Graveyard Keeper: This game is not Stardew Valley.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Graveyard Keeper: This game is not Stardew Valley.

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

Steam posted:

Graveyard Keeper is the most inaccurate medieval cemetery management sim of all time. Build and manage your own graveyard, and expand into other ventures, while finding shortcuts to cut costs. Use all the resources you can find. After all, this is a game about the spirit of capitalism, and doing whatever it takes to build a thriving business. And it�s also a love story.

-Face ethical dilemmas. Do you really want to spend money on that proper burger meat for the witch-burning festival, when you have so many resources lying around?
-Gather valuable materials and craft new items. Expand your Graveyard into a thriving business. Help yourself -- gather the valuable resources scattered across the surrounding areas, and explore what this land has to offer.
-Quests and corpses. These dead bodies don't need all those organs, do they? Why not grind them up and sell them to the local butcher? Or you can go on proper quests, you roleplayer.
-Explore mysterious dungeons. No medieval game would be complete without those! Take a trip into the unknown, and find discover new alchemy ingredients -- which may or may not poison a whole bunch of nearby villagers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5S5rlKf_M

Where can I buy it?
Available now for $20 on Steam.
Official Webpage

How do I play this game?
Link to the wiki; as the game is newer, some info is probably wrong or missing.
_{https://reddit.com/r/graveyardkeeper Someone might find this useful I dunno.}
Steam...forum?
Official Discord

RazzleDazzleHour posted:

So the most important thing to know about Graveyard Keeper is that a lot of content is locked behind completing the NPC quests, and that almost every NPC quest is connected. For example, to get access to the dungeon, you need to be friends with Snake, but for that you need to learn about him from Ms Charm. Talking to Ms Charm requires five Faith, which you get from the Chapel, which doesn't open until you finish the Priest's quest of improving the graveyard. Once you get access to the chapel, you get access to the basement which is also required to complete one of the Astrologer's quest in which you research a key, and giving that key to Snake unlocks the dungeon. It's All Connected. So basically, at any point if you find yourself wondering what to do next, look at the quests you have and start trying to complete them.

One mean trick the game will play on you is that at the beginning, the Donkey brings an unlimited supply of corpses to you for free for the purposes of finishing the "Make the Graveyard Nice" quest. However, once you finish this quest, the Donkey will demand ten carrots per corpse. I would recommend you research Hardspares, Softspares, and Important Parts before finishing this quest and having one of each. Later on, you'll unlock the ability to Study items, and most of these parts give you blue points. Getting the point boosts from these items is huge and will rocket you forward in terms of game progress.

However, don't go too crazy with burying bodies. Harvesting every single part from a body will cause the quality to disappear, and each corpse will only improve the quality of your graveyard by the number of white skulls displayed on the autopsy screen, but it's not uncommon to have zero white skulls after a full autopsy. That's where cremation comes in, which allows you to burn corpses and totally bypass the quality loss. This allows you to use every part of the buffalo, then burn the corpse and put the remains into a ceremonial urn. Combine 12 of these urns for a mausoleum which gives 12 quality. Way way way later in the game, you'll get the ability to embalm corpses to freely manipulate the number of white/red skulls on a corpse so you can minmax your graveyard quality.

By now you should have tons of Red/Green research points to spend. Make a beeline for tools, because making the next tier of tools make the associated actions twice as efficient. Also take Advanced Forging, you'll need Complex Parts to make tons of early-mid tier buildings. In the Building tree, rush Mining. Firewood and Stoneworking are next. Woodworking and the Circular saw are a little but off but will give you access to some great shortcuts. Namely, as soon as is reasonable, go to your home basement and remove the barrier there. It will give you access to a grate you can't open yet, but also if you walk to the right there's a shortcut to the Village that cuts your travel time by half. The other very very important thing to do as soon as possible is to fix the landslide that is on the hill to the north of your home. This area will give you access to the Quarry, which is an unlimited source of iron, stone, and marble. There's also a bed at the quarry, and a place to build tools, so you can do all your work right on-site and not need to travel back and forth. The last thing up in the quarry is Coal, which is the most efficient fuel source.

In the Farming tree, Improvement and Decay are mandatory. Transplanting, Grape Farming, and Wine Making are the next most important things on the list. It's a good idea to start growing carrots as soon as is reasonable so you can get more corpses. All sorts of seeds are sold by the Farmer, who is found by going south in the middle of the wheat field. In theology, the only important one early on is Cremation. Almost everything else involves improving the Chapel, but for that we need to open it.

Once you open the Chapel by getting five skulls on your Graveyard meter, you can hold weekly mass to gain donations, which is a nice bonus to you cash. The amount of money you get is determined by the quality of your graveyard, so if you don't mind not getting those sweet sweet organs, you can bury high-quality corpses early on. If this is your goal, build more pews, because more seats equals more people. However, the game will pull a second mean trick by telling you the way to upgrade the church with a Building Permit, which costs 20 silver. After buying it, the Pastor tells you you cant deliver any more sermons until you are a Rightful Citizen, and becoming one costs one gold. 1 gold piece is 100 silver pieces. I currently have 70 silver pieces on day 200.

So, how are you going to get that cash? Wine. The process is this: four grape seeds are needed for a single grape vine, which yields five grapes. Ten grapes equals one bucket of grape juice, and two buckets of grape juice equal a batch of wine, which contains TWENTY bottles of wine, which you can sell to the tavernkeep for 23~ silver. To get access to the Vineyard, you need to finish the first quest from the Inquisitor, which requires Flyers, and therefor Paper.

Paper requires access to the Chapel by completing the very first Graveyard quest from the Pastor. After that, he will give you a second quest, and your reward is your first bit of Blue research points. Blue research points are going to be your bottleneck for the whole game, so it's important to spend them wisely, because it's hard to get ahold of them. However, if you did what I mentioned earlier, you should have a lot to pass around. Your first stop on the tech tree should be Inventing Stories, Writing, Papercrafting, and Writing Supplies. Not only does this allow you to finish the Inquisitor quest, but is going to be the cycle you need to follow for more tech points. You can't Study paper at the table - instead, you feed it to the table to get more science points to perform research with. With this, you now have an unlimited supply of Science and Faith points to get the blue points from any items you have. On top of that, the process of actually making books is a good source of Blue in and of itself.

The last thing I have is the most effective ways to get tech points. Studying items is always going to be the best answer, but it can be resource intensive. So, it's nice to have some cheaper options. Once you unlock Clay, digging up clay can be done for as long as you have stamina, and gives one Green point each time. I'll sometimes do this for quick points and then just destroy the clay in my inventory if I don't need any. For red, chopping down trees and converting them into Flitch, then manually converting the Flitch into Wooden Planks is a solid number of points while also getting you useful resources you can use later. For Blue, just do what I mentioned above. Bookmaking and resource are realistically your only choices.

From here, this is basically all The Good Stuff I can think of. You should be able to figure your way through things from there, just research things as you need them to complete quests or when tech trees tie together. I'd recommend having the wiki open so you can see what you're about to unlock before actually doing it. For example, in order to build an Alchemy Table 2, required to make alchemy items that use three ingredients, you need to have access to Jointing, so if you haven't gotten that far in the carpentry tech tree you just wasted your points.

This space will possibly be filled out with more info. For now, just ask a question!

https://i.imgur.com/RJDBzqG.gifv

If you want me to add something, pester me in a PM or post here or whatever.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:12

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 08:18

Knorth: Aug 19, 2014; Buglord

I'm enjoying this game a lot and am looking forward to losing another 10 hours to it next weekend

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:29

RazzleDazzleHour: Mar 31, 2016

Yeah I've been basically playing nonstop this week while watching The International. And I've still got a long road ahead of me based on these research trees...

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:37

CuddleCryptid: Jan 11, 2013; Things could be going better

Good game but be prepared to use the wiki a ton, or keep a pad of paper nearby to write everything down because the game doesn't save discovered recipies and character information.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:40

Jesustheastronaut!: Mar 9, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

Was checking this out on steam but the reviews lead me to think that you run out of stuff to do fairly quickly. Seems like an interesting concept and the gif of the guy throwing the corpse in the river got a laugh out of me.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:41

RazzleDazzleHour: Mar 31, 2016

Jesustheastronaut! posted:

Was checking this out on steam but the reviews lead me to think that you run out of stuff to do fairly quickly. Seems like an interesting concept and the gif of the guy throwing the corpse in the river got a laugh out of me.

I'm like 30 hours in and still have a long way to go. Honestly the steam reviews are really confusing, most of them are people mad about the alpha release or something

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:47

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

I started a new game; now that I know there is no time limit at all, I'm taking my time just doing whatever.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:49

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

This is my current favorite "be chill" game and I love it dearly, especially since classes coming back means I need something to focus on while I'm too anxious for even Monster Hunter. I just put on some jazz and play this and it's a good time.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:55

RazzleDazzleHour: Mar 31, 2016

Oh god yeah I just checked my file I'm on day 210. I see tons of people complain about the energy system but instead of doing almost any cooking I just sleep the second I hit empty

I would be intrigued and horrified to see speedruns of this game

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:55

Ciaphas: Nov 20, 2005; > BEWARE, COWARD

Game sounds like a fun way to spend time while I'm laid up in surgery recovery. Can I assume it has an "end" somewhere or can you just keep on graveyarding?

Besides the stuff in the OP is anything else about the game not very obvious? Seemed to be causing a lot of questions in the Steam thread.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:06

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

DreamShipWrecked posted:

Good game but be prepared to use the wiki a ton, or keep a pad of paper nearby to write everything down because the game doesn't save discovered recipies and character information.

The only thing I've found it not saving is stuff like what ingredients things decay into. The NPC panel is not particularly good because while it will tell you helpful things like "Wants Silver-Star Fish Fillet" it won't tell you more important things like they actually want 4 of them, or that they are the only source of Silk Cloth.

I've only really gone to the wiki for alchemy because it's boring guesswork that overwhelmingly produces trash from decent items.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:28

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Ciaphas posted:

Game sounds like a fun way to spend time while I'm laid up in surgery recovery. Can I assume it has an "end" somewhere or can you just keep on graveyarding?

Besides the stuff in the OP is anything else about the game not very obvious? Seemed to be causing a lot of questions in the Steam thread.

The end goal is to get your dude home and back to his wife, and there IS an achievement of the portal you'd presumably be using to get there, and I just did enough side-questing for the game to say "you need to unlock this, you need to build this and this and this, and you need this to get the portal going", so I'd assume there is an ending! ... and I checked youtube and there's a video of the ending, although I haven't watched it.

So there is an end goal, and it's achievable!

also, re: things not being obvious - a lot of the early game is figuring out where to get things, and fortunately the wiki for this game is robust, and this thread exists. So I wouldn't worry about that, as long as you're willing to ask questions and/or use google.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:28

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

Is there a way to make the game run in the background? Sometimes I want a full night's rest without just staring at the screen.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:35

Shirec: Jul 29, 2009; How to cock it up, Fig. I

So I'm terrible at fishing in this game. I put a maggot on the line, tried to line up to a good % area, and then nothing? I tried clicking when the bobber was going in but it didn't seem to do anything.

I assume I'm missing some incredibly clear mechanic.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:35

HarmB: Jun 19, 2006

Admiral Joeslop posted:

Is there a way to make the game run in the background? Sometimes I want a full night's rest without just staring at the screen.

I've been using Cheat Engine, with a only-while-pressed speedhack button for 3x to just speed through nights instead.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:36

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Shirec posted:

So I'm terrible at fishing in this game. I put a maggot on the line, tried to line up to a good % area, and then nothing? I tried clicking when the bobber was going in but it didn't seem to do anything.

I assume I'm missing some incredibly clear mechanic.

Bait doesn't affect if you can fish or not. I've been fishing with no bait.

The problem is, the window to catch fish is INCREDIBLY short. It's my one big complaint with the game. You have to watch for the bobber to twitch, and instantly click/press E. Instantly. If you wait even a second the window will end.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:47

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

Yeah, especially with the first rod the 'bob' window is very short. Between that and presumably wireless controller lag I could only start fishing while hopped up on fish sticks. It gets more lenient as you get better rods.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:53

CuddleCryptid: Jan 11, 2013; Things could be going better

Ghostlight posted:

The only thing I've found it not saving is stuff like what ingredients things decay into. The NPC panel is not particularly good because while it will tell you helpful things like "Wants Silver-Star Fish Fillet" it won't tell you more important things like they actually want 4 of them, or that they are the only source of Silk Cloth.

I've only really gone to the wiki for alchemy because it's boring guesswork that overwhelmingly produces trash from decent items.

Yeah I should clarify that I more mean it that villagers only say things one time so unless you immediately rush off to make it the recipes won't get saved, versus normal games where they would instantly slot in. Comes into play for quests too.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:55

Tellaris: Dec 23, 2005; Cat On Rope Entertainment: Random comments since 2004

I'm to what I guess is the "endgame" and my only real gripe about the game (now that infinite stone and fast travel have been patched in) is with the alchemy system. Why yes, I would love to ram 3 random / occasionally semi-rare ingredients together in the hope I actually get a recipe from it! Why no, that isn't the wiki with all the known recipes in it on the other screen there.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 02:58

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Ghostlight posted:

Yeah, especially with the first rod the 'bob' window is very short. Between that and presumably wireless controller lag I could only start fishing while hopped up on fish sticks. It gets more lenient as you get better rods.

There are better rods?! Oh thank god, new goal. I love fishing minigames and want to conquer this one.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 03:00

katkillad2: Aug 30, 2004; Awake and unreal, off to nowhere

This is like video game crack. I just wish I waited a month or two after it released, because the 5-6 patches that came out just a few days after they released were pretty substantial and arguably should have been in the game at launch.

As far as the steam reviews, apparently there might have been more content promised before release or something? Sometimes the game can be convoluted/obtuse and trial and error crafting can go to hell, but this game was great.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 03:05

Shirec: Jul 29, 2009; How to cock it up, Fig. I

StrixNebulosa posted:

Bait doesn't affect if you can fish or not. I've been fishing with no bait.

The problem is, the window to catch fish is INCREDIBLY short. It's my one big complaint with the game. You have to watch for the bobber to twitch, and instantly click/press E. Instantly. If you wait even a second the window will end.

So like if I see the bobber move, click? Wow, that's not intuitive at all, I had assumed I was missing some magic "and then hold or drag this thing to catch a fish!"

# ? Aug 24, 2018 03:14

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

The pre-release version of the game prevented you from getting the Town Pass which lead people to believe that was because The Town was an area still under development.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 03:16

Shirec: Jul 29, 2009; How to cock it up, Fig. I

Ghostlight posted:

The pre-release version of the game prevented you from getting the Town Pass which lead people to believe that was because The Town was an area still under development.

Oh man I both chuckled and was bummed at what happened when I strode through those gates.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 03:24

CuddleCryptid: Jan 11, 2013; Things could be going better

What is the strongest source of blue xp once you get past the "research the body parts" stage? Just pumping out notes and high end gravestones?

# ? Aug 24, 2018 04:27

Tellaris: Dec 23, 2005; Cat On Rope Entertainment: Random comments since 2004

Amusingly, midlevel graves are the best. Polished stone graves give like 3-4 blues each, while marble ones give 0. Probably an oversight if I had to guess.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 04:42

CuddleCryptid: Jan 11, 2013; Things could be going better

Tellaris posted:

Amusingly, midlevel graves are the best. Polished stone graves give like 3-4 blues each, while marble ones give 0. Probably an oversight if I had to guess.

Yeah, I would assume it is a bug, same thing for bones having no effect when extracted.

Unrelated i cannot wait to get a decent cash flow going because burning hollowed out sinners is more profitable but chucking their organless shells into the river is hilarious.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 06:19

Nyaa: Jan 7, 2010; Like, Nyaa.

Anyone tries those expensive gem fish bait? They are so expensive and i am not sure if it�s worth the risk for profit.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 13:08

RazzleDazzleHour: Mar 31, 2016

Shirec posted:

So I'm terrible at fishing in this game. I put a maggot on the line, tried to line up to a good % area, and then nothing? I tried clicking when the bobber was going in but it didn't seem to do anything.

I assume I'm missing some incredibly clear mechanic.

You're not, the window is just small. If you glue your eyelids open, there's a super small tell where you can nab it every time. On the sprite for the bobber, there's a white line signifying the water line. Right before the bobber goes under, the white line will disappear, so just hit E as soon as that white line disappears and you'll get it every time.

Also, bait isn't useless, but you can fish without it, yes. Bait changes the percentage rates of catching certain fish with certain rods. There's a quest in the game to catch twelve frogs, but if you have the Old Rod, you can't catch frogs in the swamp unless you use Moths or Butterflies as a bait, and even then it's only a 50% chance.

DreamShipWrecked posted:

What is the strongest source of blue xp once you get past the "research the body parts" stage? Just pumping out notes and high end gravestones?

Research will always be the best source, albeit only once. Body parts aside, graveyard items also give Blue points like tombstones, and the farther you get down the tech tree, the more points you get. I saw it was going to take 10 science points to research a Steel hammer, so I tried it and got like 100 red points. Once you're out of items though, yeah, bookmaking is pretty much it, unless you want to set up a glass farm for 2 blue points a pop.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 13:24

Nyaa: Jan 7, 2010; Like, Nyaa.

Fishing tips: There seem to be a static timer for each pool before the fish is hook. I count it by the finish rod swaying animation and it�s after 5 to 7 animation sway before the fish is hooked. The next one also hook at the same amount of time. You can press it 0.5 second before the ripple shows up.

Not sure about the whiteline thing, I don�t have much trouble pressing the button when there is a ripple on the line.

Blue Xp tip: The easiest way is to unlocked tier 2 item from the astrologist and focus on making money to buy the 25 blue xp book for 5 silvers.

Note doesn�t give a lot, but finishing a book do, so i would suggest buying a chapter from the astrologist and make book cover to combine them.

Each item have a color xp orb in the description that tell you what you get when you research it.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 14:06

Anime Store Adventure: May 6, 2009

Man I have been dutifully avoiding a wiki because games like this are fun to discover on your own, but the recipe for black paint (oh my god I just needed one tech I could have had hours ago) weakened me. As well it seems like I�m going to use it for alchemy after already making a stack of goo and having stumbled into a sum total of no successful products besides the black paint recipe I looked up.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 16:30

CuddleCryptid: Jan 11, 2013; Things could be going better

Anime Store Adventure posted:

Man I have been dutifully avoiding a wiki because games like this are fun to discover on your own, but the recipe for black paint (oh my god I just needed one tech I could have had hours ago) weakened me. As well it seems like I’m going to use it for alchemy after already making a stack of goo and having stumbled into a sum total of no successful products besides the black paint recipe I looked up.

Yeah puzzling out alchemy is a total waste of time. It doesn't help that they are so specific either. So I can mix graphite and water to get black paint, but if I am using ashes then I have to buy seed oil from the stoner on the other side of town?

# ? Aug 24, 2018 16:43

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

This is a fun little game. My biggest complaint about it is the strange hybrid between self-sufficiency and needing to buy things. A lot of things can be made directly, but then you have basics like milk and eggs that must be bought. It's a bit strange.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 18:33

Nyaa: Jan 7, 2010; Like, Nyaa.

I wish alchemy recipe can be purchased from merchants. I would be willing to pay it instead of looking up wiki.

Egg and milk seem like a ranch feature thing we don�t have. I won�t mind raising chicken in the graveyard though. Something need to eat those goo.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 18:49

friendly 2 da void: Mar 23, 2018

The pixel art in this game is so good that it makes going back to Stardew Valley a little difficult

# ? Aug 24, 2018 19:57

HenryEx: Mar 25, 2009; ...your cybernetic implants, the only beauty in that meat you call "a body"...; Grimey Drawer

I repaired the morgue chute and was very confused why it didn't work or did anything, until i repaired the other hatch, too.

Now the bodies get dropped right in the morgue, where they decay slower, but my question is: if i build a pallet right under the hatch, will the bodies automatically land on the pallet and not decay at all?

edit: also when does this donkey even show up, i'm at day like 19 and he's appeared thrice as far as i can tell, completely random.

HenryEx fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Aug 24, 2018

# ? Aug 24, 2018 21:45

Tellaris: Dec 23, 2005; Cat On Rope Entertainment: Random comments since 2004

Oh also, a good source of cash money is selling silver bars to the merchant. Best I can tell, they have 0 use besides that, and the ore can only be used for a grand total of 1 alchemy recipe that is outclassed by the gold ore version. Each bar gets you like 20 silver which is pretty darn nice.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 21:58

CuddleCryptid: Jan 11, 2013; Things could be going better

HenryEx posted:

I repaired the morgue chute and was very confused why it didn't work or did anything, until i repaired the other hatch, too.

Now the bodies get dropped right in the morgue, where they decay slower, but my question is: if i build a pallet right under the hatch, will the bodies automatically land on the pallet and not decay at all?

edit: also when does this donkey even show up, i'm at day like 19 and he's appeared thrice as far as i can tell, completely random.

According to the recent patch notes he comes every day except for weekends and will automatically drop off a body as long as he has carrots to take. Anecdotally he will drop off the body at the midpoint of sundown, indicated by a bell ringing.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 22:22

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

DreamShipWrecked posted:

According to the recent patch notes he comes every day except for weekends and will automatically drop off a body as long as he has carrots to take. Anecdotally he will drop off the body at the midpoint of sundown, indicated by a bell ringing.

Before you trigger needing to buy bodies from him for carrots, he seems to come whenever he loving feels like it.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 22:33

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 08:18

Zetetica: Jan 22, 2010

Tellaris posted:

Oh also, a good source of cash money is selling silver bars to the merchant. Best I can tell, they have 0 use besides that, and the ore can only be used for a grand total of 1 alchemy recipe that is outclassed by the gold ore version

You can use both the gold and silver embalming on the same corpse and as far as I know, you have to use both in order to reach the cap of 12 white skulls.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 23:01

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