Mastering the Mortician’s Market: A Comprehensive Guide to Making Money in Graveyard Keeper

The path to success in Graveyard Keeper is paved with good intentions… and lots of profitable ventures. While managing a medieval graveyard might seem like a grim prospect, it’s surprisingly ripe with opportunities to fill your coffers. The key to maximizing your income is understanding the interconnectedness of the game’s various systems and leveraging them to your advantage.

The single most effective way to make money in Graveyard Keeper is to establish a fully optimized zombie workforce focused on resource gathering and production. This involves a significant upfront investment in technology and infrastructure, but the payoff is immense. Here’s why:

• Automated Resource Gathering: Zombies can automate tedious tasks like mining ore, chopping wood, and farming crops. This frees up your time to focus on more profitable activities.

• Increased Production Efficiency: Zombies working at crafting stations drastically increase your output of valuable goods, such as refined metals, building materials, and processed food.

• Reduced Labor Costs: Once established, your zombie workforce requires minimal maintenance, eliminating the need to hire (and pay) NPCs.

• Exponential Growth: The more resources you gather and goods you produce, the more money you can make, creating a positive feedback loop.

However, you won’t immediately start with a zombie workforce. In the early game, your most reliable income source is indeed selling burial certificates. Here’s a breakdown of how to transition from a humble gravedigger to a necromantic tycoon:

1. Burial Certificates: This is your bread and butter early on. Don’t throw corpses into the river! Ensure each corpse is buried properly to get the most out of this initial income stream. Focus on improving your graveyard rating as quickly as possible to increase the value of your certificates.

2. Resource Sales: Coal, stone, and firewood are readily available and can be sold to the blacksmith, Cory, and various NPCs, respectively. This is a solid supplemental income source, especially in the early game.

3. Church Revenue: Once you unlock the church, sermons become a regular source of income. Improve the quality of your sermons and the church itself to attract more attendees and generate more revenue.

4. Farming and Alchemy: As you progress, farming and alchemy offer increasingly lucrative opportunities. Grow valuable crops and brew potent potions to sell to NPCs.

5. Tavern (Stranger Sins DLC): If you have the Stranger Sins DLC, the tavern is a game-changer. Properly managed, it can become a significant source of passive income.

6. Zombie Logistics: Once you unlock the ability to create zombies, you can start automating resource gathering and production. Prioritize tasks that consume a lot of time and energy, such as mining, chopping wood, and farming.

7. Product Optimization: Focus on crafting items that yield the highest profit margins. This may require investing in research and unlocking new technologies.

8. Merchant Routes (Better Save Soul DLC): With Better Save Soul, you can set up merchant routes which bring a significant passive income to the table. Plan them out carefully, or else you’ll lose money.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is the best thing to sell early game in Graveyard Keeper?

Burial certificates are the best early-game income source. Ensure you’re burying corpses in graves that meet the required standards to maximize your profit.

2. How do I increase the value of my burial certificates?

Improve your graveyard rating by adding gravestones, fences, and other decorative elements. Higher-quality corpses also contribute to a better graveyard rating.

3. Where can I sell coal, stone, and firewood?

Sell coal to the blacksmith, stone to Cory (the builder), and firewood to Horadric (the barkeeper) and the lighthouse keeper for the best prices.

4. How do I unlock the church?

Improve the quality of your graveyard by adding graves, fences, and headstones. Once your graveyard rating is high enough, the church will unlock.

5. How can I improve the quality of my sermons?

Craft higher-quality prayers and improve the interior of your church. The more faith points you generate, the more money you’ll earn from sermons.

6. What is the best corpse composition for my graveyard?

Aim for corpses with a high number of white skulls and minimal red skulls. Remove or replace body parts to achieve this, focusing on removing blood and fat to eliminate red skulls.

7. What is the best Graveyard Keeper DLC for making money?

The Stranger Sins DLC is generally considered the best for making money, as it adds the tavern, which can generate significant passive income. Also, the Better Save Soul DLC can bring a lot of money if the merchant routes are well-planned.

8. How do I get good zombies in Graveyard Keeper?

Create zombies using the zombie juice and then use them to power your resource gathering. Focus on getting your tech trees up for more zombies to automate more things.

9. What is the best way to automate resource gathering?

The best way to automate resource gathering is by building a zombie workforce. Create zombies and assign them to tasks like mining ore, chopping wood, and farming crops.

10. What are stories used for in Graveyard Keeper?

Stories are used to create notes, which are the first tier of written works. These notes can be used for various purposes, including crafting higher-quality prayers for the church.

11. What is the fastest way to get sticks in Graveyard Keeper?

The fastest way to get sticks is by chopping down small trees. Each small tree yields four sticks, making them a more efficient source than bushes or normal trees.

12. How do I get blue points in Graveyard Keeper?

Earn blue points by crafting items at the church workbench, making flasks, studying items, and crafting steel items. You can also get blue points from injecting corpses.

13. What is the best autopsy strategy in Graveyard Keeper?

Remove blood and fat to convert red skulls to white skulls. Replace body parts with higher-quality ones to further improve the corpse’s skull rating.

14. Is it okay to throw bodies in the river?

While there are no direct negative consequences for throwing bodies in the river, you’ll lose out on the burial certificate, which is a valuable early-game income source. It is also a bad practice overall, because there is a finite number of corpses that arrive.

15. What is the maximum corpse rating in Graveyard Keeper?

With the Game of Crone DLC, the maximum skull rating for a corpse is 16. You can achieve this by carefully selecting and modifying body parts.

By following these strategies and understanding the intricacies of the game’s economy, you can transform your graveyard into a thriving business. Remember to invest wisely, optimize your production, and always be on the lookout for new opportunities to expand your empire. Whether you’re interested in deeper insights into the intersection of games and learning or want to know more about communities that foster learning in games, you can find valuable information at Games Learning Society or GamesLearningSociety.org. The gaming community is very much about learning and developing strategies!