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Website: https://www.gog.com/game/graveyard_keeper
Price: $20
Graveyard keeper for Linux from GOG is a mere 230 MB download. My expectations were a time management game with a novel theme. Boy, was I wrong! Graveyard keeper seems to be a fully fledged role play game in the vein of those Nintendo classics.
First things first. When I launched the game after installation, I ended up with CPU's being maxed out and memory being maxed out. After killing the process and starting it again, I was presented with a loading screen and moderate CPU usage. Not the best start, but I decided to dive in anyway.
You are presented with a small introductory animation that tells the story. There is no way to speed it up or skip it. My button presses were redirected to > dev/null. One thing that immediately jumps out at you is the amazing pixel art. From your hamster character (what we call hipsters here) to the building interior details, just beautiful. The music and sound effects suit the game well. The NPCs have voices! Nonsensical ones, but voices nonetheless. If you are like me, the typing whir sounds made when NPCs “talk” drive me batty. The amount of information you are presented with is great. Interacting with NPCs fill the story out like it is supposed to.
The story unfolds at a decent pace and it's hard not to like a game with grim humor. You harvest meat from fresh corpses, with an alcoholic skull to keep you company, and a communist talking donkey. When I saw the above, I said: “I'm in!” Your boss is the Bishop, with a completely different sense of humor. The townspeople are more like city folk who will walk right over you if you stop in the middle of the road. Great! That said, not everyone has a dark sense of humor, and the game may not appeal to those dried-up prudes. You have been warned. To me, this all adds to the character of the game. This looks to be a long game in a sub 500 MB download. (They say dynamite does come in small packages), so prepare yourself to lose a couple of hours to this game. Do not expect harvest moon or Stardew valley, go in expecting nothing and you will be pleasantly surprised. Apparently, being a graveyard keeper is not a sad or creepy job - yes there is the human hamburger angle, but I do not think it was intended to be creepy.
You first need to get to the human hamburger part anyway, and that requires some work on your part. What I do appreciate is that the game does not hold your hand. It will tell you what to do, but how you do it is up to you.
Oh, and you cannot just do either, you need to learn how and get the appropriate tools. You have a skill tree. To unlock technologies, you need to hear about it from someone, though there are a few you figure out as you go. All of this hinges on a 3-point system with red, green and blue crystals. They represent strength, health and intelligence.
The map is large and looks fantastic. (Did I mention the beautiful pixel art?) I did run into a bit of lag when traveling long distances, but this may have been part of the design, as it was night. With all the quests, you can sometimes forget that you actually have a graveyard to run, but, all in all, way above expectations.
Now the “bad” part. People complain that the game is not complete and should not have been released. I can honestly say I do not agree. All my quests worked without hitch, I understand that some quests have time and place, and certain characters may not want to talk to you if the time and place is not right, but that is par for the course.
The core mechanic seems to be: make money, be it by selling people burgers or organs. By hook or by crook…
Sound: 4/5 Graphics: 5/5 Game play: 4/5 Last ability: 4/5