Graveyard Keeper made the transition to mobile from PC this week, bringing a darker version of Stardew Valley to those who prefer to game on the go.
We’ve reported on this game a couple of times before, but if you missed it, Graveyard Keeper is a management sim in which your character is mysteriously brought back in time to a medieval village and is tasked with running the local cemetery.
In an effort to return to his ordinary life, the man has taken it upon himself to restore this rundown burial site to its former glory. Assisted by a talking skull (yes, there is a talking skull in this game), several ghostly figures, and the town’s church, you’ll begin working toward that goal.
The business turns out to be quite profitable actually – if you don’t mind doing some morally questionable jobs. Of course, you’ll get paid for burying the dead, but you can also take their organs to sell to the local butcher. Later on, you can even collect alchemical ingredients to make a poison that kills the town folks, allowing you to use their dead bodies to make more profits. Pretty grim stuff.
A Stardew Valley-like management sim, but with a darker vibe
In term of gameplay, Graveyard Keeper will instantly look familiar to anyone who’s played Stardew Valley or the like, albeit with a lower level of polish. You’ll collect resources from the surrounding environment and with them, make the tools you need to effectively operate your graveyard. That entails both taking care of existing burial plots and using quality materials for future plots.
You’re only given a limited amount of energy to spend every day, however, so you will have to choose what you want to do for that day. Initially, you’ll probably screw up and use up all of your energy before midday, but as you play you’ll slowly start to figure it out.
Yet even without energy, there’re still plenty of things you can do. For example, you can head down to town to befriend the villagers, sell what you have, and accept quests. These quests will have you exploring new areas such as dungeons and caves.
When night falls, you must return home and go to bed in order to recharge energy, and doing so will also automatically saves the game. Currently, this is the only way for you do save, though, which is a huge inconvenience of Graveyard Keeper mobile compared to its PC counterpart.
A solid mobile experience, but could use some more polish
Because of his, you could be having the best dungeon run of your life, then get interrupted and return to square one. Stardew Valley had the insight to adjust the save system when it went mobile to prevent things like that from happening, but it seems the developer of Graveyard Keeper mobile didn’t think of that.
Moreover, we feel like the controls could use some more polish. The virtual joystick is imprecise at times, and there are too many onscreen buttons, which make the interface look cumbersome.
That said, this mobile port does a pretty good job in general. It runs perfectly smoothly, and there are no major or game-breaking issues, just some minor inconveniences because of a lack of foresight from the developer.
So, all in all, we do recommend Graveyard Keeper mobile. It’s no Stardew Valley, but those with a somewhat dark sense of humor will no doubt still be able to get tons of fun out of this one.