Graveyard Keeper Review for Mac

The management simulator genre has proved to be one of the most popular in video game history. While each successive generation may see a series tweak what exactly its players manage, the core mechanics of the genre have subsisted unaltered since the gaming industry exploded in the late 20^th century.

These rudiments, the essence of the management-sim, are all found in publisher tinyBuild GAMES and developer Lazy Bear Games’ newest creation, Graveyard Keeper. Graveyard Keeper even adds its own unique flavor to the equation by situating players such that they tend for a graveyard. While this on its own could be the source of hours of morbid fun, the game does not set its players up for success. Management-sims are supposed to bequeath to their players the openness to do whatever they desire, but Graveyard Keeper chooses to accomplish this aim by failing to provide players with next to no guidance.

Graveyard Keeper begins with a very brief introduction that offers exposition to the game’s plot. In artful cut scenes, players are shown a man’s death in the modern world and consequent resurrection in a medieval one. The man, who players begin to control as soon as he wakes up in the new realm, is utterly confused as to where he is and how he got there. He soon meets a comrade named Gerry, a talking skull with a serious alcohol addiction. Gerry in turn takes the protagonist and players alike to the graveyard that the game is named after.

All of this is adequate setup for a management-sim reminiscent of Sickhead Games’ 2016 hit Stardew Valley. But what comes after is an all-too-brief introduction to the basics of how to manage the graveyard, which additionally seem antithetical to how graveyard keepers should treat the corpses they need to treat. For example, Graveyard Keeper invites players to strip a corpse’s body of its flesh for meat and later on to fling corpses into a river. These actions seem completely irreverent and thus out-of-character for the graveyard keeper, whom players learn is intent on fulfilling the duties of his profession.

In a whirlwind 10 minutes, Graveyard Keeper then introduces a variety of NPC’s like the priest, Horadric, and Ms Charm and opens up quests from each character. However, at this point Graveyard Keeper will lose many players. Graveyard Keeper simply leaves players on their own after they reach Horadric’s establishment, expecting them to just intuitively understand every nuance the game contains. There’s absolutely no help to be found, and players aren’t even told how to keep track of quests (hold down the N key). While it is completely okay not to coddle players, there’s a difference between providing just enough assistance and conferring next to none.

That’s not to say that there are no positives to Graveyard Keeper. In fact, it’s clear that the developers of Graveyard Keeper invested a significant amount of time in polishing the game. Graveyard Keeper can be darkly funny and its environments are gorgeous. The map is huge and extremely detailed, which really contributes to how much a player can immerse him or herself in the game. If the game offered better guidance for its players, it had the potential of even rivaling Stardew Valley in terms of how addictive it could be.

Rating: 7/10

Here is the Graveyard Keeper Launch Trailer:

Graveyard Keeper is available for Xbox One and PC and Mac via Steam.