Graveyard Keeper- Beginners Guide

So the game doesn't do a very good job of telling you what to do, and I found myself googling and googling for hours whenever I was confused or needed help. I also noticed that there aren't that many good guides. So I thought I would make one! I hope this helps anyone who has just picked this game up!

Starting Out

To save the game sleep. That is also how you get health and energy back. Sometimes you go too long without sleeping and the game will warn you with a blue orb at the top middle of the screen with Zzz in it. SLEEP ASAP because your energy will drain no matter what you do. Don't wast your food.

To get energy eat food. Different foods give different stats, check cooking to learn more.

Pay attention to the quality of the body! (those skulls) If you want to know more check out the Graveyard/Church section.

Crafting Basics

Crafting is VERY complex in this game. To do certain things you need technology points. You can earn these points through menial labor like chopping trees, rocks, iron, etc. And crafting. You can also get them through studying once you unlock the church and start earning faith. I found that the best way to earn red and blue points is through crafting stone grave stuff for your graveyard.

You need to unlock certain building blueprints (they are earned with tech points) in order craft things. Filches, nails and simple parts are really important. Also craft the furnace as so as you can, prioritize it over other things because you need it to make iron bars to craft nails and simple parts.

There will be various areas on the map that you will need to clear a path to in order to access them, or build a bridge. You will need wooden planks and more advanced wooden materials to do this. If you want to unlock the cellar of faster travel time in between the village and your house (which I highly rec that you do asap) then save up you red points because to get the blueprint you need to make the advance wood materials you will need A LOT of them.

Get your sawhorse and stone cutter set up, then your furnace and wooden anvil. These are important. Don't bother with stockpiles at the beginning, you already start out with the ones that matter. Don't build and trunks, you can build those in the basement and they take up valuable space in your workyard.

(More tips to come soon)

NPC's- Day's- NPC Locations

This is something the game sort of tells you, but I want to make it clear because it's very important when you are starting the game. Some NPC's only show up on certain days.

At the top left of the screen you will see the wheel for each day. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1657854705966964777/18A63EBD5E1C93F2CDF73E7956BE14E8E1124971/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Each symbol represents a different day. Also to take note that when they are arriving or leaving their spots for the day you CANNOT speak to them. Here is each day and the specific NPC's that show up on these days. Also listed are their locations.

Sloth Day- The crescent shaped day with the light blue background.
NPC- Astrologer. He will be at the lighthouse to the far right east side of the map.

Pride Day- The sun shaped day with the purple background.
NPC- The Bishop. He will be standing next to the Church in your graveyard.

Lust Day- The female symbol with the pinkish background.
NPC- Ms. Charm. Not to be mistaken for Ms. Chain, the redheaded barkeeps wife. Ms. Charm is the BLONDE woman who stands on the stage singing.

Gluttony Day-
NPC- The Merchant will visit the village. He will stand right in front of a building below the tavern.

Envy Day-
NPC- Snake will show up in the Church Celler. You need to clear the debris that are in your way before you meet him. And he will not talk to you unless you can prove yourself with 5 faith. His location will change after a quest that unlocks the dungeon but it will still be in the cellar. (you'll see haha I don't want to spoil)

Wrath Day-
NPC- The Inquisitor. He will visit witch hill. You'll learn very quickly where that is. You need to give him flyers and firewood in order to unlock the west side of the graveyard.

These are the basics for the days, npc's and locations.

ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING:
If you need to check quests from NPC's or don't remember what day they show up on then in your character window you can check KNOWN NPC's to see each one, their day, and the quests you currently have active with them.

Potions

Getting It unlocked
Before you can even start this process you must talk with the witch lady in the swamp. Her name is Clotho and she will have a quest for you of course.

!!!BEFORE YOU VISIT HER!!! Bring the materials to build a bridge to make your other trips to her easier. She is hard to get to so this bridge will make it easier. You will need:
3x Wood Planks
6x Filtch
10x Nails

To find her you will have to travel through the swamp on a very specific path, if you're having trouble there are plenty of youtube videos to help you out.

Cooking-Fishing-Gardening-Farming

Cooking

You cook in your house at your kitchen. COLLECT ALL THE EDIBLE MUSHROOMS YOU SEE. They are the ones without spots on them. They are great to make food with in the oven you have.

Cooking Ingredients- Before you cook here is some basic knowledge of ingredients and where to find them. With some tips and tricks.

Water- It says you need a hand mixer to make, BUT YOU DON'T. Simply take a bucket to the well, collect water, and then "use" the bucket in your inventory. You will get the drops of water this way.

Wheat- This is a crop that you NEED. Wheat is versatile and useful.

Mushrooms- There are two types of mushrooms growing around you, one is for crafting and one is free eating. You should be collecting as many of the ones without spots as you can for cooking. They are the best for one of the easiest dishes you can make early game.


Fishing

To start fishing you will need to talk to the fisherman located at the lighthouse, he is there everyday so don't worry about days for him. He comes out when the sun rises. He will give you a task to collect moths for him. You need the tech knowledge to know how to collect them. It doesn't cost much, check you tech tree to learn how. Once you find 6 he will give you a rod so you can fish.

Gardening

The garden will not work for you until you have the tree seeds for it so don't worry about it early game.

Farming

To farm you need to first unlock the permission to use it, talk to the merchant for this. Carrot seeds are your best friend, they are for the donkey. You can get seeds to farm from the farmer. He is out everyday at his farm which is located in the southern area of the Wheat Field.

You need 4 seeds to plans a crop.

Crops

Basic Crops

Wheat- VERY IMPORTANT. This is one of the best food materials for you to have. It is a base material you need to make a majority of the food in this game. Always have it growing.

Carrots- VERY IMPORTANT- You need these to give to the Donkey for him to deliver bodies when he starts demanding it. Always have them growing.

Cabbage- Used in various recipes

Beets- Used in various recipes. Makes a great food item (see cooking)

Hemp- VERY IMPORTANT, it is used for crafting recipes and such. Always have it growing if you can.(see potions and crafting)

Improved Crops- You can only get access to these when you have a high enough star level with the farmer, I HIGHLY REC you do this ASAP.

Onions- VERY IMPORTANT, these are needed to help you make recipes for quest related content. (See quests)

Lentils- They are lentils... not much else to say. Needed for a crafting material for like one thing.

Pumpkins- You will need a gold quality pumpkin for a quest.

Graveyard/Church

Rating System

When you start the game you will go through tutorial of shorts when you take a body to be buried. Pay attention to the skulls on the body's description when you are in the autopsy menu. This mechanic is not explained to you until you complete a quest for a ghost.

Basically each corpse has a rating system based upon how they were in life. This is separate from the percentile that you see above the body. The regular skulls and the red skulls represent the good deeds and sins a person had done in their life. The more good skulls the better rating your graveyard will have.

If you have a body that is too degraded or has too many red skulls it is NOT worth burying in your graveyard. You're better off with cremation.

To help slow the decay of the body make sure you repair the body shoot, on the outside and inside of your morgue. For the longest time I had no idea I had to repair the inside as well haha. Once these are prepared when a body is delivered then it will auto go to the morgue.

To further help with decay make the slabs to put bodies on. (You will have to manually put the bodies on these slabs, they will just show up on the floor when going through the body shoot).

During Autopsy it is possible to earn some white skulls and get rid of some red skulls if you remove certain things from the body.

Cremation

Your cremation area is located at the worktable below the graveyard area. You will first need to unlock the tech to do this.

You will still get a certificate if you burn the body. You will also get some useful crafting materials as well. (ash being one of them which is extremely useful for crafting!)

Graveyard Ratings

Now back to the graveyard ratings, you can see your ratings while in the graveyard. Everything that contributes to the rating will be highlighted with the current number of their rating. Graves that have negative ratings are in need of your attention first. You can make various objects to help improve their rating. But again pay attention to the skulls!

If the body has too many red skulls, they will consume all of the points that you put in with your head stones and grave boarders. If a body is beyond beautifying it is better to exhume it and burn it.

You can exhume a body by getting the proper certificate through the mailbox next to the church. It costs 1 silver and 75 copper.

Embalming and Autopsy

Autopsy

As explained earlier you have a ratings system associated with your bodies, the more mistakes you make during autopsy and the more things you take, the worse the body will be. I the beginning of the game there isn't much you can do, but later on once you have the tech then get invest in embalming and surgical skills if you want to make the majority of your money off of this.

(WHEN COLLECTING THE FLESH JUST SAVE THE FLESH BLOCKS UNTIL YOU HAVE THE STAMP IF YOU WANT TO SELL THEM)

Collect a skull as soon as you learn to, you will need it when you talk to the astrologer the first time. Skulls are also needed for Snake later on.

Skin, fat, blood, and flesh are the other important things to collect. Don't worry about other stuff for the time being, get it once to study it. It will come useful later on.

Taking away blood and fat will remove one red skull and replace it with a white skull. (to learn more about skulls and ratings go to that section)

Embalming

This is a set of skills that you will have to craft and work hard for to get the materials needed. It's useful if you want to beautify your graveyard.

Ingredients/ creatures/ Materials

There are many different types of materials that you will need in this game, some of them can only be collected after having the right knowledge, so check your tech tree before you decide to collect things!

Insects/creatures

Moths- you can find them by picking flowers at night (make sure you have the knowledge to catch them) They are bait for fishing, you ask need them for a quest with the fisherman.

Bees- You can collect them from bee hives by shaking trees with hives in them. They see to be a pretty rare drop. They will dmg you at first when you collect them until you have the tech not to get hurt. They also seem to only drop from hives that appear to have buzzing bees in them. (make sure you have the knowledge to catch them)

Butterflies- you can get them by picking flowers during the day. They are used as bait. (make sure you have the knowledge to catch them)

Ingredients

The majority of good ingredients for potions and such will be found in the dungeons. But other things such as bat wings and green jelly can be found as creature drops outside.

Bat wings- These are a guaranteed drop from bats. You can fight bats at night outside. The best spot is right behind your house. They are important because you can craft paper with them, you will need a lot of paper so stock up!

Green Jelly- These come from green slimes. You can fight them outside your house right behind it during the day. I find they spawn in the morning. The green jelly is useful for a really great cooking recipe.

Blood- This is something you can get from the bodies during autopsy. (read more about autopsy in that section)

(more coming soon)

Materials

Logs- cut down trees
Sticks- cut down bramble
Stone-mine stones, or stone veins
Iron- Mine iron nodes or iron veins
Coal-(need knowledge to mine) Mined from veins in specific areas
Beach sand- you can find two piles to collect from on either side of the upper river near you home.

(more coming soon)

[ヴォーパルアビス]

After a few years, this guide is still really good! Do you plan on adding the promised more?

[Wicked_Awesome]

I disagree with the not having trunks in the workyard. You can end up putting the trunks in spaces between crafting stations(spots too small for other crafting) and also you can craft with anything in the trunks, beyond what is just in your invetory.
So yes, trunks are great.
The farming section is super accurate, because I have not yet found a use for lentils lol

[lreisker]

Do you have a let's play of this game? Thank you for the guide. I've been so lost.

[Taketzu Gaming]

I never knew that the six days were named after the Deadly Sins! And the characters that show up on those days all correspond to their respective Sins. The only one missing Is Greed, which I assume is embodied by the Graveyard Keeper!

[krystyl.rose]

Not a bad start, but an awful lot of "(more coming soon)" with nothing after 2 years, and referencing people to sections for information that isn't there (hemp, for example)

[Empty Lead Pencil]

Hey! Love the guide, let me know if you need help on this and I can provide some input as well! A few grammar mistakes and maybe a bit more organization. Other than that, keep up the great work!

[circleofwillis]

This is great! Thank you so much for creating this :D

[Patriotic War Princess]

Craftylaracroft, you'll get a beer for free when you talk to the tavernkeep and sell the burial certificate for the first body. The cottage is to the right of the graveyard and up a little.

[craftylaracroft]

Were do you sleep. The bouncing head said I have a cottage, where? The head wants beer, I have 16 cents and it costs 30. I have NO blue left and can't do nothing. Need help bad for this game!

[TheHomelessDude]

hey....good lookin on the guide!