Unlock the Secrets of Graveyard Keeper: Essential Tips Every Beginner Must Know!

Summary

Manage time wisely by knowing NPC schedules to advance quests efficiently.
Promptly handle corpses to prevent decay and maintain the graveyard’s quality.
Attend sermons for faith points, focus on farming for money, and utilize fishing for rare recipes.

Graveyard Keeper is a management simulation game that lets you manage a graveyard and a church. It has a similar feel to Stardew Valley, but with a creepier atmosphere. Set in a medieval fantasy world, you can farm, perform autopsies, deliver sermons at the church, and much more. The characters (NPCs) move the story along and give you tasks common in farming simulators, but they also offer unique quests like thwarting cultists or stopping witch burnings.

For those embarking on a game for the very first time, there might be strategies and shortcuts they won’t grasp till later. A walkthrough could guide novices through the storyline, while context may offer hints. However, certain aspects can only become clear during late-game stages unless one looks them up.

14. Manage Your Days

It’s More Important Than You Think

Managing time effectively is an unusual, vital, yet somewhat complex aspect of the game Graveyard Keeper. Newcomers might find it puzzling since a single day in the game lasts for nine minutes in real-time and each week consists of six days, each named after one of the Seven Deadly Sins (excluding Greed).

Moreover, each day is linked to one of the game’s six main characters. This implies that these characters will only be present on their respective days, meaning certain questlines can progress only once a week. Players must be prepared to complete and submit quests on the day an NPC appears or wait another full week.

Understanding which character corresponds to each day helps the player schedule crucial actions in advance. For instance, Miss Charm frequents the Dead Horse Tavern on days symbolized by Venus (representing Lust). So, if a player wishes to interact with this NPC, they should verify the day and ensure all necessary tasks are completed ahead of time, leaving room for leisure activities like fishing at the end. The following table provides details about key NPC movements:

[Table showing NPC movements]

Day	Symbol	NPC Movements
Pride	The Sun	The Bishop visits the Church in the Graveyard
Lust	Venus	Ms. Charm visits the Dead Horse Tavern
Gluttony	Jupiter	The Merchant visits the Village outside the Barn
Envy	Mercury	Snake visits the Church’s Cellar (until his quest begins, whereafter he stays there)
Wrath	Mars	The Inquisitor Visits Witch Hill
Sloth	The Moon	The Astrologer appears at the Lighthouse at Sealight

13. Deal With Corpses Promptly

In Graveyard Keeper, I receive deceased individuals via a chatterbox donkey pulling a cart, which may seem odd, but it’s crucial to comprehend this process because if there are no bodies, maintaining a graveyard is impossible. One of the fundamental yet essential aspects concerning these bodies revolves around decay. It’s self-explanatory that an unattended body will start to decompose, and this holds true in Graveyard Keeper as well.

As a dedicated movie buff, I’d rephrase that as follows: “When a corpse is left unattended, it starts to rot, and the longer you ignore it, the bigger the issue becomes. If a body drops below 90% integrity, it will start sporting skull markers, making burial a challenge. The quicker you perform an autopsy and bury the body after delivery, the easier it is to manage.

12. Attend Every Sermon

Stock Up On Faith From The Flock

As a devoted moviegoer, I make it a point to visit the church every Pride Day, symbolized by a radiant sun. During these visits, I’m treated to a powerful sermon that serves as a crucial stepping stone in my game progression. These sermons help me accumulate Faith, a valuable resource I can’t afford to miss out on. Trust me, there’s nothing more aggravating than missing a sermon and having to wait an entire week for the next one!

Because the church is always within reach, it’s challenging not to catch a sermon if one is attentive. However, with so many activities happening simultaneously in Graveyard Keeper (like most excellent simulation games), players can easily find themselves diverted or engaged in a side quest, thereby missing their opportunity. It’s essential to stay mindful of the days progressing, and as soon as Pride Day arrives, it’s crucial to ensure there is ample time left before heading off to the church.

11. Collect Essential Resources

You Can Never Have Too Much Wood & Stone

In this particular game, two essential resources you should prioritize collecting are wood and stone. They serve numerous purposes in crafting various items within the game, so it’s advisable to accumulate as many as you can and refrain from selling them. These resources won’t vanish from the environment, so gather a considerable amount since they grow back at a relatively slow pace.

In this game, trees and rocks release larger objects that need manual transportation instead of being stored in a character’s inventory. Players can arrange these objects in a line and push them across the ground to quicken the process. Later on, as technology advances, zombies at workstations will transport these items directly to the player’s home automatically.

10. Build Storage Spaces

Where Else Can You Put All Your Materials?

Begin constructing and enhancing workstations at your earliest convenience. The significance of collecting stones and wood lies in this fact: tools such as a stone-cutting tool or anvil greatly facilitate the transformation of raw materials into crafting components. Certain stations, like furnaces, are even worth setting up multiple times.

Creating these items requires plenty of resources, and your inventory has limited space. Try to produce as many chests and racks as you can, not just for common materials like wooden planks. Items that may seem insignificant at first should be kept for later use since everything becomes valuable once you have enough crafting blueprints unlocked.

9. Don’t Forget To Farm

A Money-Making Scheme To Match The Greediest Players

The garden is situated beneath the main character’s house and offers players an opportunity to cultivate various types of crops. This significant spot should be explored early in the game by reading the sign and conversing with the Innkeeper to open the farm. Following this, a conversation with the Merchant will ensue. Growing diverse produce will advantage the player; however, certain crops are essential and must always be tended. For instance, carrots prove useful for giving to the donkey that transports corpses, as it won’t do so without them.

Besides purchasing a Donkey, cultivating various crops is an exceptionally profitable venture and a means to replenish your energy in the game. You can procure seeds for multiple crop types from the local farmer, who resides between the Graveyard and Town. Enhance your farm’s productivity by unlocking and crafting fertilizers to elevate the quality of crops, denoted by a star. Higher-grade produce or crops fetch better prices at establishments like the Dead Horse Inn, Trade Office, and even back to the farmer himself. Additionally, crops can be transformed into sustenance for your character or prepared and sold at the tavern featured in the Better Save Sin DLC. Selling crops in one form or another is undeniably an effective method for amassing wealth within the game. Unlike other farming simulators, these crops don’t require constant watering, and you can eventually enlist resurrected zombies to tend your fields for you.

8. Use Extra Time To Fish

Fishing Is A Quick Activity That Helps Craft Rare Recipes

In Graveyard Keeper, players can obtain a basic fishing rod from the Lighthouse Keeper relatively quickly by giving six Moths. This rod works at any fishing location for a mini-game reminiscent of Stardew Valley. While lures and bait are available to enhance fishing, they aren’t necessary. Each fish caught in Graveyard Keeper yields an item upon butchering, typically a fish fillet that can be used to make food or sold back to the Lighthouse Keeper.

Three categories of Fish Dishes exist: White Meal Fish, Premium Fish, and Blue Fish Meal. Each comes with its own set of dishes that can boost energy, enhance abilities, and improve health for the player. Additionally, they can be traded at the Tavern for a substantial return. Food items with meat or fish tend to sell for higher prices and offer superior stats compared to garden produce alone. Consequently, Fishing proves beneficial on days when the player has spare energy but no immediate tasks. If the player lacks recipes for fish dishes, they can buy them from Miss Chain, the Innkeeper’s Wife.

7. Upgrade The Graveyard And Church

Keeping A Beautiful Graveyard Unlocks Game Progression

At the beginning of play, enhancing the cemetery’s condition is essential for unlocking the church, and faith points are crucial throughout the game. You can accumulate these points more quickly by delivering quality sermons, which the Bishop will elaborate on as his quest unfolds. Additionally, adding fences and tombstones to the cemetery will allow you to upgrade the church’s interior.

One method to boost your faith points and income on church days is by performing rituals involving candles and incense. To create these items, you may need to raise bees for beeswax or negotiate with the local Beekeeper in town. For long-term benefits, consider developing advanced woodworking and stonecrafting skills to craft superior benches and altars.

6. Harvest Body Parts

Waste Not, Want Not As They Say

Although there’s ethical uncertainty about taking body parts from those meant for burial, players are strongly motivated to gather items from corpses on the autopsy table. The primary item is tissue, which can be transformed into food by the Talking Skull. Yet, blood is essential for energy elixirs, and fat can be converted into oil. Remember, however, that extracting organs may decrease the quality of the bodies, so don’t bury a corpse in the graveyard if it’s mostly devoid of its internal parts.

Rather than bury corpses in the cemetery, construct a crematorium to incinerate the bodies and exchange the death certificates for currency in town. These can subsequently be kept in Urn structures within the graveyard to enhance its aesthetic appeal. Notably, blood and fat are two components that can always be extracted from a corpse without diminishing its quality; removing blood eliminates a red skull symbol while adding a white one, thereby improving the overall appearance of the corpse.

5. Talk To NPCs

They All Have Their Own Problems & Stories

Originally, the game featured just a few characters with voices, but DLC expansions introduced numerous new storylines to flesh out secondary characters. It’s advisable for players to interact with every resident in the Village to maximize their quest options. Furthermore, certain quests may become active later in the game as part of specific cutscenes.

For those intrigued by the enigmatic history of the Village, it’s essential to pay close attention to the dialogue exchanged with each character. The game’s storyline is mostly unveiled through these conversations. Moreover, journal descriptions for quests might not always be clear, and NPCs may provide specific instructions that are not included in these dialogues (such as where to locate a resource or when a particular NPC will be reachable).

4. Explore The Map

There Are Interesting Secrets & Lore To Discover

In Graveyard Keepers, it’s beneficial for players to fully traverse the game map since there are numerous Points of Interest hidden throughout, some of which aren’t highlighted during the primary storyline. Be sure to investigate different areas, particularly the Swamp, as it’s rich with discoveries. Players can find a plethora of shops within the town to stock up on resources, engage in sidequests with characters working on farms, and even purchase seeds. There are also a quarry waiting to be found, puzzling graves to uncover, and fishing spots for relaxation. For those intrigued by the game’s lore, there are clues scattered around that reveal the Village’s past events, as well as an opportunity to learn about the diverse personalities of the Non-Player Characters (NPCs) populating the world.

Initially, navigating the entire map won’t be immediately feasible due to barriers like damaged bridges blocking the player’s path. As soon as opportunities arise, repair the bridges to discover new locations and clear obstacles such as rubble to create shortcuts and minimize travel time.

3. Experiment With Alchemy

Craft Game Changing Consumables & Automate Tasks

In Graveyard Keeper, Alchemy becomes a crucial element in the game’s advanced stages. This system allows players to create fertilizers, boost their faith, brew healing concoctions, and even produce zombie laborers. To set the stage for unlocking Alchemy, it’s best to preserve collected items like body parts or plants in the mortuary from the start of the game. Keep in mind that many items will need time to amass (like body parts), and you may require a substantial stockpile for various Alchemy Recipes.

As a cinephile, I can’t help but see parallels between the magical world of alchemy and the enchanting realm of cinema. Quality popcorn kernels and speedy box-office strategies are like the golden elixirs forged through the art of alchemy, multiplying my financial resources efficiently. Furthermore, certain concoctions such as freshly popped corn are essential for creating aromatic incense for the sanctuary of cinema. If one desires to brew energy drinks or resurrect forgotten classics, this is where they’ll need to mix their ingredients. It’s also wise to have black and white paint on hand for those moments when a little artistic flair is needed to bring life to my cinematic masterpieces.

2. Unlock The Tech Trees

Technology Points Unlock Key Recipes & Workstations

As a cinephile delving into this game, I’d advise focusing on specific branches of the tech tree early on. Areas like literature might need to wait their turn for now, while prioritizing those that enhance tools or upgrade the graveyard – often accessed through Red and Green Points. These points are more frequently found than the scarce Blue Science Points, which can be earned by felling trees, gathering plants, and processing raw materials (like transforming wood into planks).

As a devoted player, I must share that the third kind of resource, represented by blue icons, is predominantly valuable in the latter stages of the game. These blue points serve multiple purposes: enhancing different aspects of processing and burial operations, crafting books, and even recruiting zombie minions. Fret not if you find yourself short on blue points early on; they’ll become accessible through the Study Table as the game progresses, ensuring a more balanced resource distribution compared to the other two colors.

A simple method for producing Blue Points after players have unlocked zombies involves establishing two stations: one for chiseling stones into blocks, and the other for creating fundamental stone gravestones. This ongoing process generates a modest amount of blue points, as long as the player has sufficient stones for the zombies to craft.

1. Manage Energy Levels

Players have two methods to replenish their energy: resting or consuming food and drinks. There are numerous choices for sustenance, and if they consume enough, players will barely require sleep. One option is consuming energy elixirs, but these necessitate blood. If there’s no available blood, then the only way to acquire them is by venturing into the swamp and bartering with Clotho.

An alternative approach is to create edibles. Higher quality food gives players more vitality, yet certain recipes in ‘Graveyard Keeper’ demand numerous components. Additionally, there’s the choice of a liquid diet, where players primarily consume items like wine or mead. Alcohol brewing requires minimal ingredients but time for fermentation. Each option has its advantages and disadvantages. Players can sell burgers at witch burnings, offer booze at their tavern, and feed carrots to the donkey. As long as some items are reserved for these tasks, the rest can be consumed freely.

2025-03-03 11:55