Octopus Overlords

Graveyard Keeper releases today on PC (Though I may buy it on XBOX One). I'm really looking forward to this macabre and humorous take on The Stardew Valley sort of formula. Edit: it is humorously described as an "inaccurate medieval cemetery simulator".. I've been waiting for this to come out and am totally excited!

Impressions, please, from anybody who has this already. I haven't decided on Xb1 vs PC yet.

I do not have it, but (even as I type) one of GOG's stream team is playing it on Twitch.

Stardew valley in a graveyard?

Yes please.

Like anything that sounds awesome, there are a million ways to screw it up.

The pudding is in the proof.

Here's hoping.

Well, its got 9/10 on Steam and is only $20. I'm definitely picking it up this week. I did watch a bit of Twitch Streaming of the beta.

Update: Even better - Its on Game Pass for my XBox! I don't even have to buy it. Woot!

At 20 bucks and being in a bit of a gaming transition period while I decide where to focus my gaming attentions, it's almost a no brainer.

Still, won't hurt to watch a few let's plays and read a few reviews first.

Also, Grave Keeper is a better name. I assume it was taken.

Not keen on a game about graveyard maintenance featuring a live cartoon donkey prominently in it's promotional material. I'm already getting the wrong vibe from the game and all I've seen so far is the cover art.

Obviously this has nothing to do with gameplay itself but it is such a glaring misstep (with regard to my personal expectations) that it serves to put a brake on my enthusiasm.

Marketing is hard, apparently.

Nope, marketing is bang on, it was my expectations that were the problem.

Oh well.

As an aside, why is the stardew valley fishing minigame in a game about managing a graveyard? That seems out of place, lazy and needlessly derivative.

Ok, I'll shut up now, I hope it meets your expectations and is something you'll enjoy.

Sorry for the negativity.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Wed Aug 15, 2018 5:21 pmAs an aside, why is the stardew valley fishing minigame in a game about managing a graveyard? That seems out of place, lazy and needlessly derivative.

Because Daehawk doesn't buy games that have water if you can't fish in the water.

That reminds me of Willy blowing up a stump, filling the resulting hole with water from a hose, then sitting down with a fishing pole at the "pond".

Fishing is one of my favourite things to do in stardew valley, fyi.

My impressions so far: Promising

I downloaded this on XB1X last night since its included in my Game Pass sub. I dinked around for a couple of hours. Its less restrictive than Stardew Valley since you can run around when you have no stamina left, and eating restores stamina. Sleeping is the primary way to restore stamina and save the game. But even then, you can wake up at any time of the night and you can work for a day or more without sleeping, so long as you eat to restore stamina or are doing stuff that doesn't require it. NPC's, however, naturally have their own schedules and are only available during certain parts of the day (or on certain days of the week).

There is less emphasis (so far) on crop tending, though that does seem to be a big element later. For now, I can gather berries and shrooms that grow back almost daily. I have unlocked the garden area and tilled part of it, but so far have no seeds/saplings to cultivate. Early game, I am gathering wood, stone and some foodstuffs, while tending to the occasional corpse dropped off at the graveyard and trying to repair the rundown cemetery and nearby house. I have had a couple of runs into town to meet some of the NPCs. Plot development is slow.

Early game tutorial is pretty light. Its not hard if you've played similar before. But I was able to easily get off-track and find out I had wasted a lot of time and materials and caused myself some delay by missing some rather obvious stuff (not repairing/building some essential early tech).

I'll post a more thorough impression after getting in a good amount of play time. I'm pretty distracted by BfA (WoW) right now. Plus, you know, I have a job.

Edit: FWIW, the donkey does not figure prominently in game play. He pulls the cart that drops off the bodies. He apparently talks (or at least you are able to understand a donkey) and has lightly humorous socialist views on his plight as a forced laborer. Whenever I read his dialog, I can help but imagine Eddie Murphy's voice for the Donkey character in Shrek.

For some reason, fishing is popular in just about any game. I've literally seen people say (perhaps in jest, perhaps not) that they were going to buy Graveyard Keeper because it includes a fishing minigame.

Hell, even I caught the fishing bug for a while back in the Star Wars Galaxies days.

Thanks for writing Cylus.

I'm a whim away from throwing 20 bucks at it and hoping for the best.

FWIW - I have attended one witch burning so far. I did not bring marshmallows.

This darkly humorous game may be derivative of Stardew Valley (which is entirely derivative of Harvest Moon) - but its satirically derivative and that's a good thing.

Cylus Maxii wrote: ↑Thu Aug 16, 2018 1:12 pm This darkly humorous game may be derivative of Stardew Valley (which is entirely derivative of Harvest Moon) - but its satirically derivative and that's a good thing.

I realize that games that are in the same genre are bound to have a lot of overlap, and that applies here. With that said, however, the game seems to *really* lean on Stardew Valley in ways that just seem inappropriate given the subject matter. Every time I hear reference to tending your crops I can't help but think "wtf does that have to do with managing a graveyard?"

The problem in this case is that I have an imagination and I had hoped that the developers did too. The amount of fun you can have designing a game around a graveyard is, I think, very high. Graveyard Keeper doesn't seem so much a game in the same genre as Stardew Valley (and Harvest Moon) as a clone of Stardew Valley. I just don't understand why there is fishing and farming in this game. Like, at all.

I'm much more willing to forgive a 1 man operation making a game as an act of love and personal accomplishment even if the game is derivative and clone-y. I'm much less likely to forgive an entire development studio for making a derivative and clone-y game. And to make it derivative and clone-y of a 1 man operation seems incredibly...exploity, lazy and money grabby.

Realize that these are my impressions so far. Not a final opinion. I don't know enough about the game to actually judge it, but I know enough about the game to start having impressions of it.

I can accept that a game studio might want to jump on the success of something like Minecraft, but they better put in some creative effort to come up with something new and interesting in the same vein, not blockcraft. In my opinion of course. Others are free to enjoy whatever they find enjoyable. Always, always.

I think the worst part is that when I hear Graveyard Keeper I hear something along the same imaginative lines of Dungeon Keeper (And no, I don't mean a DK clone. Just...monster management and/or macabre and fun dr. frankenstein stuff). So that's on me. My expectations based on the game name and general description do not line up very well with what I'm seeing implemented. It's sort of like being a Star Wars fan and finding out the new Star Wars management game is just Stardew Valley on Tatooine, farming moisture. It's exactly what the game says it is, but somehow the reality is disappointing anyway.

The game appears to be something like "medieval farmville, including a graveyard business".

With all that said, and to repeat myself, I'm at the tipping point of just throwing 20 bucks at it (a very rare game buying approach for me) and just hoping it's fun despite all I wrote above (hoping I'm wrong but that it's fun anyway.)

Keep the impressions coming. I promise not to be such a debbie downer after this. Or at least until I have some first hand experience to go with it.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Thu Aug 16, 2018 6:21 pm It's sort of like being a Star Wars fan and finding out the new Star Wars management game is just Stardew Valley on Tatooine, farming moisture.

I would play that game. I miss being a Tatooinian moisture farmer. Good times. #SWG

The truth is you can make a good game with just about anything as the theme. I'm still waiting for a Dexter based game, although something more generic or with more options would be more fun. It's why Dead by Daylight is a more interesting game than Friday the 13th, even if the game systems aren't particularly superior.

In this case expectations make a huge difference. I was hoping for some sort of macabre, monster based game. Growing melons is just a huge disappointment in that context no matter how much I enjoy melon farming in Stardew Valley.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Thu Aug 16, 2018 6:21 pmAnd to make it derivative and clone-y of a 1 man operation seems incredibly...exploity, lazy and money grabby.

Stardew Valley should respond by releasing a free Graveyard expansion with a new area that you tend, having to build fences and defenses to keep zombies inside.

Keep the impressions coming. I promise not to be such a debbie downer after this. Or at least until I have some first hand experience to go with it.

The core game involves filling a graveyard with the best-scoring corpses/graves and preaching sermons to the masses in your chapel once it opens. Corpses come in with varying amount of red/white skulls for quality that score the relative sins (red) and quality of the remains (white). Some things you can do in embalming (like removing blood and fat) actually improve the corpse quality (adding white skulls). Some actions can add or remove the red skulls (haven't figured this out yet as I have only 1/3 of the harvesting skills so far). After removing stuff for embalming (hopefully without botching it up), you then re-sell some of these products to the unknowing masses. Some materials from the corpses are fairly essential to the crafting. So you will definitely be getting your hands dirty and doing some underhanded and shifty stuff with corpses. Once interred and the grave decorated, the burial affects the graveyard score. You can also do improvements on a per-grave basis to improve the score. Initially, you also spend time clearing out the over growth in the graveyard and repairing the starting graves so that you can get the score high enough that the bishop will allow you to re-open the chapel. Ghosts in the graveyard may give you feedback about other corpses and such that they don't like. You may have to get rid of bodies that have been so over-harvested or just plain botched embalming - this involves dumping them in the river or eventually building a crematorium. Once the graveyard fills up (max is reported as 88 plots), you will have to exhume and dispose of remains to make room for higher scoring graves if you want to keep up with quests and move the plot along. You may also have to do tasks like exhuming remains to keep the ghosts happy.

As for the plot: It involves dealing with corrupt clergy that you work for, while secretly harvesting stuff from corpses that you resell to the unwitting. It involves exploring and dungeoneering and ultimately trying to get back to where you started from by activating some sort of portal (and escaping your nightmare grind in the graveyard). I assume there is also a lot of plot involving the town's denizens and the weird, Twilight Zone, events that made you the Graveyard keeper in the first place. I don't know how deep the ghost interactions go, I have just scratched the surface so far. They may have other quests that involve their unfinished business.

I haven't fished or farmed so far. But the inclusion does not break with the setting considering that its medieval and you are basically a poor cleric wannabe who has a small kitchen garden and is trying to eat vs starve. Most of the houses in game have at least some sort of subsistence level garden. Farming is not the main focus so far. But I imagine it is at least a medium-sized focus by mid-game since the garden space if fairly large (but still 1/4 of what Stardew Valley had.) The graveyard is significantly larger than the garden. I imagine fishing was included because.. water. (as mentioned above).

Great info, keep it up.

Thanks!

I think a lot of my misconceptions (again, that's on me) could have been avoided by calling the game Medieval Mortician Manager.

So I just saw the Steam coupon, and checked out the store page, for a closer look (after dismissing it initially). Mixed reviews overall, with people complaining about bugs in the patch thread. Are the collective OOers having any bugs/tech troubles with the game, (and I missed it in the reading/skimming of the thread) or is that just general internet unrest creeping into the reviews?

I pulled the Xbox One version down since I have Game Pass. It hasn't had any bugs for me yet. But I'm admittedly not very far into it (3 hours?).

I've watched a couple of videos now and while my comments don't hold the weight of Cylus's because he's actually played it, I think I have some insight into the game now.

First, I've been able to let go of what I hoped the game would be versus what it is. That was a huge problem for me.

Second, the game really is medieval graveyard keeper, with keeper being the same idea as house keeper, grounds keeper or building superintendent. The property seems to be owned by a cartoon religious organization that resembles Christianity. You're put in charge of maintaining the property. If you do well you might move up the chain in the organization, becoming a preacher and so on. The game's view of the "church" as an organization is a bit cynical, but it keeps the tone humorous and I never felt the game was making social commentary about organized religion. Sometimes a corrupt, power hungry church is just a video game story device and not a diatribe.

Times are rough. Meat is rare. Bodies are meat. Don't ask, don't tell can net you some cash. Times are rough, so as Cylus pointed out, maintaining your own crops is something everyone does. Being part of the religious organization, you have access to a larger amount of land than most people.

The goal, if any of these games have a single goal, is to increase the value of your graveyard and move up the organization chain (this part is hinted at heavily, I don't know that it's true, yet). Quality of bodies being planted affects the value of the graveyard. Other things too. Some are intuitive (nice looking grave sites) and some are game-y (preparing a body one way helps with value, doing it another way hinders value). I think of it like you've been hired to keep the grounds and if the highers up like what you're doing, things go better for you.

I haven't seen any of the magic/macabre/undead stuff yet.

The game has a skill tree. This is incredibly important to me (I love skill trees) and I can't believe I never saw any references to it until recently.

The game starts with some weird, waking up from a coma/dream/someotherbullcrap thing with you as the new graveyard keeper. You are surprised, but no one else seems to be. It's just a weird premise to get you in the job and to cover some meta-discussion. The game would be better served (imo of course) by just playing it straight instead of some Thomas Covenant crap. In the end this is irrelevant though. It's just premise.

It appears that there is 1 NPC associated with each day, and they have stories/quests that can only be progressed on their day. Miss them (because you're planting bodies, perhaps) and you need to wait another week to deal with them again.

It's hard to tell how much fun the game is by watching videos, but I like what I see, so far.

Game is a buck cheaper at Fanatical than Humble Bundle even after 10% off at Humble due to my monthly subscription discount. Assuming standard currency exchange and no other funny business (like maybe taxes or something).

Is a buck worth opening an account and having to track my games across yet another gaming store? Probably not. If I already had a Fanatical account, that'd be different.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Sat Aug 18, 2018 2:57 am Game is a buck cheaper at Fanatical than Humble Bundle even after 10% off at Humble due to my monthly subscription discount. Assuming standard currency exchange and no other funny business (like maybe taxes or something).

Is a buck worth opening an account and having to track my games across yet another gaming store? Probably not. If I already had a Fanatical account, that'd be different.

Did you have a Bundle Stars account?

Good thinking, but no. I checked.

Update: farming does come into play when you need to feed the Donkey carrots to pay him to deliver more bodies. So you basically have a gate where you have to get farming up in order to progress. So, that's what I'm doing now.. At least I managed to get the next tier of tools going.

Bought it. Installed it. Ran it. Haven't played it yet.

There is no way to save that I have seen during the tutorial. Because of this the tutorial seems unreasonably long. I've already had to quit before the tutorial, which meant none of my progress was saved, which meant that the next time I tried to play, I had to start a new game, which meant starting the tutorial over. Not too happy about that, but eventually you get past it.

edit: Whoops, you just find your house and go to bed. Saves happen when you sleep. In retrospect I should have realized, but no part of the tutorial or game introduction quests and such ever brought me near my house. I forgot I even had one, let alone a bed inside.

There is a relationship meter for each NPC. As you develop relationships additional options become available.

Equipment wears out through use. Using a whetstone repairs it.

What a weird little game.

I assume the developers are from a non-english speaking country. It just has that strange otherworldly cultural vibe to it.

From what I can tell, you get to choose to tell the truth about your Thomas Covenant origins and argue about the heresy of science with the witch burning Inquisitor, or you can just play along like a good little medieval serf. The earth is flat, the church is awesome, witches exist to be burned, etc.

I'm admittedly a little lost right now. Each NPC has quests and some NPC's are only available on certain days, but even with that...I'm not sure what to do next.

Believe it or not I find this game harder to understand the more I play it. At least the mechanics of it. You craft "faith" with sermons, but I don't know what it's used for.

I think they are foreign, but their first game (Punch Club) is equally weird. It starts as a kind of fighting management game, but IIRC you're eventually crafting powered armor to help save the world and your cat.

Sepiche wrote: ↑Thu Aug 23, 2018 11:29 am I think they are foreign, but their first game (Punch Club) is equally weird. It starts as a kind of fighting management game, but IIRC you're eventually crafting powered armor to help save the world and your cat.

It's got a less coherent Magicka feel to it. That's the vibe I think they are going for.

Slightly stale thread, arise! Seems kinda appropriate for a game about managing a graveyard.

I've been hooked on this for a couple of days. It's definitely taxing, those days go by fast and you really need to plan your actions in advance, preferrably two or three days out depending on what you've got going on. I like it though.

I just encountered a super annoying bug with the fishing, turns out if you remap your action key to anything except "E" on the PC, fishing is still expecting you to hit "E"! GD consolitis strikes again! AutoHotkey is now taking care of that problem for me. I wasted at least 30 minutes of real-life time trying to figure out why I couldn't land any fish! Argh! I think I'll go on their website and complain, see if that fixes anything.

I actually played this all the way through to completion over the course of the last couple weeks. I enjoyed it quite a lot but I do feel like it is an inferior version of Stardew Valley. The only thing I think it really does better is that the theme is a bit more interesting. That's not to say it's bad of course, just slightly under-baked.

I had a lot of fun with this game, felt I got pretty far too, but the grind got to be too much and I never actually saw it to completion.

I'm just getting into the mid-game now I think. I finally can see all the available techs and I have researched enough to have a lot of them (probably 1/2 of each tree plus some necessary advanced crafting stations). Now I need to get my "automation" going. Gotta get that donkey coming by a little more often, I need more pieces parts!

I have Stardew Valley also and I enjoy it a lot too. Keeper is much more manic, in Stardew I could go to town, and tend my crops, and then fight some monsters and I didn't feel like I had to RUSH. I have to be efficient, yes, but Keeper's days are so much shorter I have to beeline to the most important task right away because there's barely enough time to do more than two things in a day, unless you're just crafting resources at your house. Even with the teleport stone I am still in a constant time crunch. I'm hoping the "automation" will free up some of my time.

I've been wrapped up in this one since Halloween day. I picked it up on sale with the DLC's for maybe $20.

The comparison to Stardew Valley is mostly visual. The gameplay loop shares some cosmetic similarities but has a lot of differences. Farming is a side-thing. Actually, it feels like everything is a side-thing. As others have touched on, you have to research goods and materials to progress in the game.

One thing that stumped me was not having access to the right materials to kick-start some parts of the game and get it moving again. It turns out one BIG element in the game is EXPLORING. Everywhere, everything. Note who you find, where they are, and what they sell. Only one person might sell "Oil" (in a jar) which is different than the "Oil" (fluid) you can produce yourself. You have to know where they are when you need them or you get stuck.

The elements I've bumped into so far are:
Autopsy: Harvest bits and pieces from corpses that get dropped off periodically, beware "ruining" a body and then burying it.
Grave Keeping: Work to restore and expand a cemetery using "clean" bodies with nice decorations.
Cleric: Build your church and preach to the townsfolk once a week to gather "Faith" which is used in research and some crafting.
Gathering: Wild plants and mushrooms to restore Stamina.
Farming: Wholesale plant tending and harvesting, for Stamina and Profits.
Crafting: Make lots of bits and bobs to make bigger bits and bobs which open new ways to make new bits and bobs. Repeat.
Research: Apply Faith and Science to items to crack their deeper meanings and unlock new techs and items.
Combat: Incredibly light combat, mostly there to give you things to whack for materials for crafting.
Fishing: I have yet to fish. No pole.
Questing: Everyone has quests for you and they all have "Happiness" bars to tell you how much they like you.

Each game "Week" has 6 days. My character only sleeps maybe twice each week. I spend a few days, maybe, with 1/2 Stamina and just munch on Carrots and Flowers to keep going until I feel like sleeping. Certain events and NPC's only take place or arrive on certain days.

I don't feel rushed to get everything done. I mostly ignore the clock and eat to stay on my feet day and night, and then jog over to the church to give my weekly sermon. There's a LOT to do, though. A never-ending ping-pong of activities.

Things Stardew Valley has that this game doesn't (or at least, that I have seen):
- Dungeon Delving with increasing risk/reward at increasing depth.
- NPC Birthdays and Holidays
- Dating/Marriage
- Home customization
- Farm customization (you simply expand in pre-selected plots in Graveyard Keeper)
- An evolving world that changes over time with seasons

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon Nov 02, 2020 3:27 pm

Things Stardew Valley has that this game doesn't (or at least, that I have seen):
- Dungeon Delving with increasing risk/reward at increasing depth.

Wait a little while.

I'm also going to say you haven't gotten to one very important difference. Automation becomes a very large part of the game but in a fairly unique way different from most of these type of games.

Lordnine wrote: ↑Mon Nov 02, 2020 5:08 pmAutomation becomes a very large part of the game but in a fairly unique way different from most of these type of games.

I've been playing for days and haven't seen a hint of "Automation" but would welcome it. The comments about it here prompted me to go looking for an answer and I discovered that all of the quests I've been putting off to build up resources should have probably taken priority.

I mean, I'm at a point where I'm going to the Farmer and selling off 100 Cabbage and Carrots every few days, mass-hauling logs, and scouring the swamp for Iron ore to smelt. I'd welcome some free labor.

Yeah one complaint I had with the game is that it’s actually a lot less open than it initially appears. I mean, you can play it that way, but there is a clear optimal upgrade path. If you deviate too much from it all you are doing is slowing your game down.