Zombie Graveyard Simulator – Prologue Review (PC)

It’s the morning after yet another sleepless night, and once again, this shovel of mine has begun its routine of exchanging zombie blood and bone marrow for another morbid essence—a blooming bouquet of rose petals and post-funeral floral tributes. With a new day dawning, I must quickly dispose of the remnants from last night’s outbreak and prepare for the agenda ahead—a routine that will consist of digging fresh grave plots, maintaining the integrity of its gloomy roots, and pouring whatever I can into establishing a stronger line of defense for the events that will unfold later this evening. Come twilight, the undead will rise again, and should I fail to prepare, these mounting corpses will soon become immune to my ambitions. It’s the start of a new chapter in Zombie Graveyard Simulator, and already I’m beginning to question whether or not I have what it takes to survive.

During the day, the tasks are easy—relaxing, even. Nine times out of ten, I find myself alternating between a handful of agricultural exploits—digging graves, cremating bodies, and selling floral items to grieving families. It’s morbid work, I’ll admit, but at least I can feel some sense of satisfaction with each passing moment. But in the nighttime — that’s where things tend to take a turn for the worse. In the night, those peaceful chores of mine quickly transition into something a little more morbid. As the zombies flock to the pit, the goal is no longer to build, but to defend. And I’m tired, Boss — but when all’s said and done, someone has to do it.

Dirty Work

Zombie Graveyard Simulator isn’t drastically different from your bog-standard business simulation game: you have a plot of land, a spool of upgrades to unlock, and a simple progression system that invites you to carve through various scenarios, and slowly but steadily increase the structural complexity of your craft. And don’t get me wrong, the Prologue does have several other strands for you to dig up, but this is, for the most part, the kindling that ignites the job — catering to a plot of land, and doing the usual dirty work of a graveyard keeper. In short, you use your shovel to dig up burial sites, various sponges to scrape grime from headstones, and a selection of floral tributes to embellish each plot, and so on and so forth.

The night is a different ballgame. Once the sun sinks beyond the hills, the workload shifts from tender odd jobs to a tougher, dirtier, and slightly more taxing affair. In a typical tower defense-like scenario, the game tasks you with choosing, distributing, and defending various traps throughout each night, and using whatever tools you have in your arsenal to fend off zombies as they attempt to pillage your crops and ransack your graveyard. Naturally, the longer you hold out, the greater your chance of acquiring a better reward, etcetera etcetera. And that’s really what the graveyard shift is: fighting zombies and protecting your assets, after which the cycle begins from scratch.

A Hard Day’s Night

Given that the Prologue keeps the veil draped over a lot of its catalog—endless nights, limitless traps, tools, and graveyard upgrades, for instance—I can only bring myself to critique the initial six days that it currently has in its possession. As with any prelude, the game only offers you a small bite of what’s to come in future updates. With a barrier being wedged between the sixth shift and the latter portions of the campaign, I would say that a good seventy percent of the game is currently locked. That said, even with the low amount of content that it does have at present, you could quite easily get a feel of the mechanics and the general structure of the progression without having to indulge in the intricate details.

At the heart of this introductory chapter is a simple yet surprisingly addictive hook that, while not perfect, much less in possession of any defining audiovisual qualities, has a lot of depth to it. If it was just the one side of the coin—managing a graveyard and burning the odd corpse—then I’d say that it probably isn’t worth the investment. And yet, with something as simple as a tower defense-like system and day-and-night cycle there to complicate things, it suddenly becomes more of a wild card with numerous moving pieces and possibilities. Granted, I can’t speak for the entire process, what with it still having so much left to reveal. But for what it is in its current state, I can vouch for it. It’s a little janky, I’ll admit — but with the odd bit of clumsiness comes comical value and, if you’re willing to commit, mindless entertainment.

Verdict

Zombie Graveyard Simulator only gave me six days to rummage around through its world and a minor handful of materials to work with, and so, I feel as if there’s still that excruciatingly tedious itch that yearns to be scratched somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not on the verge of disembarking from it to pursue an alternate IP, but I do feel as if there is still so, so much more of this grave plot left to unearth. And that’s a good sign, actually, as it shows that there is a hook to the experience that bears the capacity to entice you into returning for another glimpse at a later date.

If you enjoy getting your hands dirty with some fairly morbid chore core work, then chances are you’ll enjoy digging up a few graves, cremating the deceased, and scrubbing a few headstones in threeW’s Zombie Graveyard Simulator. It still has a few loose nuts and bolts à la Frankenstein’s Creature, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that it’s without a heartbeat. There’s a lot to sink your teeth into here, with a good amount of depth in the graveyard maintenance and evolution process — and lest we forget that this is merely the Prologue, too. So, if you’re all for the idea of burning a few bodies and then hacking their reanimated corpses up into iddy biddy pieces shortly thereafter, then I imagine this occupation will suit you down to the ground.