You meet loads of interesting non playable characters, discover new locations, and learn so  many technologies your head will explode. Gameplay consists of doing certain activities, like cutting  down trees, foraging, and cooking, so you can earn tokens in three categories: hand crafting skills,  nature and farming, and knowledge

Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and welcome to my graveyard.

As you can see,  it looks like garbage, but that’s the nice thing about management simulation games,  isn’t it? I can make my space look as ugly as I want, with as many haphazardly placed lawns and flower pots as I want, and nobody can tell me it’s wrong. Except for maybe this guy.

As you can see, today we are taking a look at Graveyard Keeper from 2018,  developed by a company called Lazy Bear Games – I feel like I have no choice but  to write a review on this game because at this point, I’ve lost at least two weeks to it,  so what better way to combine business and pleasure, or bleasure, if you will.

One day I went on Twitter, as you do, and asked
for a game similar to Stardew Valley. I received

a lot of great suggestions, but Graveyard Keeper
spoke to me and my witchy, macabre heart. Making

ethically ambiguous decisions about selling
human meat? Creating zombies? FARMING? Yep,

I’m there. This is exactly what I need to keep
my neurodivergent brain at bay. Add in a cute

talking skull with amnesia and this is
heaven. Or Hell. Probably moreso Hell.

I do want to mention that I had some
issues with my gameplay hitching on my PC,

but I am not sure if that’s a universal problem or
not – I was capturing footage while playing and it

seemed to happen more when I did that, but I just
wanted to give a warning in case you notice it.

Let me give you a brief overview of the story:
You are this guy here. The introduction shows him

dying in a tragic accident, and he wakes up in the
distant past. The little talking skull named Gerry

takes you through a tutorial, and you come to
realize that you do not want to be here, you need

to figure out a way to get back home to your life
and to your love, but while you’re here you are

assigned the job of Graveyard Keeper. It starts
out simple enough; you fix graves, you autopsy

some bodies, you make the church look as nice as
you can, but hear you me, this game gets INVOLVED.

You meet loads of interesting non playable
characters, discover new locations, and learn so

many technologies your head will explode. Gameplay
consists of doing certain activities, like cutting

down trees, foraging, and cooking, so you can earn
tokens in three categories: hand crafting skills,

nature and farming, and knowledge. When you start
to earn a lot of these tokens, you can use them

to unlock new technologies, as shown by these
trees. You can learn a LOT and there are several

categories, including building, smithing, farming,
theology, and anatomy and alchemy. Unlocking new

skills and blueprints for making machinery to
help you make products and building materials

is how you go about helping the characters in the
game; they often have quests that involve using

your abilities, and in return they will help get
you items needed to send your character back home.

At first I felt a little burdened – there seemed
to be so many things to do, and your character

starts out with very limited skills and has barely
any money, so for a while it felt like I wasn’t

accomplishing anything. But I was so intrigued by
unlocking all of the tech trees and helping out

these characters. The game is pretty organized
– there’s a list of characters that keeps you

up to date on what you need to do to help them, it
keeps your technologies on track with descriptions

on what things do, the inventory menu is very
clear and easy to work with, and one of the BEST

things about this game? You do not need to have
things in your inventory to work on them, you

can build trunks nearby, and as long as you have
items on that screen, in a trunk, you can work

with them. Thank fucking god, that is a really
nice feature, especially for someone like me who

wants to go on hours long collectathons and take
everything that isn’t nailed down. I just have

a very hard time throwing things away, what if I
NEED 90 bat wings for something? You never know.

This is not a talky game, but
I do love the sound effects

used for the characters voices –
it reminds me of Banjo Kazooie,

just gibberish words and sounds that
come together to represent dialogue.

My favorite voice belongs to the merchant,
who sounds like Kermit the Frog. (clip)

I am a person who likes busywork in games – I’m
the one grinding for hours in a JRPG even when I

don’t have to, because I like being prepared.
It’s like the Mise en place of a video game,

so while some people may find
this kind of gameplay boring,

I could not get enough of chopping trees,
mining for rocks, and crafting item after item.

A very important part of this game is the
alchemy, and as fun as it is to craft potions

and combine strange things together to make
other magical items, it’s also one of the most

unintuitive parts of the game. I think some of
this game greatly benefits from using a guide,

especially when it comes to the alchemy and
anatomy. It’s not like you can’t figure it

all out on your own with some concentration and
trial and error, but I was already dumping so

many hours into unlocking technologies that
using a guide really cut down on some of the

more complicated game play. There are so
many items in this game it can be a slog

to experiment with all of them. I also just think
that guides and manuals are an important part of a

game and can even add to the experience – it’s
similar to looking up a recipe in a cookbook.

There is a little bit of combat in the form of a
spooky dungeon; when I got to this part I started

getting flashbacks of the mines in Stardew Valley;
I died so many times and was ready to set myself

on fire after every level I went through. Much
to my surprise and relief, Graveyard Keeper only

has 15 levels of dungeon, and once you kill
an enemy, it is gone forever. I love that it

saves your progress; it IS challenging enough
on its own even if the enemies don’t respawn,

making it rewarding when you get to the next
section. Now, you may notice that I don’t have

any enemies on my screen. That is because I killed
them and didn’t have any left for my capture,

but I did want to show you the dungeon regardless.
Hey everyone, Roses from the editing room here and

I did find some enemies while I was editing this
video, so I will them on the screen either right

there, or right there, or right there, depending
on how I edit this. You get a sword as a weapon,

which you can of course upgrade when you
unlock smithing skills in your tech tree.

As much as I love this game and was thrilled
with how many things were happening early on,

I did notice there were some quiet
parts where I didn’t know what to do;

I was either waiting on something, or someone,
so I could progress. There IS a time mechanic;

each day goes by in about 7 and a half minutes,
and the days are represented by these symbols.

Noteworthy characters will show up on certain
days – for example the astrologer shows up on the

moon day, the bishop shows up on this symbol, and
that’s also the day you can give sermons – yeah,

did I mention you pretty much manage the church?
Just look at these inspirational words! There is

one essential character you can talk to or try
to help for each day, but I noticed the more I

progressed, the more I found myself waiting
for someone specific, so I’d need to fill my

time with grinding and leveling up my skills. I do
think that happens with most games in this genre,

I did my fair share of trying to make things
move a little faster in other similar games.

Since you can do so many things on your
own time it’s hard to constantly have

something to do every day for those 7 and a half
minutes, but overall I think it works very well.

Though this game is very pretty and there are many
cute elements, it definitely has a much different

tone than saccharin titles like Animal Crossing
and Stardew Valley, there are times your character

makes highly questionable decisions, such as:
Joining the inquisition, serving human meat

to villagers, and throwing bodies you don’t want
to deal with into the river. Look, they’re dead,

they don’t know any different! Though the
narrative changes over time and characters

grow within their own stories, I found it very
difficult to make truly horrible decisions – I’m

not so much bothered by throwing corpses into
the river and selling human meat to the tavern,

but joining the Inquisitor, who finds
joy in burning my witchy friends,

was rough. It was, however, one of the
more interesting and detailed story lines.

I also didn’t mind stealing money from
the church. Just wanted to mention that.

Something that stands out to me is that there is
no romance mechanic; the goal for your character

is to get home to reunite with your love, so
I suppose romance wouldn’t make much sense,

but I sure did miss bringing NPCs randomly
items like rocks and pumpkins to win their

hearts. You can build up friendship meters
which you basically have to do to progress,

but no dating for the Graveyard
Keeper. Probably for the best,

I went a little off the rails in Stardew Valley –
I romanced every single character, divorced them,

used magic to wipe their bad memories about
me, then romanced them again. I am a monster.

I really enjoyed exploring the map and finding
new places and characters as I walked around,

but at some point I was very happy to buy a
teleportation stone, which transports you to

places you’ve already found. I don’t think I could
have dealt with constantly walking back and forth

from the village, to my house, and to all of
the other places around the map in real time,

so I am glad the devs were aware they needed
to add this. The main reason I think this game

works so well is that it perfectly blends
simulation and role play; I am not a big

fan of games like Terraria or Minecraft, even
though they deal with crafting and creating;

I need a game to also have some kind of narrative
or leveling up system, and I need some kind of

relationship mechanic. It doesn’t need to be
romance, it just needs to have people I can

talk to. I get lonely, what can I say. Part of me
wishes the characters were even more fleshed out,

but there is already so much going on, the
simple dialogue and story lines work just fine.

As of right now, I haven’t finished this game.
I am very close to getting a final item I need,

but I felt pretty confident about writing a review
since I sank over 100 hours into it. Meaning that

I definitely recommend this game, especially if
you like simulation games that involve a lot of

crafting, building, and side quests. If you played
this game tell me what you liked about it in the

comments, and please feel free to suggest other
similar titles that I will likely become obsessed

with and play until 6am every morning. Thank you
for watching and until next time, stay spooky.

Hey everyone, thank you for watching
this little review on Graveyard keeper,

I hope you enjoyed my commentary and give the
game a try. If you want to see more from me,

I have many more videos on this channel, but
first I want to give a heartfelt thanks to my

Patrons for if not for them, I wouldn’t have
bought the game and lost 100 hours of sleep.

…Wait. If you’re interested in supporting
me, my cat, and the channel, please consider

donating a few bucks, and if not, shares and
likes really help me to reach new viewers.

If you are interested in more content from me, I
have a few recommendations on the screen. On the

right is a video from my flagship series, That
Time on Murder She Wrote. It’s a very spooky

episode that falls right in line with Graveyard
keeper. On the left is my last video game review

on The Return of Monkey Island. Thanks again,
and as always, I will see you in the next one.