Lazy Bear Games’ second title Graveyard Keeper (the first one was the very well received Punch Club) bills itself as the most inaccurate medieval graveyard management simulator available on the Internet. This claim couldn’t be more accurate as you manage everything from your skeleton inventory to your graveyard’s ability to host witch-burning festivals. this fantasy/medieval title is in its hear a simulation game with an off-the-wall premise but it also offers classical gameplay features common to most in this genre.
How to Download Graveyard Keeper
The game can be downloaded on Steam starting from August 15, 2018. It is also available on Xbox One. The date of its release for PS4 or Nintendo Switch is still unknown. Meanwhile, you can pre-order the game or download Alpha Pack. Another downloadable choice is Deluxe Pack which contains alpha access and OST (official game soundtrack) and a digital artbook. To download Graveyard Keeper click on the Download button at the end of the review.
The Game Review
Likened by some to the cult-hit farming simulator Stardew Valley, Graveyard Keeper sports the same kind of nostalgia-inducing Super Nintendo-inspired graphics as Stardew Valley but with a more macabre veneer. Then again, the 1990s are often noted for their macabre, somewhat existential approach to humor so everything is refreshingly new and old all at the same time.
You might think that managing a graveyard is quite a simple task given that much of the clientele is dead but the game turns your notions of what this game will be about literally on their head. After getting hit by a car and, we assume, killed your player character makes a journey to a medieval village that exists outside of time and space.
It is a world filled with magic and brutality, as you can consult astrology for guidance to portals and watch the inquisition burn witches at the stake for some kind of heresy. To maintain levity, however, the game never gets bogged down too much in its atmosphere. After all, your constant companion is a talking human skull with a drinking problem – a constant reminder to not take things too seriously.
In your role as the titular graveyard keeper, a role that you mysteriously assume, it is your task to maintain the graveyard in this medieval village. As in other games of its ilk, such as Stardew Valley, there is a stamina bar for the player as well as a day and nighttime in the game so that your actions are dictated by the passage of time.
The only missing element in Graveyard Keeper that is prominent in Stardew Valley is the romance option. Given that the setting is an oppressed medieval town filled with peasants and you’re the cemetery guardian, there probably isn’t much thematic room for that anyway but it is worth noting since so many of the game’s purported mechanics echo Stardew Valley. As part of its delving into the macabre, for example, you’re given a lot of options on how to raise money to support and expand the graveyard, one of which is taking the meat off of human corpses and selling it on the black market.
Of course, your choices will have consequences, but that is part of the fun of these types of games. Another major difference between this game and Stardew Valley is that Graveyard Keeper promises to have a true end game and not just endless toil on the cemetery. Your goal in the game is to return to the real world and you uncover clues on how to return as you explore and fulfill your tasks at the cemetery
