How to avoid inventory and storage frustration in Graveyard Keeper

[GlassDeviant]

Like all games of this type, Graveyard Keeper has a lot of items and not much space to carry them around in. Fortunately also like all games of this type, it also has storage containers. The biggest problem is keeping your inventory as light as possible while keeping track of all your stored items.

So here is a guide to keeping it all sorted out so you aren't constantly running out of inventory and storage space while being able to find your stored things when you need them.

1) Although getting as much done in one trip is important, keeping your carried items to a bare minimum is even more important. Don't try to do too much in one trip, it will always lead to frustration over the limited inventory space. Plan out what you are going to do and put items you're not going to need away until that trip is done. Only take what you are going to need for that trip, like one full or partial stack of food, a Teleportstone, some sauerkraut and speed potions if you have those and are as addicted to them as I am, and any items you are going to give to an NPC, drop off at a location (like the tavern or quarry), or use during the trip (like materials to build at the tavern or quarry).

2) Sleep after each trip to save your progress. You don't need to sleep for a long time, just a moment will get the game saved without cutting into your available time. Nothing is as anger inducing as losing a lot of progress to a tiny mistake, or a crash.

3) Store items that you will use in a particular place in that place. Fertilizer is used in the garden and vineyard, so store it in those places. Iron bars are used in the Workyard, so store them there. Alchemical ingredients are used in the Alchemy Lab, so store them there. Prayers are used in the church, so store them in the trunk right under it.

4) Put your stuff away when you're done with it. For example, candles and prayers are only used in the church. When you finish a sermon, put any leftover candles (or any you buy from Episcop after collecting faith tokens, BOC and donations) and the sermon you used in the trunk under the church, by the drafting table in the alchemy lab. If you need faith tokens in the Morgue or Work Yard, take some with you, but store them in those places ASAP.

5) Put related items together, especialy items that don't stack or which you have small quantities of. For example, I have a trunk in the work yard where all the tools that have limited durability and are used only in the work yard are stored. This includes a Whetstone and all Iron and Steel Chisels. I also keep obsolete stuff like leftover repair kits, polishing paste and old weapons/armour in this trunk, as well as old tools I can't sell to Krezvold until I level up his vendor tier.

6) Choose one type of food to use most of the time (except in the Dungeon). Don't carry more than one type of food around, it wastes inventory spaces (if you use sauerkrat and speed potions for max run-fast time, that's ok, bring those too). It should be easy to make or collect in quantity, so I generally use Honey (which also has a small healing effect). Red Wine is a great choice because it has a large enrgy boost plus some healing, which makes it super efficient in the Dungeon.

7) Always use the best tools you can make and sell off the old ones to Krezvold. If you can't access a tier of items, store them in a work yard trunk until you can or destroy them.

8) Locate trunks for storing items near machines where they will be produced, to keep them handy for when you need them.

9) Don't let zombies get out of control. Don't let them fill all of your trunks with more crap than you will need. Don't let a porter take all of an item out of a trunk, because newly made items will then randomly go into any trunk. For example, look at the Vineyard. There are three trunks. If you are being organized, one will be for grapes, one for hops and a third for crop supplies like seeds and fertilizers. If the zombie porter is allowed to take all the grapes or hops out of the trunks, the next crop grown by a zombie vintner will randomly go into any trunk, instead of the one you assigned to that crop by putting one of each quality level in the trunk, since Lazy Bear in their laziness didn't bother to let us assign specific trunks for specific items to be placed in by zombies, nor did they allow the game to "remember" where certain items used to be and only let zombies place new items in the remembered spot.

There are other tips, but they are mostly nit-picky and not necessarily necessary, not to mention subject to individual tastes. The listed ones are important to everyone who wants to keep their frustration level with inventory and storage to a minimum.

Edit - Dungeon side note:

Take almost nothing that uses regular inventory slots into the dungeon (armor, weapons and tools in their special slots don't matter). Teleportstone is optional, some like to have it handy. If you have sauerkraut+speed potions, only take the one you will use for that dungeon trip so that the slots get freed up when you consume them. Take one food and one healing item, preferably take a stack of items that do both energy restoring and healing, like Red Wine. That's all.

[DragonIV]

A+ Guide!

[csontos.richi9494]

Originally posted by Indifferent Orangutan:

Edit - Dungeon side note:

Take almost nothing that uses regular inventory slots into the dungeon (armor, weapons and tools in their special slots don't matter). Teleportstone is optional, some like to have it handy. If you have sauerkraut+speed potions, only take the one you will use for that dungeon trip so that the slots get freed up when you consume them. Take one food and one healing item, preferably take a stack of items that do both energy restoring and healing, like Red Wine. That's all.

the teleport stone is not usable in the dungeon it just -1 inventory slot

[GlassDeviant]

Originally posted by csontos.richi9494:

the teleport stone is not usable in the dungeon it just -1 inventory slot

Did you somehow seriously think I didn't know that? Really?

The instant you exit the dungeon you can port to your house. Personally I leave it behind because my speed potion never runs out before I am out of inventory on a Dungeon expedition and I have a routine after leaving: Dump powders, solutions, extracts and monster parts (bat wings, webs, jellies, etc.) in the alchemy lab; scrub bloody nails clean; put away hardware (nails, iron parts, etc.) and so on but some people don't do it that way.

[csontos.richi9494]

Originally posted by Indifferent Orangutan:

Originally posted by csontos.richi9494:

the teleport stone is not usable in the dungeon it just -1 inventory slot

Did you somehow seriously think I didn't know that? Really?

The instant you exit the dungeon you can port to your house. Personally I leave it behind because my speed potion never runs out before I am out of inventory on a Dungeon expedition and I have a routine after leaving: Dump powders, solutions, extracts and monster parts (bat wings, webs, jellies, etc.) in the alchemy lab; scrub bloody nails clean; put away hardware (nails, iron parts, etc.) and so on but some people don't do it that way.

it not you (i think you now it from the start the stone ), it for the new player if they don't now the stone is unusable in the dungeon

[GlassDeviant]

Understandable

[Zander]

Why not just use the save editor to increase the inventory size?

[GlassDeviant]

Because I can succeed without having to cheat.

[Zander]

Because fixing a major flaw with the game is cheating yep.

[GlassDeviant]

Every game of this type going back to the first Harvest Moon (maybe longer, I don't know if there is anything before that) has had limited inventory. GyK isn't even the most challenging among them. Plenty of people have no problem with it, which would indicate that the flaw is elsewhere than in the game. The very reason I posted this guide. Organization is a skill that is useful far beyond a simple computer game. It might do you good to learn it.

[FallenOneFS]

First, GREAT guide; I already did everything you said, but that's just my nature, not everyone's like this, simply put, this is a great guide.

Second, I do believe that the limitations in this game's inventory are a flaw, here is why: the limited number of slots is fine, it's to be expected, every game of this genre is like this, one simply learns to live with this, BUT, the limitation on stack size of items and the very stacking factor are pretty flawed; take Stardew Valley for instance, it's stacking limits are 999 and every item that can stack does go that far, that doesn't mean the inventory is limitless, you still need a fair amount of organization, many chests and a work ethic, much like here, but with much more freedom; I think the stack limit should be higher, faith already stacks to big numbers, why can't everything else? Specially alchemy ingredients... At late game I had 3 shelves for processed alchemy ingredients alone, another 2 for unprocessed, plus the chest for miscelanious stuff that clutter the church basement, all that because none of that stuff stacks to high numbers. There are also things that should stack at least a bit, like goods crates, because you make a lot of them but have very limited space to work.

And lastly, thanks for the great guide.

[GlassDeviant]

I agree about the stacking, it could be done better, but I think that affects storage more than inventory. Stardew Valley didn't always have the stack freedom it has now, but Eric knuckled under to pressure from players and Chucklefish, and I think maybe he went too far in the opposite direction instead of achieving a balance. Some of the extremes should be left for modders to provide.

Rather than complaining about the stack sizes, I worked out a system that compensates for that in how I lay out storage in my build areas. I would still prefer that identical brains/hearts/guts stacked, even before having the Cultist perk, and that many items stacked higher than they do, but I opine that going to stacks of 999 for every stackable item in GyK would be overkill and detrimental to the game.

For example, LB could let identical b/h/g stack to 10 or 20 and it would alleviate some of the congestion without making a limitless "bag of holding" situation.

Mass ingredients like wheat, flour, cheese, grapes (1 stack per grade), beeswax, etc. could stack to 100, 200, 500, maybe even 999 or 1000. I would suggest 100 but not be bothered by 200. More I would find excessive and pandering to the "I want a magical backpack that holds a million of everything in the game" crowd.

Faith, being a currency, shouldn't even have a physical manifestation. It should be like r/g/b tech points and actual money. For that matter, Science should be a currency that stores with the character, not the study desk, so you can demolish the poorly located original one and put it in a sensible place without losing your stored science points.

Crates I think work ok the way they are, so you have to manage the pipeline to prevent your garden trunks from overflowing and the cellar by the crate factory elevator from becoming a sea of crates. This isn't Factorio after all, and even that game has pipeline management problems and overflow/spillage issues that have to be resolved by the player, on purpose. If either game "ran itself", there would be no need for players, which would kinda suck for developer revenue.

Cheers :)

[FallenOneFS]

Agreed, that was what I intended to say anyway, SV is just an example.

While I agree that some things should be limited to stacking low, some things like crops and everything related to them should stack all the way to 999. Now, I also don't think crates should be the way they are now. If each table thingy would store 10 crates instead of 1, it'd be the biggest achievement for manking EVER. And it's not like this is some scientific breakthrough, it's simple crate stacking.

I've been cracking down on crate production since before DLC came out, and let me tell you, it is horrible, it just refuses to break even...

[GlassDeviant]

If you micromanage it, it's not so bad, but it wouldn't be a terrible thing to have some crate stacking. I wouldn't go so far as to make it 10 high, but maybe 2 or 3. Zombies would have trouble reaching 3 high, let alone higher. That much brings to mind the old automated mainframe data tape libraries from the 1980s, huge machines full of magnetic tape spools that a robotic arm would pull down, insert into a read/write module and then return to their storage cubbies. Too much tech for the setting. :)

I just avoid letting more than there is space for on the pallets, and I stop my zombie farms when the produce trunk gets too full. If stack sizes were 999 for those items it would be even easier because trunks could hold more before overflowing.

Edit: But I do focus on getting to the point of shipping only gold star crates for max profit. I almost never ship anything but pumpkin/lentil/onion crates and once gold star production is consistent I ship, sell, use or destroy all silver star produce and even seeds.