Graveyard Keeper: Tips For Beginners

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 simulator where players tend to a graveyard and a church. The game is much like Stardew Valley, but spookier. Set in a fantasy medieval world, players can farm, dissect bodies, preach in church, and more. NPCs help drive the plot and guide players through tasks seen in many other farming simulators, but also give unique quests, such as stopping cultists and witch burnings.

There are tips and tricks that players going through the game for the first time may not realize until later. Walkthroughs can help move beginners through the plot, and context can give clues. However, some things are not obvious until the late game unless looked up.

Updated March 3, 2025 by Abigail Angell: Those looking forward to sinking their teeth into one of the best spooky farming sims released to date will be pleased by Graveyard Keepers’s numerous DLCs and expansive list of quests. With the changes to Farming in the Stranger Sins DLC to accommodate the new Tavern system, the fishing system, and several new NPC sidequests introduced to flesh out the town, new players might be seeking guidance for a number of the game’s mechanics. Despite the initially overwhelming amount of content, this game is easy to get the hang of with some simple tips, and players should look forward to a quirky and wonderful time.

14

Manage Your Days

It’s More Important Than You Think

Time management is an unusual, confusing, and critically important part of Graveyard Keeper that can be hard for newcomers to get their heads around. One day in the game lasts for nine real-world minutes, and each week consists of six days, each named after one of the Seven Deadly Sins (Greed is omitted). Each day is also associated with one of the game’s six key characters, and these characters will only appear on their associated day. This means some questlines can only advance once a week – players must be ready to hand in quests on the day an NPC appears or wait another week.

Knowing what day is associated with what character is important, because it allows the player to plan key actions ahead of time. Miss Charm visits the Dead Horse Tavern on the day associated with Lust (and marked with the Venus symbol), so if the player wants to talk to that NPC, they can check the day and make sure everything they need to do is taken care of at an appropriate time, with time left over for fishing at the end. Key NPC movements are listed in the table below.

13

Deal With Corpses Promptly

In Graveyard Keeper, bodies are delivered to the character via a talking donkey with a cart. Though this delivery method is extremely strange, it’s vital to understand it, since one can’t keep much of a graveyard if there are no bodies to keep. One of the simplest but most important factors involving bodies is decay. It’s common sense that a body left to its own devices will begin to decay, and that’s the case in Graveyard Keeper, too.

If the player leaves a corpse on the ground after it is delivered, it will begin to decompose. Its status is marked by a dwindling percentage marker above it, and the lower the body’s condition, the bigger the problem. If a body falls below 90% quality, it will begin to gain Skull markers and cause problems when buried. The faster the player can autopsy and bury a body after delivery, the better.

12

Attend Every Sermon

Stock Up On Faith From The Flock

The Bishop will attend the church every Pride Day (marked with a sun symbol), and the player will be given the opportunity to attend a sermon. Sermons earn the player Faith, which the player needs to progress throughout the game, and few things are as frustrating as missing a sermon and having to wait an entire week for the opportunity to come again.

Since the church is so easily accessible, it’s hard to miss a sermon as long as the player is paying attention. That said, there’s a lot going on at once in Graveyard Keeper (just as there is in most great sims), and it’s easy for the player to get sidetracked or distracted by a side quest and miss their chance. It’s advisable to always keep an eye on the passing days, and as soon as Pride Day comes around, players should make sure that there’s plenty of time left to get to the church.

11

Collect Essential Resources

You Can Never Have Too Much Wood & Stone

Two of the game’s most abundant and necessary items are wood and stone. They’re needed to craft tons of items in the game, so gather as much as possible and don’t sell them. These items don’t disappear from the ground, so harvest a lot since they regrow slowly.

Trees and rocks drop larger item blocks that have to be carried by hand instead of going into the character’s inventory. Players can form these blocks into a line and push them along the ground, speeding up the process. Unlocked later down the technology tree, zombies at workstations can carry these items to the player’s house automatically.

10

Build Storage Spaces

Where Else Can You Put All Your Materials?

Start building and upgrading workstations as soon as possible. This is one of the reasons why gathering stone and wood is so important. Items such as a stone cutter or anvil make all the difference in turning raw materials into crafting ingredients. Some stations are even worth making several of, like furnaces.

But crafting these takes a lot of materials, and the player’s inventory can only hold so much. Make as many trunks and mortuary racks as possible, but not just for things like wooden planks. Items that seem less important in the early game should be hoarded for later because everything has a use once enough crafting blueprints are unlocked.​

9

Don’t Forget To Farm

A Money-Making Scheme To Match The Greediest Players

The garden is just below the character’s main house, and allows players to grow a variety of crops. This is a key location, which players should gain access to early in the game by reading the sign there and speaking to the Innkeeper to unlock the farm. They will then be prompted to speak with the Merchant. Growing a variety of produce will be beneficial to the player, but some crops are staples and should always be grown. Carrots, for example, are useful for giving to the donkey that delivers corpses, because they won’t drop off bodies otherwise.

Other than paying the Donkey, crops are one of the most useful money making resources, as well as a method of regaining precious energy for the player. Buy seeds for a variety of Crops from the farmer (located between the Graveyard and the Town). Unlock and craft fertilizers to increase the quality of crops, shown by a star. Higher-quality food or crops will sell for higher prices at the Dead Horse Inn, the Trade Office, and even back to the farmer. Crops can also be turned into food for the player or cooked and sold at the tavern in the Better Save Sin DLC. Selling crops in one form or another is one of the best ways to make money in the game. Unlike many other farming simulators, these crops don’t have to be watered, and zombies can eventually be resurrected to do the work for players.

Fishing Is A Quick Activity That Helps Craft Rare Recipes

Players can pick up a simple fishing rod from the Lighthouse Keeper fairly early on in exchange for 6 Moths. This rod can then be used near any fishing spot to catch fish in a mini-game that will be familiar to Stardew Valley players. Lures and bait can also be used to fish, but are not required. Every Fish in Graveyard Keeper produces an item when butchered, usually a type of fish fillet, which is then used to craft food items or sold to the Lighthouse Keeper.

There are three types of Fish Filet: White Fish, Quality Fish, and Blue Fish. Each has a set of associated recipes that can provide energy, buffs, and health to the player. They can also be sold in the Tavern for significant profit. Meals containing meat or fish typically sell for much more and grant better stats than those containing produce from the garden alone. This makes Fishing a worthwhile activity to do on days when the player has energy left but no urgent plans. If lacking recipes for fish meals, the player can purchase them from the Innkeeper’s Wife, Miss Chain.

7

Upgrade The Graveyard And Church

Keeping A Beautiful Graveyard Unlocks Game Progression

When getting started, players should improve the quality of the graveyard, so the church will unlock. Faith points are needed throughout the game and the easiest way to earn them is to create quality sermons – the Bishop will explain this in more detail as his questline progresses. Along with adding fences and headstones to the graveyard, the church can be upgraded on the inside.

These upgrades increase the faith points and money made every church day. One way to do this is by lighting candles and incense. Candles need beeswax to be crafted, so players should start a bee farm as soon as possible or trade with the Beekeeper in town. For permanent bonuses, players can also craft better benches and altars, which require advanced Wood and Stone processing technology.

6

Harvest Body Parts

Waste Not, Want Not As They Say

Despite the moral ambiguity of removing body parts from the people they’re supposed to be burying, players are heavily incentivized to remove things from corpses on the autopsy table. The most obvious is Flesh, which can be used to make meat and is introduced by the Talking Skull. However, blood is a key ingredient in energy potions, and fat can be turned into oil. Keep in mind before harvesting that removing organs can lower the quality of corpses though, so don’t bury a body in the graveyard if most of its organs are missing.

Instead, build a crematorium to burn the bodies and trade the death certificates in town for money. These can then be stored in Urn buildings in the Graveyard for significant beauty bonuses. Two body parts that can always be removed without compromising the Corpse’s quality are blood and fat, which remove a red skull and add a white skull to improve the corpse.

5

Talk To NPCs

They All Have Their Own Problems & Stories

While the original game only had a handful of voiced NPCs, the DLCs added many new questlines to make side characters more relevant. Players should talk to every NPC in the Village to ensure they have all the quests currently available to them. In addition, some quests are triggered later on in the game as cutscenes.

Players interested in the strange lore of the Village should read the dialogue from each character carefully, as the game’s storyline appears primarily in these questlines. Additionally, quest descriptions in the journal can be somewhat ambiguous, and NPCs often give detailed instructions that do not transfer in these conversations (such as where to find a resource, or what day the receiving NPC will be available to speak with).

4

Explore The Map

There Are Interesting Secrets & Lore To Discover

Players should explore the entirety of Graveyard Keepers’ map, as it contains a variety of POIs which they won’t be directed toward during the main questline. Look around the map for interesting locations, especially in the Swamp. There are tons of shops in town where players can buy resources, characters out on farms with a sidequest and seeds, a quarry to find, mysterious graves, and fishing spots to spend time at. Lore junkies can also collect clues about what happened in the Village, and learn all the personalities of the NPCs scattered around the world.

However, exploring the entire map will not be possible right off the bat. There are obstacles in the player’s path at the beginning of the game to limit player movement, such as broken bridges. As soon as possible, fix bridges to find new locations and move rubble out of the way to create shortcuts and save time.

3

Experiment With Alchemy

Craft Game Changing Consumables & Automate Tasks

Alchemy is a key crafting system in Graveyard Keeper’s later game. It can be used to craft fertilizers, generate additional faith, craft healing potions, and even make zombie workers. To prepare for the unlocking of Alchemy, players should store collected items in the morgue, whether they be body parts or plants, from the beginning of the game onward. Many items will take time to accumulate (such as body parts) and are needed in surplus for various Alchemy Recipes.

Fertilizers of quality and speed are some of the best items made through Alchemy, and can be used to snowball the player’s money effectively. In addition, some elixirs like fresher are needed to make incense for the church. If players want to make energy potions or zombie resurrection juice, this is also where they will need to do it. Other useful items to keep on hand are black and white paint.

2

Unlock The Tech Trees

Technology Points Unlock Key Recipes & Workstations

Players early in the game should focus on certain technology tree sections. Categories like book writing should take a backseat to others that will help craft better tools or upgrade the graveyard – usually unlocked by Red and Green Points. Red and Green Points are much more abundant than the rare Blue Science Points, and can be collected by chopping down trees, harvesting plants, and refining raw resources (such as turning wood into planks).

The last type of technology point, blue, is mainly a late-game resource. Blue points are used to upgrade various parts of processing and burying bodies, as well as creating books and zombie henchmen. Blue points will come later in the game from the Study Table, so don’t worry if they seem lacking compared to the other two colors.

An easy way to generate Blue points once players unlock zombies is to set up two workstations, one cutting stones into blocks and another crafting basic stone grave markers. This produces a small number of blue points constantly as long as the player has enough stone for the zombies to craft.

1

Manage Energy Levels

There are two ways players can get energy: by sleeping or eating. There are many options for food and drink, and with enough to eat, players will barely need to sleep at all. One way to do this is by drinking energy potions, but these require blood. If blood isn’t on hand, then the only way to get them is to go out into the swamp and trade with Clotho.

Another way is to craft food items. Better quality food means players will get more energy, but some of Graveyard Keeper’s Food Recipes require lots of ingredients. There’s also the option of a liquid diet, where players mainly drink things such as wine or mead. Alcohol requires very few ingredients to make, but players do have to wait for it to brew. All these options have their pros and cons. Players can sell burgers at witch burnings, booze at their tavern, and give carrots to the donkey. As long as some of these items are set aside for those tasks, the rest can be eaten freely.