Comments 4

Re: Review: Graveyard Keeper - Stardew Valley With Rotting Corpses? Not Quite

zerocommazero

I typically only lurk here but had to comment as reading this review, made me speak up.

I've played/completed this game on PC this past winter, since i didn't think a Switch port was coming. This is a very good game but it is NOT Stardew Valley. The author and others do it a great disservice to compare the two. I feel like the reviewer walked in expecting SV but got something completely different and instead was left pointing out its faults of why its NOT Stardew Valley instead of realizing it is its own identity. I also feel the reviewer didn't give the crafting experience a full chance to learn so everything became a drag, kind of like if you never used a sauna or snacks to refill your energy in SV and got upset with sleep being the only way "you know" to recharge your meter.

SV is all about farming and relationships. GK is a more complex crafting/management simulation that also has farming in it. You can farm in GK but its nowhere as full-featured as SV. There is a 7 day calendar but its only tied to specific major NPCs you can interact with (1/per day). There are no months/seasons, just a rotating week so there is no crop complexity. The game has a fixed character/story and there is no romantic relationships, because of the plot, just a friend meter that uses quests to incrementally improve and unlock options for the NPCs you'll deal with.

The best comparison is it has the visual and aethetics of Stardew Valley and the crafting complexity of games like Factorio with levels and levels of crafting that will turn off those who aren't looking for that detail of complexity, which is why i cite Factorio. If you preferred the artisan crafting of SV but wished it had more depth/complexity then this game is more in this direction. Graveyard Keeper is definitely a grind but i had tons of fun playing whereas the reviewer was obviously not.... "digging" it.