Boon Hill Is A Graveyard Sim About Reading Epitaphs

I first heard about Boon Hill from a friend while we read epitaphs in a graveyard. That's only fitting, given that Boon Hill is a game about exploring a graveyard and reading epitaphs. It's been successfully funded on Kickstarter, and its creator recently climbed in bed with Nathan. It seems only reasonable that we now give it its own post. Trailer below.

Boon Hill is described as a "graveyard simulator". There is no goal, no threat, no challenge. You simply walk from headstone to headstone, reading the epitaphs written on each. Maybe you'll occasionally talk to someone. It's up to you. From the long finished Kickstarter page:

I don't want to imply the game is aimless. Boon Hill is about inferred stories, about the connections people have that continue even after they die. The graveyard tells many tales woven by those who've long since passed on: stories of love, life, sorrow, and joy, told over generations.

The threads of narrative are woven throughout the gravestones for you to discover, if you have the inkling to look. A row of graves all with the same last name, most of them having died very young, suggests a specific set of circumstances. An epitaph that reads 'Survived by no one' is dour, yes, but clearly someone carried out their last wishes. Here, people are tied together by something as simple as similar birth dates, the places they were born or died, and even the styles of their grave markers. Subtle stories abound in the rows of stone.

If this seems like unusual, maudlin subject matter for a videogame, then... yeah. Obviously. But I'm not a particularly dour chap and I still enjoy wandering graveyards, glimpsing brief details of the lost lives of others.

Why not take a look at the Boon Hill's Steam Greenlight and give it a push if you feel similarly. The listed features includes my favourite bulletpoint in a while:

• Lie in an open grave!

Hell yeah.