The Gravedigger

Day 9 of the October Horror Reviews: The Gravedigger Horror sometimes plays on the idea that the protagonist is the villain, and in this context, they... kind of are. Yes, you're being hunted by something, but I daresay it's a little deserved given the context of the game. You play a gravedigger, but you're not digging new graves - nope. You're digging existing graves, taking the coffin back to a little studio, opening it up with a crowbar, removing any and all valuables that the corpse has on them, closing the coffin... and putting it back. For all intents and purposes, you might think "Wow, he can't get away with that for long", you'd be right, in one sense. But dead wrong, in most others. The "owner" of the church where you work is actually a greedy priest who decides he's not getting enough money from tithes, so he's instead hired you to dig people up in the graveyard out back and take their valuables to be sold. You get a bed to sleep in, a computer with access to a supernatural website, and a cut of the profits every day. Most of which just goes back into your work. The whole time this is happening, you have a demon stalking you throughout your job, and the more the demon infects the church with its presence, the more likely it is that it'll just kill/possess you after you finish a night and go to bed. This game does a good job at painting a character that isn't entirely morally right, even though it's a silent protagonist, and you can feel the desperation in them to just get a place to sleep, you almost feel like the possession is deserved. If not for your greedy boss, then maybe you. The format feels very similar to The Mortuary Assistant, except a lot less messing with the bodies and more about taking things from them. You're constantly hunting for the most valuable graves, and also the ones that could potentially get you the means to exorcise the demon. This can feel a little vague at times, especially when a lot of the graves that are supposed to have some kind of influence from the demon only have treasures and no supernatural objects in them, which makes the various supernatural objects you can buy to help you find these things feel redundant. Not only that, but the slow pace of the game sometimes works against it, it feels very anti-climactic, and for the shortness of it, you feel almost like more should happen. Rather than building atmosphere, it focuses on a lot of cheap, minute scares - but some of them do create a haunting sense of atmosphere, even if that sometimes doesn't feel entirely tangible. Not only that, the vast majority of the scares, if not all of them, are located in the building, and you'll spend a good 20% of your evening in the graveyard, roughly. Maybe more. It just feels like they could've done more with that. It's a great attempt, and I will say I was compelled to keep going - I wanted to see what would happen, but I have to say that there is a lot to improve upon. Recommended if you enjoy task management games with a horror spice. 5.8/10

Please polish this game and stop selling an early access game as a finalised one.

Solid little game, performance wise everything has gone smoothly. Still plugging away with the game.

我们需要中文------We need Chinese.

huge potential for this game, yet the developer left to work on another game. Come back and update this game!

The Gravedigger, encore une fois un jeu très sympa signé Authogin ! On se prend très vite au concept. En stream, c’est même encore mieux : les viewers participent en choisissant les cercueils à ouvrir, ce qui rend chaque partie unique et très fun. On découvre ensuite les petites histoires, les fins alternatives… et ça, c’est vraiment cool. Le niveau de difficulté est bien dosé : ni trop simple, ni frustrant. Juste ce qu’il faut pour garder la tension et le plaisir de jeu. Alors oui, la manipulation des cercueils manque un peu de fluidité. Le “game feel” n’est pas parfait et l’animation semble parfois un peu brute. Mais paradoxalement, ça ajoute aussi un charme étrange au jeu, au point qu’on finit par s’en amuser. Au final, on a un gameplay simple mais efficace, quelques screamers bien placés (et surtout pas en excès !) ce qui leur permet de fonctionner. Un jeu idéal pour passer quelques bonnes soirées, et franchement : je recommande vivement !

The Gravedigger is another solid horror game from Authogin. Graphics are, as usual with this dev, pretty stunning. But it’s not without a cost: my 8GB VRAM was almost maxed out, and the game was barely running. DLSS saved the day, though, boosting me from a miserable 25fps to a smooth 70fps on Quality setting at 3440x1440. Weird thing: I think the DLSS settings are mixed up. Balanced gave me worse frames than Quality, and Performance was even lower. Also, some animations are missing, like "fade to black" skips that feel cheap and break the mood. And the priest has no facial animation when speaking, which feels odd. Jumpscares are still top-notch, though. Authogin nails those, popping them in when you least expect it. A few nitpicks: I would have love jumpscares using the cadavers, maybe some earrings to collect, better weather (like drizzle is audible but not visible, maybe a moody rainstorm), and more cadaver variety. Just small stuff, really. Now, the real downsides: it’s crazy short, 2 to 4 hours to beat the game. There’s this annoying lighting bug too when in the coffin room, and the lights go out, turning them back on doesn’t fix the coffin lighting which is frustrating. Also, it feels like there’s a hidden third ending, but it’s either cut or not there yet, which is a bummer. ----- Still, The Gravedigger is a fun game with well done jumpscares and top-tier visuals, a classic Authogin game. But with how short it is and some rough spots, you might wanna wait for a sale instead of jumping in at full price.

Game is too buggy to be an enjoyable experience at the moment. Random screen flickering even after adjusting settings, no option to manually save and doesn't tell you when it autosaves. When you exit the game and re-open it, it resets parts of the game back to day 1 - so you lose progress on your graves, crucifixes disappear from your church, items go missing, etc.

good for what it is, some scares and has a good gameplay loop. maybe better to get it while on sale tho

Really slow gameplay, got kinda boring after 2 ingame days. Good jumpscares but i really didnt enjoy the game at all. 2 out of 5...