I don't understand this game

[Hoja Lateralus]

At the beginning let me state that I am not writing this to be nasty or something, I am just describing my feelings after several hour playthrough so far.
So the name and beginning suggest that I should be mostly dealing with attending to and burying corpses, but at the same time I don't want to do this because it lowers my graveyard prestige (or however it's called). I reached like -27 and then tried to fix this. I found myself not being able to do much, because only way of earning money is burying corpses. I can't sell anything except for iron ore. I thought that farming may be an option but it turns out that firstly I can't even eat my carrots and cabbages raw (carrots? come on) and then I can't even maintain my farm because yeld of seeds is lower than needed to plant them (which makes no sense). So I can't even make those for my own needs. I can't sell meat because when I finally found Snake / cultist he told me to sod off, leaving me only an option to bring 5 of... golden somethings, not sure even what it is. Many crucial recepies also requires iron, which I can't get, because I need iron for a furnace and I can't get money any other way. Also the donkey stopped coming, not sure why, maybe it's some very unfortunate bug. So literally only more-or-less viable thing I was left to do was making wooden fences for graves and perhaps search for iron to sell to the Blacksmith. Also fighting monsters is VERY expensive energy-wise and gives no benefit (at least at this stage of the game). My playthrough ended with my character blocking himself in between objects, then I figured it's time to stop. Luckily game saves itself in the morning so not everything is lost.
So someone tell me: what do you do in this game and how do you prosper?
Version of the game: 0.667
If devs read this, I am willing to provide save file if it is of any help.

[serebix]

Frist see if your graves are all covered up. If you have a not closed grave with a corpes inside, the donkey will stop coming.
To your other problems: For what do you need money exactly? You should focus first on your crafting (improve your tools first to be more energy efficient) and then everything else. Don't bother with repair kits.
First order should be repairing the bridge on the left side (when you have everything to MAKE your materials). On the other side is a iron ore and coal mine which is very handy. Coal burns better and need less energy to extract. With that your iron problems should be finished. Never sell iron, its not worth it. Main income is, as you already stated, the burial certificate. But you almost never need money (early in the game).

[Scrump]

Hey :)

I know this game can be a little confusing so I thought I would give you some tips :)

Incase anyone is reading this who doesn't want help, please be aware of possible spoilers.




1) you should ALWAYS autopsy new bodies. If they are bringing your graveyards ratings down then that means you still have a red skull or two on them. remove blood and fat off the bodies and you should be ok (there is a more detailed breakdown of the autopsy on steam) if when you put them in the grave it is on "0", you're doing fine, decorate it up then the a frame and gravestone and you're set.

2) the money at the beginning is a bit of a grind but you can do it! breaking things up in your cellar should get you started with the simple iron parts you need, using your earnings then from the graveyard it shouldn't take too long before you can buy a few more to get your furnace set up.

3) Ye the veggies are a pain, but cooking can be really useful, I have found muffins to be a great one to make as you only need honey and dough (honey can be found up the mountains to the left of your house.

4) the golden orbs are faith, to get those you are going to have to get your graveyard to 5 points. that will unlock the church for you and that's how you get it

5) there was a bug with the donkey that meant he would not come but I believe that has now been fixed. If he still isn't returning for you you may need to start a new game. you should also take note that if you have an unburied body at your place, the donkey will not return until after it has been buried (or thrown in the river)

I hope this helps, my first file the bishop was bugged so he never returned so I couldn't progress, but I guess that is the price to pay for having a game on early access.

[ShadowTani]

You basically dug your own grave, lol.

If you want to play the moral high ground and not throw bad corpses into the river then you can still make sure you don't screw over your graveyard by harvesting everything from the corpses during the autopsy. Red skulls will affect your graveyard rating negatively, white skulls represent the potential quality gain if you combine them with decorations. I suggest that you study the existing graves to see how the skulls and decorations result in the negative and positive ratings they have.

What you remove during the autopsy will affect the skull rating, removing the flesh will remove one white skull. This is bad, you don't want to do that on corpses you plan to bury! Only do that if you plan to throw the corpse in the river (the tutorial corpse can't be helped though). Instead, the parts you want to remove is blood and fat, as they will flip a red skull into a white skull each. If the corpse only come with one red skull to begin with you may also want to remove the skull bone, as that will add a red skull that you can then flip.

A good corpse will start out with a graveyard rating of zero when buried (aka it will have NO red skulls).

As for the furnace, you want to use the money from your first burial certificate to get an extra iron bar from the blacksmith, rarely you may need two (you get a random supply of iron parts from the broken barrels in the cellar).

Once you fixed your graveyard you will be able to get a constant supply of money from the sermons you hold in the church.

[TruthJester]

Originally posted by ShadowTani:

You basically dug your own grave, lol.

If you want to play the moral high ground and not throw bad corpses into the river then you can still make sure you don't screw over your graveyard by harvesting everything from the corpses during the autopsy. Red skulls will affect your graveyard rating negatively, white skulls represent the potential quality gain if you combine them with decorations. I suggest that you study the existing graves to see how the skulls and decorations result in the negative and positive ratings they have.

What you remove during the autopsy will affect the skull rating, removing the flesh will remove one white skull. This is bad, you don't want to do that on corpses you plan to bury! Only do that if you plan to throw the corpse in the river (the tutorial corpse can't be helped though). Instead, the parts you want to remove is blood and fat, as they will flip a red skull into a white skull each. If the corpse only come with one red skull to begin with you may also want to remove the skull bone, as that will add a red skull that you can then flip.

A good corpse will start out with a graveyard rating of zero when buried (aka it will have NO red skulls).

As for the furnace, you want to use the money from your first burial certificate to get an extra iron bar from the blacksmith, rarely you may need two (you get a random supply of iron parts from the broken barrels in the cellar).

Once you fixed your graveyard you will be able to get a constant supply of money from the sermons you hold in the church.

Just remember that sermons can only be held once a week. You will also want to increase the quality of your church so your sermons are more successful. Successful sermons provide their stated effect and produce more money than failed sermons.

[Woudo]

There are certainly some aspects of the early game that could look to be cleared up when the game comes later to fruition;

- Autopsy is not very clearly explained, and the skull system only makes sense from a game perspective and not a logical one. Why does the quality of the corpse in the box make the graveyard any more or less beautiful? It's not until you actually take a moment to look at the multiple graves and notice the skull/wreath system at work will you see corpse values, and even then, what removing specific organs during autopsy does still remains hidden to the player.

Everyone in here that knows how autopsy works, knows it because of that one reddit post on google. It isn't knowledge garnered from inside the game.

- Tossing corpses in the river is not shown or implied to be an option except in the gameplay trailers, which players may not have seen. Considering there are numerous piles of what seems like bones strewn about the world, the impression you can toss corpses off cliffs or into piles in the wilderness to dispose of corpses is stronger than using the river. The player may try to do these things, see it doesn't work, and assume corpses can't be disposed of except into the ground.

- Having both the wooden anvil and the furnace requiring iron parts seems a bit dangerous. The blacksmith's wording is fine; he says the iron grows in swampy ground, and the player's workyard is beside a stagnant pool. He doesn't specify the player has to go into the swamp.

But there are too many assumptions in place for something so pivotal to the progression of the player;
- The player has to chop up the barrels in their basement for simple parts to build a wooden anvil.
- The player has to remember where the blacksmith is and that he sells bars/parts (we have no idea how long the player has been wandering around, exploring or pursuing other quests).
- The player has to be able to afford these parts (this isn't so bad as corpses just keep coming and it's unlikely the player has filled their graveyard).
- The player then has to realize iron can be found north of their house (and this is assuming they spent their iron on the anvil/furnace and not other things such as shortcuts).

It's hard to make a game sped-proof, but the devs need to realize they are going to be getting a big portion of the Stardew Valley fanbase, and a lot of players are going to think they can just walk over to the magic box next to the house and dump all of their produce in it to make money.

[WarNerve]

Originally posted by Hoja Lateralus:

At the beginning let me state that I am not writing this to be nasty or something, I am just describing my feelings after several hour playthrough so far.
So the name and beginning suggest that I should be mostly dealing with attending to and burying corpses, but at the same time I don't want to do this because it lowers my graveyard prestige (or however it's called). I reached like -27 and then tried to fix this. I found myself not being able to do much, because only way of earning money is burying corpses. I can't sell anything except for iron ore. I thought that farming may be an option but it turns out that firstly I can't even eat my carrots and cabbages raw (carrots? come on) and then I can't even maintain my farm because yeld of seeds is lower than needed to plant them (which makes no sense). So I can't even make those for my own needs. I can't sell meat because when I finally found Snake / cultist he told me to sod off, leaving me only an option to bring 5 of... golden somethings, not sure even what it is. Many crucial recepies also requires iron, which I can't get, because I need iron for a furnace and I can't get money any other way. Also the donkey stopped coming, not sure why, maybe it's some very unfortunate bug. So literally only more-or-less viable thing I was left to do was making wooden fences for graves and perhaps search for iron to sell to the Blacksmith. Also fighting monsters is VERY expensive energy-wise and gives no benefit (at least at this stage of the game). My playthrough ended with my character blocking himself in between objects, then I figured it's time to stop. Luckily game saves itself in the morning so not everything is lost.
So someone tell me: what do you do in this game and how do you prosper?
Version of the game: 0.667
If devs read this, I am willing to provide save file if it is of any help.

I'm sorry, but you're not a very bright person. Every issue you complained about, is a non-issue, if you pay attention and play the game right.

[Hoja Lateralus]

What a way to necro an over year old thread xd Well I've never played games of this type before and at the beginning the design was not very helpful for me to find "the right" way to play, sue me.

[TheCollector]

In case there are open questions : the wiki is very helpfull.
https://graveyardkeeper.gamepedia.com/Graveyard_Keeper_Wiki

There was a balancing patch recently, so the game now should be less grindy compared to last year. (And for the "end game" on PC you can now unlock additional helpers to work for you.)