I believe that video games don't need to be "fun" in the traditional sense to be worthwhile pieces of art. There are plenty of games that I like that while I may not necessarily be enamored with their game design, I still find them to be very good if not great experiences. The Graveyard is a game I've been hearing about for years, and it's been continuously mocked as pretentious and lazy. I'm somewhat under the impression that the general public is always going to have this reaction to super "artsy" pieces of media regardless of quality, so I did want to give the game a legitimate shot.

Unfortunately, The Graveyard is exactly that: pretentious and lazy. While the gameplay is indeed incredulously simple, you just walk an old lady down to a bench and walk her back, the game somehow manages to be lazy with this, too. When it comes to artsier pieces of media, if I don't understand what it means, I ask myself what I can at least take away from it, whether it be interesting visuals or some sort of emotion. I felt nothing here. The art direction and overall visual presentation are dull and uninspired, the sound design is minimal, and the whole thing screams "put together in a weekend". The song she listens to is sort of cool and conveys the themes well enough, but I'd rather have listened to it on Spotify than made the trek to the bench for it. The supposedly uppity attitude from developer Tale of Tales makes me feel less charitable about the whole affair. Also, those trees have to be some of the worst I've ever seen in a game.

If you're going to make an art project, at least don't pretend that people "expect to be spoonfed" when they don't like it.