Hi guys! We're reading the reviews and trying to tune the game for the better experience. So, while one part of our team was working on the key-binding system, the other part was tweaking the balance.
1.022:
Made a lot of crafts shorter.
Increased the energy from the tier II fuel.
Lowered the requirements of some crafts.
Lowered the requirements of some buildings.
Applied some other balance changes for more smooth experience.
I very cleverly described Graveyard Keeper as "Stardew Cemetery" when it was announced in early 2017, based on both its visual style and various gameplay elements, like growing crops and hucking corpses into the river. Today is release day, and based on the lengthy launch trailer released by publisher TinyBuild, I'd say my assessment was accurate—"dead on," you might say.
"The most inaccurate medieval cemetery management sim of all time" is exactly what it sounds like: You, a resourceful and morally-flexible chap, must establish a medieval-ish cemetery and then do whatever it takes to make it grow. Plant crops, craft items, explore dungeons, complete quests, cut corners, conduct dangerous experiments, and deal with "ethical dilemmas" that may or may not involve, for instance, cannibalism.
I haven't played Graveyard Keeper myself so I can't comment on whether or not it's actually "good," but it sounds like it's got potential: Cute, varied, and incongruously dark is an interesting mix, if nothing else. It's available for $20 on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store, and there's a website available for your perusal at graveyardkeeper.com. We'll be taking a closer look at it ourselves pretty soon too, so stay tuned for that if you want to know more.
Stardew Valley is all well and good, but y’know what the farming life-sim genre really needs? Witch-burnings, inquisitions and a general sense of dread. At least, that’s what I’m assuming was going through the heads of Punch Club developers Lazy Bear, as they set to work on their latest game, Graveyard Keeper. Set in a dark fantasy world, you get to stomp around in the well-worn boots of a graveyard keeper, trying to make ends meet in an ethically messy world, selling human organs to local butchers and palling around with talking skulls. It’s out today.
Build and manage a medieval graveyard while facing ethical dilemmas and making questionable decisions. Welcome to Graveyard Keeper, the most inaccurate medieval cemetery sim of the year.
Hey everyone! What an amazing 2 years this has been. On behalf of Lazy Bear Games and tinyBuild, I'd like to thank everyone who followed Graveyard Keeper during its journey!
The game is officially LIVE on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux!
Graveyard Keeper is a wonderful thing, even in its current alpha state. You can tell what you're in for just by glancing at the patch notes on the home screen: "Fixed crash when extracting brain/fat/etc." I love that breezy "etc." "Fixed camera freeze when talking to Astrologer." And the home screen itself is no less delightful than the patch notes: night-time in a medieval village done up in pixel-art. The edges of a church and a waterfall are picked out in blue, lit by the nearby moon. It is a calm, but somehow potent view: the promise of morbid adventure. It reminds me a bit of that sense of expectation you get wandering around Melee Island at night.
You arrive in Graveyard Keeper from the modern world, where you are in love and in traffic and not very good at watching where you are going. Following an auto collision you awake in a medieval village and find yourself in charge of a small rundown graveyard. Every day a new body arrives from a wry, socialist donkey. Every afternoon there are tutorial tips to engage with, dispensed by a talking skull who seems to have been a bit of a boozer in his past life.
The pitch, I think, is Stardew Valley meets Six Feet Under. The graveyard needs fixing up - a process that will require the steady accumulation of resources and the unlocking of the skills needed to make anything handy of them - while the nearby village is filled with eccentrics and tantalising mysteries. Graveyard Keeper is particularly good at dangling threads, in fact: the local pub owner tells you that a nearby Astrologer may be of help to you; the church in the graveyard is locked, but may be accessible if you dig your way into its crypt. I am a few hours in and there are so many separate things I am working towards. The inquisition is in town: do I want to become a spy? Do I want to take on a garden as well as my graveyard? Do I want to see what's going on over by the nearby lighthouse?
