It's hard to describe The Graveyard as a game. I would rather say that it's more some sort of interactive art than a game. There's no action, no storyline or even „fun factor”. We animate old woman who come to graveyard. What we are doing? Walking and looking at graves. That's all. Game force player to think about death and sense of life. Creators describe their work as „explorable painting” and „experiment with realtime poetry”. I agree with them.

The finality of death. How does one depict it? Obvious ways is to portray a dieing soldier on the battlefield, or a man on his deathbed. But few things come close to the chilling realisation of our mortal lives than the graveyard. It is almost the complete opposite of what you'd expect to depict the great Ripper - something serene, tranquil, organised, frequently architecturally impressive. And yet, thinking about them usually makes us sad, perhaps because we loathe thinking about our mortality, or because of the loved ones buried there. But are not most of us still young, with almost a whole life in front of us? And here is the big question: can you imagine how an old lady would feel once she entered the graveyard? Is it fear, acceptance, indifference? Best works of art challenge you to immerse yourself into the situation, and The Graveyard does that superbly.

This isn't a game really, it's more of an artistic representation of death and the after life. For 5 dollars, you can own an amazing piece of art.

The beauty of The Graveyard is that rather than being a game of any traditional kind, it uses the 3D digital medium to create a moving tableau with a certain amount of interactivity, and which manages to express a restful and heartfelt emotion about death and dealing with death. A rather elaborate memento mori, if you will.

Approached with expectations of a game where there is something to be gained, or even an æsthetically overwhelming tour of a graveyard, this program will end up disappointing you. However, that would be ignorant of the merits that are contained in the limited setup of The Graveyard. The combination of a grainy black-and-white visual experience – not unlike old films – with subtle and expressive sound design and an evocative song manage to make it into a highly stylised digital representation of thinking about death. And that might just be what Tale of Tales were after: exploring the possibilities of using audiovisual digital media to express something different than is traditionally done. Comparisons with all sorts of media forms present themselves readily: short film, vignette, painting, postcard, and very distantly, video game. In the end, though, The Graveyard is a rare example of something new that fuses aspects of many of these.