Graveyard Keeper

Working as a Graveyard Keeper may not be as bad as everybody thinks you know? You get to spend a lot of time outside, get a bit of time for yourself. Managing all those dead bodies and choosing how to use their meat and organs just to make a living. Developer Lazy Bear Games and publisher TinyBuild Games made possible this one-of-a-kind game. Dark humor, funny and interesting characters and a huge list of things to do and a tough but interesting learning curve are some things that make this game worth checking out.

Making a living out of the dead

Just by looking at it you might never guess this, but the game begins in the 21st century. As a young man talks about life and how special it is to find true love. But a sudden car accident gets him to have a pretty odd conversation with the Grim Reaper. But when he wakes up he's back in a medieval town, being the Graveyard Keeper, ordered to keep the cemetery nice and well.

The game presents a ton of "moral dilemmas", as you not only have to take care of keeping the tombs nice and clean. But you also have to take good care of the bodies that get to your cemetery. As a Graveyard keeper, you are also tasked with performing autopsies to the bodies you receive. With practice and leveling up your skills, you'll soon be able to perform higher quality autopsies and end up with bodies in better shape. Once you have the best quality bodies, you can also use sell that high-quality meat to the butcher. And it is not suspicious at all. But not only do you have to gather the non-suspicious meat. There's also wood to chop and even places to explore to find the best ingredients for alchemy. There are tons of activities to do, and there's no time to rest. Keeping the cemetery organized and clean helps you boost your credibility, this will help you when giving out sermons at the church. Yes, you also have to do that as a graveyard keeper in this town. It is a busy life, it's difficult, but surely it's addictive.

Cemetery tycoon, still a simulation?

There are plenty of games to choose from if you're looking for managing simulations and resource gathering games. Probably the first one you might think about when talking about indie games of managing simulations is Stardew Valley. They have a lot in common, like in Stardew Valley, gathering resources is a key element of your daily job. And while this one is a little on the tougher side, its visuals are similar and they are the same type of game. It's hard to still call it a simulation when it's so full of fantasy. But the real simulation is managing the resources, everything else is storytelling. If you want to compare the theme too there are the lesser-known Zombie Tycoon games for the PSP.

Review

Graveyard Keeper is a rather interesting title, there's a lot to it. Dozens of hours await you as you get a grasp of the basics and discover everything you can do in this game.

• Graphics and visuals: The visual style of the game is nice, the designs and pixel art looks great, they are simple, but that's part of its magic after all.

• Gameplay: The gameplay is easy to understand and the controllers are quite basic. Getting a grasp at how to perform the different tasks is the tough part of the game, luckily the easy controls help a lot in this.

• Sound: The soundtrack is the main part where this game lacks love. The themes, while nicely composed, are a little too repetitive for a game you're meant to play for longer periods. There are no voices, but the sound effects are perfect for the visual style.