Graveyard Keeper: Beginner-to-Advanced Guide

A no-nonsense guide to the original Graveyard Keeper: what to do in your first week, how graveyard quality and corpses work, how the red/green/blue tech point economy fits together, and how the four DLCs change the game.

Researched September 2026 — current as of version 1.405 (the last listed patch, April 2022) with all DLCs. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Graveyard Keeper 2 was announced by Lazy Bear Games in April 2026 for "later this year" (Wikipedia lists a 22 September 2026 release). This guide covers the original game, which remains available on Steam.

Quick Start

• Follow the quest log. Nearly every station, area, and NPC service unlocks through quests. When stuck, re-read quest text and talk to everyone.
• Energy is your clock. Almost every action costs energy. Eat to restore it, and sleep to restore it and pass time. Keep cheap food on you.
• Learn the week. The game week has six days, each marked by a symbol. Key NPCs only appear on their day, so check the day icon at the top of the screen before walking to town.
• Collect all three tech point colors. Red, green and blue points unlock technologies. They come from different activities (see below), and they do not decay.
• Every corpse is a resource. Bodies arrive by donkey cart. Prepare them in the morgue, then bury them for graveyard quality, or use them for other purposes later.
• Graveyard quality drives church income. The better your graveyard, the more the church brings in.
• Place chests near work areas. Walking is expensive in time; local storage saves you hours.
• Upgrade tools as soon as you can. Better axes, pickaxes and shovels save a lot of energy.
• Don't rush the dungeon. Go in once you have decent weapons, healing and food.

What the Game Is Actually About

You wake up in a medieval world as the new graveyard keeper after an accident, with the goal of getting back home. To do that you have to earn the trust (and favors) of a cast of townsfolk, which means upgrading your graveyard, restoring the church, running production chains, and doing favors of dubious morality.

The main systems:

System | What it gives you | What it needs

Graveyard | Graveyard quality rating, church income | Prepared bodies, graves, headstones, fences

Morgue | Better bodies, byproducts (flesh, fat, blood, organs) | Tools, embalming supplies

Church | Faith and money from sermons | Graveyard quality, church upgrades

Tech tree | New stations, recipes, tools | Red, green and blue points

Farming & cooking | Food (energy), trade goods | Seeds, water, fields

Crafting | Tools, building materials, decorations | Wood, stone, iron, etc.

Alchemy | Potions and special substances | Ingredients from gardens, dungeon, corpses

Dungeon | Rare materials, story progress | Weapons, healing, food

Trade | Money | Goods to sell to town NPCs

Tech Points (Red, Green, Blue)

Color | Typical sources

Red | Physical and crafting work: mining, chopping, digging, building, metalwork

Green | Nature work: gardening, harvesting, cooking, some crafting

Blue | Mental work: studying, writing, research, sermons and church activities

Tips:

• Points never decay, so you can bank them.
• Blue points are the usual bottleneck in the early game. Studying items and doing church work helps.
• Achievements track collecting 1,000 and 3,000 points of each color, so you will naturally accumulate plenty.
• Spend points on whatever unblocks your current quest first, not evenly across the tree.

Your First Week

• Explore the immediate area. Meet Gerry, the talking skull, and follow the opening quests.
• Gather wood and stone. Chop trees and mine rocks near the graveyard.
• Build basic workstations. Unlock and build a carpentry/stone workstation so you can process raw materials into planks and blocks.
• Clean the graveyard. Remove debris and fix old graves. Early graveyard quality comes from tidying and properly buried bodies.
• Handle your first body. Prepare it in the morgue, then bury it. "Novice gravedigger" is the achievement for burying your first body.
• Visit the village and meet the Merchant, the Bishop, and other residents. Each gives quests and trades.
• Fix the garden near your house ("Even here" achievement) and start growing crops for food.
• Start a food chain. Something simple and cheap you can cook in bulk.

Corpses and the Morgue

Each body comes with a skull rating:

• White skulls are positive and improve the grave's quality.
• Red skulls are negative and reduce it.

In the morgue you can remove parts that carry red skulls and add embalming substances that improve the body. The better the body, the better the grave.

Byproducts include meat, fat, blood, and other parts. The game is famously willing to let you turn these into trade goods. "First slice" and "Sashimi master" are the achievements for your first slice of meat and for making 30 slices.

Options for disposal

• Burial in a prepared grave (the main way to raise graveyard quality).
• The river is a quick disposal method for bodies you don't want to bury. It is convenient but gives you nothing for the graveyard.
• Later options open up through the tech tree and DLCs (for example turning bodies into zombie workers with Breaking Dead).

Morgue workflow that saves time

• Keep embalming supplies and a storage chest right next to the morgue's work table.
• Check the skull rating as soon as the donkey drops a body.
• Remove the parts carrying red skulls, then add whatever improves the white-skull total.
• Store byproducts in a dedicated chest so they don't clog your inventory.
• Bury immediately if a prepared grave is waiting; otherwise keep the body in the morgue until you've dug one.

Don't let bodies pile up; a backlog in the morgue blocks new deliveries from being processed efficiently and eats days.

Graveyard Quality

Graveyard quality is the sum of your graves. Each grave's score depends on:

• The body's skull rating.
• The headstone (grave marker).
• The fence/grave border.

Upgrade headstones and fences through the tech tree (stone, then marble later — "Marble" is the achievement for getting the marble quarry ready). A higher quality graveyard leads to better church income and progresses several quests.

Tip: Build a small number of high-quality graves rather than many low-quality ones. When you get better materials, replace old headstones.

The Church and Sermons

• The church is part of your job. You'll need to upgrade it (the achievements "His house" and "His mansion" are for the two upgrades).
• Sermons produce faith and money. Attendance depends on graveyard quality and church upgrades.
• The Bishop is central to church progress.

Crafting and Production Chains

• Wood: logs processed into planks and other wooden parts at a workbench.
• Stone: rocks processed into blocks for construction.
• Metal: ore smelted and worked at the blacksmith-related stations for tools and parts.
• The mill ("The Mill" achievement) removes the need to grind by hand.
• Beekeeping, farming, and cooking add food and trade goods.

Chain your production so one trip produces multiple items. Put chests with the relevant raw materials next to each station.

Alchemy

Alchemy recipes are discovered by experimentation. Achievements track discovering 5, 10 and 20 recipes ("Apprentice", "Alchemist", "Master alchemist"). Alchemy supplies potions (including health potions — "Health care" is 50 of them), embalming substances for bodies, and items needed for quests.

The Dungeon

The dungeon is a series of floors with enemies and resources. Achievements mark clearing levels 5, 10 and 15.

• Upgrade your sword before each deeper push.
• Bring healing items and food.
• The dungeon gives resources you can't easily get elsewhere and is required for some quests.

Key NPCs

The achievements confirm these characters (quests and trades come from them):

NPC | Notes

Gerry | The talking skull who guides you early on

Bishop | Church progression

Merchant | Trade; you can start a company with him ("Graveyard Veggies")

Astrologer | Knowledge-heavy quests; likes a skull as a gift

Snake | Shady character with occult quests (the Necronomicon)

Ms Charm | The bard; wants perfume, later concerts with the tavern

Lord Inquisitor | Witch burnings and the Inquisition storyline

Horadric | The village innkeeper; not thrilled when you build a rival tavern (Stranger Sins)

Vagner | Gives the "Ideal Song"

The DLCs

DLC | What it adds

Breaking Dead | Zombie reanimation for resource gathering and automating tasks (free on PC per Wikipedia)

Stranger Sins (Oct 2019) | Tavern management: events like alco-parties, comedy shows, rat races and concerts

Game of Crone (Oct 2020) | A refugee camp to develop, a vampire mystery, and a donkey "revolution" side quest

Better Save Soul (Oct 2021) | Investigating the sins of corpses (with new characters Euric and Smiler), plus remote control of crafting stations

Zombies (Breaking Dead)

Zombies are the key to automation. Once you've unlocked them, assign them to repetitive tasks such as gathering or production. Workers make the midgame grind much lighter; prioritize getting a few working.

Tavern (Stranger Sins)

You build your own tavern (the "Talking Skull" achievement) and run events. Yorick, a wooden bartender, can take over the bar. Tavern quality goes up with investment; achievements mark quality 20, 40 and 80. Events include alco-parties, comedy shows, rat races and concerts with Ms Charm.

Refugee Camp (Game of Crone)

You develop a camp for refugees, improving and fortifying it over time. There is also a vampire storyline with multiple choices.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Walking to the village on the wrong day. Check the day symbol.
• Running out of energy far from home. Keep food in your inventory.
• Ignoring blue points. They gate a lot of useful tech.
• Selling everything. Keep the materials you'll need for the next quest.
• Making many low-quality graves. Fewer, better graves raise quality more efficiently.
• Diving deep in the dungeon with starter gear.
• Not building local chests.
• Forgetting to sleep. Sleep restores energy and passes time.

Advanced Tips

• Batch craft while you're doing other tasks.
• Plan your week by NPC days. Group village chores.
• Upgrade the morgue early; better bodies give better graves and more byproducts.
• Automate with zombies once available.
• Replace headstones when you unlock better materials.
• Use the tavern as a money and quest engine in the Stranger Sins content.

FAQ

Is Graveyard Keeper still updated? The last numbered patch on Steam news is 1.405 (April 2022), which fixed dungeon floor transitions and restored achievement unlocking. The studio has moved on to Graveyard Keeper 2.

Do I need the DLCs? No, but they add a lot. Breaking Dead (zombies) is the most impactful for quality of life.

How long is it? Many dozens of hours, depending on DLCs and completion.

Is it the same as Graveyard Keeper 2? No. The sequel is a separate game with a heavier focus on automation and undead armies. This guide covers the original.

Why can't I find an NPC? They appear on specific days of the week. Check the day symbol and wait.

Is there a free version? Graveyard Keeper was free to claim on Steam and consoles for a limited time in April 2026 (until April 13). That promotion has ended.

Sources

• Graveyard Keeper - Steam store
• Graveyard Keeper achievements - Steam
• Graveyard Keeper - Wikipedia
• Official Steam announcements: Version 1.401-1.405 notes and "Announcing Graveyard Keeper 2" (April 2026)