Meet the Dead Through Those Who Remember Them in Not So Grave

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed doing is keeping an eye out for obscure, fun-sounding titles out there in the wilds of the games hobby. Itch.co is a fantastic place to find games, particularly tabletop roleplaying and solo journaling games, that don’t ususally get the attention many deserve.

With most games involving graveyards you expect something to come crawling out of them. But Not So Grave is interested in the people who stay behind after their dearly (or not so dearly) departed have, well, departed, and what they remember about them.

A Solo RPG About Life Among the Dead

Released by Matteo Bonvicino, Not So Grave is a solo journaling RPG in which you play the newest member of a long line of small town cemetary undertakers. There are no monsters, myserties to solve or victory conditions. Instead you maintain the grounds, conduct burials, meet visitors, and generally build up a picture of the people resting beneath the headstones.

Each day players choose where in the cemetary to work before using a Prompt Engine, combining moods and questions to generate events. Visitors may reveal memories about someone buried there, with those recollections added to a growing Grave Index. Importantly, the stories don’t have to agree, as different people may remember the same deceased person in very different ways.

The game can continue indefinitely, covering weeks, months or even years. Eight special days punctuate the normal routine, inclduing community clean-ups, a peculiar midsummer festival, and a lantern-lit winter vigil. Players can eventually take leave and return later, or simply tranfer their undertaker to another cemetary.

Bonvicino describes the game as closer to small-town melancholy with humour than horror, with an emphasis on ordinary lives, contradictory memories, and quiet acts of care.

Not So Grave was released on 25th August 2026 and is available on itch.io.