're pretty much done, but its a fairly cheap game and there's enough content here to justify the price. It's a finished game and you're not going to just hit a brick wall of unfinished content like so many similar games out there these days.

The graphic is cute. The storyline is good/fun (DLC adds more into it, but not mandatory to have them for a good game). It needs a bit of polishing in sense, that sometimes you can get lost in tasks and you just do the graveyard stuff and farming until you find your way back.

The teleportation stone is MUST to get at the start of the game! (I did not get it until later and lowkey regreted it lol)

I great game when you just need to sink into something, enjoyable story and yet freedom to still work on your own goals. If your enjoy dark, creepy or gothic its even better! Love this one as much as Stardew.

I have been playing this game on another account before any of the DLC's came out and loved it then. It does have aspects that some people consider complicated but if you don't stress about what order you think you should be doing things in its a lot of fun. Watch game play and guides on YouTube, I still have to look things up every time I play this game after not playing for a while. As someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD, I don't pay attention to what day I am supposed to talk to a certain person and weeks go by before I complete that part but there are so many other things to focus on I haven,t found that it limits my game in anyway.

Super chill game but grindy, the art style is beautiful. The music fits very well and the gameplay makes the grind fun with all the mechanics. The dlc are a must, they are so good.

interesting story and good characters. i like the plotline. the humour is pretty funny. i would recommend getting all the dlcs, they add so much to the characters and the lore of the world too, not to mention some qol stuff. if you dont like grinding then this game probably isnt for you, but i think its a very good addition to the genre.

Wonderful game that is simple but also equally has morbid in its storyline, an total favourite and classic.

Lots of fun, I needed something that was just relaxing but fun at the same time. Lots of cool stuff to do.

Currently obsessed. I can see why this is considered a classic. Yes it can be slow and grindy, but that's part of the appeal. You can hop on and just spend a few brainless hours doing things like gathering wood and stone and farming. Or you can focus on the dungeon. Or focus on moving quests along. There isn't really any time pressure to get anything done, you can just enjoy the play. Although I will say that keeping the wiki handy is very helpful, there is no hand holding in the game, and the alchemy part is very complex.

Grindy ass game with an okay story. Makes you want to keep playing by expanding the skill tree and managing many things at once.

I've only played a little of stardew valley and this game was very much inspired by it. I gotta say though, this game kept me hooked much longer than stardew valley did. Once you get your teeth sinked into this game, you start to taste how bland it is, which sucks since I really enjoyed how it started out. If you want to have fun for about 20 hours, then definitely give it a go.

its a fun little cycle game you can fidget too. just, mind your blue experience lol. one of my biggest background games when my adhd starts going nuts.

It's a really unique game and really good but there are some problems that ruin the fun... Firstly, if it's your first time playing you're gonna spent literally over 40 hours like i did just to get to the ending cuz its a bit grindy and theres SO MUCH waiting if you mess up on which day you gotta do your task/talk to somebody. There was SO much googling stuff. Secondly, the ending, it's nice, i love it, it's cute but theres nothing after... you get kicked to the main menu and if you go back to the save you're put back where you last saved which was VERY far from the ending cuz i was meditating to pass the time in game... I wish there was something AFTER reuniting with your wife, it feels really UNFINISHED. So I personally wouldn't reccomend but wouldn't not reccomend this game. Third, it is kind of worth the price, I just feel like there was more thought about the paycheck than focusing on the quality and spirit of the game...

Amazing and interactive game . Once you overcome the confusion in the beginning, things will slowly fall in place for you. one of the better cozy sims i have played

Funny, mechanics are easy, just an all around enjoyable game.

realy fun, but sometimes had to look up stuff.

Fun at time, but some of the mechanics are really grindy.

Absolutely love this game! Super fun but also relaxing. Sometimes you have too much on your plate tho so I suggest keeping a list of all the materials you need for tasks.

Such a great game. It is very task and exploration based, which I love. If you're a person who loves making to do lists, then this game is for you. It has such great aspects that were expanded on very well. I look forward to seeing what this game dev does next for this game or future games.

One of the best games I've ever played honestly. It's a fresh take on the "farming" and "Stardew Valley" type genre. Not much on the character relations part, which is perfect for me. More focus on crafting and leveling up. Not a lot of intense combat, and no real way to LOSE the game. Just craft, and raise the dead! Great game with a lot of humorous writing. Would recommend!

I want to love this game. I really do. The art style is amazing, the story is interesting, the controls feel very good.

It's the progression system, you get DRIP fed the story, it also overwhelms you with all these tasks, techniques, and just constant things you need to get done, but not enough guidance to get things done. Imagine, every time you're looking forward to the next day to get a new objective to complete only to find that you are one step away, and you have to wait another 7 days to get it back, when that time comes, you're given one sentence of information and now 3 MORE tasks to complete.

You can see how much time I've put into this, and I've felt I've barely scratched the surface, done basically next to nothing, and have a bunch of items that you can collect but have no clue what they are even used for. I wish this was streamlined or at the very least given more of a better objective system because as it stands, it's a gorgeous, and interesting looking game but it becomes more of a chore with very little reward.

While I like a lot of aspects of Graveyard Keeper, including that you aren't required to follow a "go to sleep at 2 am or suffer" system, I ultimately got exhausted of running around and trying to figure out what ingredient I needed to make something, only to discover that to one ingredient I sometimes required new equipment that requires other ingredients, etc. It got exhausting how there was rarely ever an easy way of doing anything, and how vague instructions were. This means I could go around for hours thinking I was making the right thing, only find myself blocked from progress because I hadn't made the right piece of equipment first. I know I could look it up, but honestly I don't want to use a walkthrough for a game just to be able to play it in its base form. This type of vagueness was intentional, and it's not something I enjoy but your mileage may vary.

I was really surprised how little I enjoyed this game.

It came highly recommended as something I would like. I was expecting it to be a grindy craft simulator, when after 5 hours in the game it seems much more like a scavenger hunt. If not for guides online I wouldn't have even bothered lasting 5 hours. People tell you they need a thing and then you hunt down the one thing to it's hidden spot over and over.

You slowly unlock things you can theoretically grind, but most resources are so scarce you are better off juggling buying something, crafting the bought thing, and then repeating until you have the capital to just buy whatever you want. You then have the money to skip the crafting step. The problem is your skill progression, which again just sets you up for more scavenger hunting, as that's how you unlock skills.

I don't enjoy the scavenger hunt to progress style game. I was expecting more of a craft and battle game.

Great game that swallowed me for a whole week. The humor is peak and characters are cool and alive. Gameplay itself reminds Stardew Valley with dark comedy.

Such a fun game, I've literally played for hours on and on and haven't gotten bored! There's always something you can work towards and if you get sick of one quest, you can just move onto another one!

If you want a darker story with witty humor, a LOT to do, and a Stardew like energy system, you will love this game. I still have yet to beat it as I tend to wander off key to every DLC before even trying to finish the main quest. It's fun, dark, but all around a fantastic play. Great way to enjoy your time!

this is trully one of the best games that i have ever played. it is fantastic from all points of views. i have enjoyed it for many hours, and i recomend it if you like games like stardew vallye

As much as I came in open minded on this, around 10 hours I started doing some googling on "when would Graveyard Keeper become fun" and I was lucky to find a lot of similar questions out there.

It just isn't fun for me. It's not Stardew Valley, despite the format. Stardew Valley is rich with content, and it all feels semi-purposeful. This game is a total grind-fest, and after 10 hours into the game I was seeing so little progress. The dopamine release is very restricted in this game, the rewards are small, few, and far between.

While the lack of hand-holding could be seen as a drawback, I actually didn't hate it. For example, the mystery of understanding the days of the week - kind of cool! Makes me feel like I'm using my brain. Unfortunately, having to wait for days to pass before I can trigger the smallest amount of story does not make for a fun experience.

I don't really see DLC (which there appears to be a lot of) resolving this. It's a formula issue. Either you do Stardew Valley or better, otherwise pick a different genre. Or if you're going to go for it, at least try and stand out with something besides theme. You need some new mechanics that really scratch an itch.

Sadly, I was left itchless for the entire time I spent.

This is not a perfect game, there are a ton of flaws and jankiness but I can't help but love this game.
It's definitely a 7/10 but it's MY 7/10.

This game was super fun. I bought the DLC a little later than I would have liked, but nonetheless they added many more hours putting me over 100 hours total. I loved figuring out the crafting pathways and the story was entertaining. I really enjoyed the music and the pixel art is gorgeous. I could have kept playing to completely fill up the graveyard and unlock all the achievements, but I really wanted to see the story ending!
All in all, definitely recommend for farming/crafting sim lovers. :)

if you like farm sims but want something new i definitely recommend this game. it has a great levelling system and resources are rare/work-intensive enough that you dont feel like you're swimming in infinite money/stone/wood/etc. dungeon combat is solid and feels appropriately difficult. the gameplay loop is really rewarding and diverse enough that you do different sets of tasks every day - if anything it can sometimes feel like there is too much to do.

this game best played with the wiki open, since there is a lot of stuff the game doesnt explain and can be difficult to figure out by yourself without some guidance. there are multiple times i hit a wall with a quest because i didn't realise i had to do something super specific, which was frustrating sometimes. Overall though this is a great game and is a very welcome addition to the "farming sim" genre

Extremely fun concept, very engaging game. Really loving the story and dialogue options, the crafting is very entertaining. The theme is dark medieval gothic with a big catholic influence, what more can you love? Some of the mechanics are a bit cumbersome as far as alchemy and embalming go, but otherwise it's been very fun.