The Demoman: The Graveyard
The Graveyard demo is an exciting open-world non-linear third-person co-op multiplayer supernatural survival horror game with um… hang on…
The Graveyard puts you in the capable shoes of Mabel “Faith” Asskicker, a Japanese sword-wielding demon-hunting covert operative who navigates the rooftops in a dystopian future using parkour and um… Nah, try again.
The Graveyard is uh… JPRG… real-time strat…. city-building with, uh… attack-defend capture points… magical goblin living in your butt… rollercoaster sim…
I'm sure I'll think of a caption for the next picture, but right now, I'm stumped.
Okay, I don’t really know what The Graveyard is. You’re an old woman, you hobble through a graveyard, you sit on a bench, you listen to a song, you get up, you hobble out of the graveyard, and the game ends. Sorry for the spoilers, but they’re right there on the store page. That’s all that happens and they tell you that right up front.
Still got nothin'. Maybe the next one.
In fact, this isn’t even really a demo. It’s a trial that contains the complete game, save one aspect: death. If you buy the full version, every time you “play” there’s a chance the old woman you’re controlling will die. Other than that, the trial version and full version are identical.
So… let’s see. Technically, the game is very nice. It looks great, I had no frame-rate problems, installation went well. Can’t say I’m a huge fan of the song, and some of the birds flitting around pass through solid objects, but apart from that, the game is, you know, well made.
The Graveyard supports joystick controls. Also, life is pain and we all die alone.
I give up. Maybe I’ll let the store page take a stab at describing it:
It’s more like an explorable painting than an actual game. An experiment with poetry and storytelling but without words.
There, that’ll do. Though, technically, there are words and you can’t really explore much. And now, the rating:
It's a demo where an old woman walks through a graveyard and sits on a bench.
So, after that incredibly awkward and brief review, you might be wondering why this demo gets eight sticky bombs out of eight? No, it’s not sarcasm, it’s simply that the demo did what any demo would have to do to earn eight sticky bombs: it convinced me to buy the full game.
Yes, I do feel a little weird about buying a game simply because I want to see an old woman die. Well, to be truthful, I don’t want to see her die. I mean, I do, but not because I hate her or I think I’m going to enjoy it. I’m just sort of, I dunno, curious as to how it happens. I don’t think she’ll get taken out by a sidewinder missile or anything, but, I dunno, I guess I just want to see how they present it. Plus, it’s an indie game, which I try to support, and it’s only $5, and I’ll say this: when a game gives you nothing but an old woman walking through a graveyard alone, it definitely captures your full attention.
EDIT: Okay, I just played the full version and she died. It’s genuinely sad. I’m genuinely sad. I didn’t even see it, I was shooing my stupid obese cat off the desk. I looked back at the screen and the old woman had died. It was, like, a shock. For real. Even though I was fully expecting it to happen. I’m actually depressed.
Now, I’ve been playing the Half-Life games for years and by now we know that in a certain Episode a certain likable character we’ve spent some time with dies, but the death of this anonymous old woman that I’ve spent a total of about five minutes with had far more of an impact. Just sayin’. That’s pretty remarkable.
My intent was just to bring up Passage, and its similarities to and differences from The Graveyard. I couched it the way I did because I found it amusing to use idiot console war speech/arguments to discuss two EXTREMELY indie, non-mainstream games.
So, you were being sarcastic? I’m confused o.o
Yes, I was being sarcastic when I suggested that either of these two computer-only games were in any way related to XBox or Playstation 3, neither of which either game is available for. Sorry for confusing you.
Eh. When it comes to “The Passage”, I’m with Tom Francis.
Mainly, that compared to Portal, it sucks.
Only he put it much better, what with being the award winning Tom Francis and all.
It’s okay Duck, we still love you.
Graveyard isn’t a game, it’s sortof a short interactive french film (except with dutch singing).
It won’t be a game till the modding scene has a go. Putting the granny on a skateboard and stillborns on the path to ollie over on the way to the bench. And a Flatout nitrous boost system. And bullet time. Or someone maps the granny model over to Half-Life 2 to replace Gordon Freeman as the playable character.
Anyway, immediatley after finishing it I just felt the overwhelming urge to go help the elderly and infirm.
Oh god, i just bought it. Chris, since you didn’t see it, here’s how it goes down:
She looks around and sighs, then you hear a cracking sound, then she leans her head down, then it just slumps. Them her shoulders slump down and the superimposed face on it is showing the back of her neck, cracked sickly down. And she’s just slumped down, dead. It was truly sad for me, i’ll miss her.
Kinda seems like a waste of hard drive space to me.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it yet, but The Graveyard was put on Steam because another game by this company is coming out next week. It’s called The Path, and it’s an abstract horror retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, except the single little girl has been replaced by six sisters of different ages. It’s more of a traditional game than The Graveyard, and there was an early review of it on Rock, Paper, Shotgun: I put a link to it in my name, and the review starts with a link to the official website.
The song was about her family
How they all died and she was left alone
“Acid over granite to wash away the rust”
“And black marble bedsheets to keep me warm”
She wanted to die, gentlemen. She doesn’t have anything left in this world…
In the trial, the song would end with “… but this is not the time, it would seem” and “maybe next time, i will cease to be here”
Because she didn’t die, that is.
Damn i shed manly tears
As did I, it was a truly remarkable and touching game.
Chris, have my comments been blocked? I made two comments about the company behind this game a few hours ago, and they haven’t shown up yet.
Never mind, my original comment is up now.
While we’re on the subject of Indie games…
http://zarat.us/tra/offline-games/eversion.html
Eversion. Play it, and make sure to watch both endings. Biggest mindfuck ever.
[...] as a little extra, here are two interesting things for you: First Person Shouter’s post about ‘The Graveyard’ and a very big tetris game. Try beating my record of building a line in 20 minutes and 3 seconds. [...]
Wow that’s interesting.
I’m going to look “graveyard” up. Definitely. 5 bucks? easily worth it.
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