Graveyard Keeper - Not Even Death Can Stop You Working
Graveyard Keeper is a unique, darkly humorous spin on Harvest Moon-like simulation games, except here you're farming corpses! You're a poor, beardy schmuck who gets tagged by a truck and wakes up in the Dark Ages. A shrouded figure names you the new graveyard keeper, so now it's your duty to clean up the graveyard, chop up an infinite supply of corpses for some handy giblets, and schmooze with the local eccentrics for their stuff. With any luck, and a whole lot of grinding, you'll be able to get home to your lover someday.
The LP:
This is a straightforward playthrough showing off the grand majority of the game but not trying to unlock everything; there's a lot of superfluous stuff you don't need to finish the story, or are even likely to use. I'm also not playing the DLC because the developers barely finished the main game, I'm not giving them more money.
I'm joined on co-commentary by Skippy Granola and YamiNoSenshi, both fellow fans of Harvest Moon, and Skippy is also familiar with Graveyard Keeper.
Content Warning: death, murder, internal organs aplenty, and a dark sense of humor about all of it.
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Last edited by ThornBrain on Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:21 pm, edited 13 times in total.
Ah, the game where you're encouraged to work yourself to the bone and cannibalize your fellow man.
Reminds me of retail.
Reminds me of retail.
Ah, Graveyard Keeper! It's a lot of fun, I spent hours on it. It's a pretty unique take on the homesteading genre, between the dark comedy tone and the more adventure game-like story progression. It's a shame they didn't really manage to clean up properly after clearly biting off more than they could chew conceptually.
A little touch: The symbols for the days of the week are the alchemical symbols of the planets, which also give their names to the days of the week (via saxon gods in English). In order it's Sun > Sunday, Venus > Frigga > Friday, Jupiter > Thor > Thursday, Mercury > Wodan > Wednesday, Mars > Tiw > Tuesday, Moon > Monday.
Yes, the week runs in reverse. And Saturn is missing...
A little touch: The symbols for the days of the week are the alchemical symbols of the planets, which also give their names to the days of the week (via saxon gods in English). In order it's Sun > Sunday, Venus > Frigga > Friday, Jupiter > Thor > Thursday, Mercury > Wodan > Wednesday, Mars > Tiw > Tuesday, Moon > Monday.
Yes, the week runs in reverse. And Saturn is missing...
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I dunno, I haven't seen somebody who walks straight up to a three ball flail and picks it up while looking directly at one of the large notices with halloween severed hands saying "Please do not touch the weapons, ask a member of staff to show you them."Salted Grump wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:07 pmAh, the game where you're encouraged to work yourself to the bone and cannibalize your fellow man.
Reminds me of retail.
Oh, wait, that's pretty much just me, isn't it?
Anyway, yeah, looking forward to seeing where this train goes, ohh boy!
I can just picture this game ending with the most literal interpretation of "going home" possible; you get sent back to your own time/world/whatever, but you, y'know, just got hit by a fucking truck, so you're just dead.
The game starting with a half-full graveyard already always worried me about how on earth you were meant to take care of the infinite flood of bodies coming in. Like, at some point, you're gonna run out of space, yeah? There's clearly expansions, but I have no idea whether those are feasible to meet before bodies start getting chucked unsanitarily.
Also, kinda curious how huge The Town is if we have someone dying every single day.
Also, kinda curious how huge The Town is if we have someone dying every single day.
It's semi-relevant to point out that I'll also be LPing Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town in the future (Skippy and Yami in tow), and I have an open poll on my Patreon to decide who I marry, so feel free to also vote if you're an enthusiast of the non-corpse kind of harvesting.
Historically when a graveyard ran out of space they would exhume old corpses to make space for the recently deceased and put the bones of the previous occupant into an ossuary.LPFinale wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 9:01 pmThe game starting with a half-full graveyard already always worried me about how on earth you were meant to take care of the infinite flood of bodies coming in. Like, at some point, you're gonna run out of space, yeah? There's clearly expansions, but I have no idea whether those are feasible to meet before bodies start getting chucked unsanitarily.
Also, kinda curious how huge The Town is if we have someone dying every single day.
And preindustrial towns were complete death traps with people constantly dying, so much so that most of them had negative growth rates but for the constant immigration of peasants.
Pretty sure an ossuary is not the local drinking water, but here we are.White Coke wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 3:57 amHistorically when a graveyard ran out of space they would exhume old corpses to make space for the recently deceased and put the bones of the previous occupant into an ossuary.
Well, Clotho there is neither witch nor fairy princess, if her name is anything to go off of; she's one of the Moirae, a triune of Greek goddesses responsible for fate. Specifically, she was responsible for spinning the thread of human lives, whereas her sisters Lachesis and Atropos were responsible for measuring and cutting the threads.
Yeah, that character name is definitely not great; I'm actually not sure how much benefit of the doubt I'd give the developers there, considering that Russia apparently does have a sizeable Romani population. Though going by the 'Baron' part, I'm guessing that it's probably a reference to the Johann Strauss II operetta of the same name.
By the way, vegetarian lasagna with spinach and porcini is extremely tasty
By the way, vegetarian lasagna with spinach and porcini is extremely tasty
While this game seems janky as hell sometimes, I really like how it keeps expanding the things you get to do. The hapless protagonist was already a one-man production chain for everything from foodstuffs over masonry to advanced alchemical potions, now there's this new twist and we still haven't even seen the Town yet.
Is it even possible to actually fail in this game, though? If death just teleports you back to bed, and there's no time limit, it seems like the worst that could happen if you screw up is that you have to grind more until you get whatever you need to progress.
I just have a hell of a time any time I feel constrained by a time limit, and while there doesn't seem to be any sort of overall timer, I think I'd still have problems with it.Carpator Diei wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2020 10:45 amIs it even possible to actually fail in this game, though? If death just teleports you back to bed, and there's no time limit, it seems like the worst that could happen if you screw up is that you have to grind more until you get whatever you need to progress.
One point on the game being more chill is crops don't need watering, never rot, never wither. As long as you try to keep your progress among people faintly parallel is more relaxing that like, Stardew and stuff in my opinion.
But. you know you best. On PC I think you can also mod in like, speed potions that last for hours so you can run around faster.
But. you know you best. On PC I think you can also mod in like, speed potions that last for hours so you can run around faster.
Is there no way to expand your inventory space? This seems like the sort of game that would let you cobble together a bag of holding at some point (probably made from human leather and gold-star hemp thread).
Not that I could find. It's about as much space as you'll ever need, really, and the things I drop to make more space aren't things I miss when it comes down to it.
Bones were used as decorations in churches because the bodies needed to stay on holy ground and using them as decorations was an alternative to sticking them in an ossuary.
IIRC, Isn't there a church in Poland where the interior made entirely of human bones?
Okay, a quick google points out it's an ossuary as part of a larger church, and it's Czech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary
Honestly kinda cool, in a rather macabre way.
Okay, a quick google points out it's an ossuary as part of a larger church, and it's Czech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary
Honestly kinda cool, in a rather macabre way.