First of all, thank you, Hyeson, for providing me with a free key to your game. :D
Undertaker's is a fun and cute little business management tycoon game by indie developer Hyeson. You buy your funeral supplies and sell them to the bereaved who come to you to bury their loved ones. Some have specific things they want, other's don't care, but all have a budget. Eventually, you'll be able to build your own buildings to produce your caskets, headstones, and flowers, but will still need to purchase the materials from the local store. The hand drawn graphics are colorful and charming.
There are just a couple of things that I find frustrating about the game, but they're not deal breakers for me, they just make it a bit harder. The first one is the lack of storage. You start with 9 spaces and can build a storage building for $2000, but it only gives you an additional 9 spaces for a total of 18. I've not seen anyway to upgrade that amount. Items DO NOT stack, so if you buy 5 cherry wood caskets, it takes up 5 spaces. If you buy one of every prebuilt funeral item (casket, headstone, and flower), there are 15 total, so that leaves you with 3 spaces. But once you get your production buildings built, from what I've seen, they use the same storage space, so you'll be doing some inventory juggling. Luckily, you can leave your customer waiting while you run to the store if they REALLY want something in particular and you don't have it. Keep in mind, that sometimes, what you might want is NOT in stock and if you don't give them what they want, you can't complete the contract. There is no negotiating for something else.
The other issue is the graveyard plot/trash mechanic. You start off with 18 plots. Once someone is buried there, they're there for 10 years (each game day is actually one year). You get the cost of the plot in rent each year. After 10 years, the plot is freed up for another dearly departed. There are more zones you can purchase for burials. If you don't have a plot available, your only option is offering to toss the dearly departed into the trash, which most customers don't take kindly to! You lose reputation for suggesting it. So, if you don't have a plot availabel, you have to kick them out, which results in more reputation loss. If your repuation gets too low, you lose. It would have been nice to see this handled a bit differently, such as sell them what they want and then secretly try and dump them in the trash (mini game of some sort) and try to not get caught. But, this situation may be intended as part of the juggling/management that you need to do.
Overall, the game is enjoyable and I do like it. I recommend it if you like business management tycoon games. I'll be continuing to play it, trying to build all my buildings, fill up every plot in the graveyard, and see how much cash I can amass!
