Best Graveyard Keeper 2 Tips and Tricks: 25 Rules the Game Barely Explains

The game teaches you to dig a grave and leaves the rest to trial and expensive error. These 25 tips are the rules that cost players whole evenings: how fuel, mastery, research, sermons and zombies really behave on patch 1.008. This page is the shortcut list for players past the first hour; for the step-by-step route through the first ten days, use the beginner guide.

The 25 tips at a glance

Saving and staying sane

1. The bed is your only save button

There is no manual save: the game saves when you get up from the bed at home, and nowhere else.

• The bed refuses you at full energy, unless you have Lack of sleep. For a save point before a risky step, spend a little energy first, then lie down.
• The world keeps running in bed, 50 times faster, and empty to full takes about 6 in-game hours. On Wrath, preach first and sleep after: a long nap can carry you past the only sermon day.

Back up your save folder before big story steps and restart every few hours; the known issues guide has the path and the routine.

2. Split stacks before you move them into a chest

Moving a stack into a chest where only part of it fits could delete the rest. Patch 1.007 fixed it on Steam, GOG, PS5 and Xbox, but PS4, Switch and Switch 2 were still waiting for 1.007 on 5 October 2026: there, leave room for the whole stack or split it first. The known issues guide tracks every platform.

3. Plain sleep does not lower insanity

Maximum energy is 100 minus your insanity, which caps at 80 (70 with Iron Will); at the cap the Keeper refuses grim work such as autopsies, digging and headstones. A normal night refills energy and leaves insanity where it was.

The bed only cures insanity when you sleep off Lack of sleep: it arrives after two in-game days awake (about 15 real minutes), and sleeping to a full bar removes it plus 20 insanity. While it lasts, every energy point spent adds half a point of insanity and every cure is halved, so let it land near bedtime and spend as little energy as you can meanwhile.

Otherwise the cures are food, drink and writing: Wine 25 to 35 by grade, Chocolate 20, Berry Pie 3, and writing a Story 1 per tick. Flesh adds 10 insanity: eat one only for the cooking entry it unlocks (Baked meat, Sandwich), then leave it off the menu. More in energy and insanity.

Research and tech points

4. A tech’s price tag is not its bill

The cost on a technology node pays for that node only. Every prerequisite is paid separately, and all of them are required.

• Steel Smithing reads 120 red and 15 blue. From a fresh start it costs 625 red and 55 blue, plus Jack’s reputation 70.
• Religious Writing II reads 10 red, 10 green, 40 blue. The real bill from scratch is 75 red, 45 green, 75 blue.

Reputation gates are free: own the node in front of a gate before the reputation arrives, so it opens at once. Research orders with totals are in tech priorities.

5. Three tooltips you should not trust

• Gunter’s gates. The two Gunter nodes are labelled 30 (Theology) and 40 (Anatomy and Alchemy). Both open at 20 reputation, which Friendship Written in the Stars and Congregation Trouble provide.
• The parishioner count. The church tooltip draws Likes and church quality with a “+”. Attendance is the lower of the two (tip 16).
• Legendary fish dishes (unconfirmed). Elder’s meal promises 30 points of each colour and 30 energy; the values behind the label suggest three times the points (90, though possibly in green and blue only) and 120 energy. Fisherman’s pie shows 10 each and 20 energy, with up to 30 and 80 behind the label.

6. Red is the colour you run out of

The three colours never convert. The whole tree costs 11,157 red, 5,129 green and 4,132 blue; studying every item once pays 4,760 red, 6,100 green and 5,135 blue. That covers green and blue, and well under half of the red.

Red comes from your own hands: stones and ore (1 to 3 each), digging and burying graves (2), crafting (usually 1 to 6 a craft), Red Techbooks (+25, printed after Self-Help Books) and Red Techbook II (+100, after Self-Help Books II), and Heavenly salmon (+50). Each colour caps at 999 and the overflow may be lost, so spend before a big study session.

7. Never feed loose paper to the Study Table

Science fuels the Study Table. Clean Paper decomposes into 1 Science, Science Kit I into 30, Science Kit II into 60. One batch at the Writing Desk, 1 Alchemy Flasks I + 5 Clean Paper + 1 Ink, makes 3 Kit I: 90 Science from the same 5 sheets that give 5 alone. The recipe comes with Writing Supplies (15 red, 5 green, 5 blue from scratch). Plan a batch.

8. Study one of everything, starting with a Goldfish

Each item pays once, you keep it, and bronze, silver and gold versions count separately. Studying also reveals alchemy runes, and an unstudied ingredient cannot go into the Laboratory. Since a study keeps the item, study anything a quest asks for before you hand it over.

The best deal per Science is a Goldfish: 50 red, 50 green and 50 blue for 3 Science and 3 Faith, caught with Insect Bait at the Port and Forest spots. The Necronomicon pays 300 blue. Studies cost 6 to 32 energy, 2 to 14 with the Researcher perk. The only table is in the Alchemy Lab, opened by Albert’s first dungeon request.

9. Zombies keep the points they earn

A zombie working a station keeps that craft’s tech points for its own skill tree; none reach you, and porters, suppliers and Carousel walkers earn nothing. When a colour runs dry, take a few of its crafts back into your own hands. Since 1.007, zombies also earn 50 to 200 red points per won battle, their biggest red income. Details in the zombies guide.

Crafting, fuel and mastery

10. Burn Short Logs, not Sticks

At the Chopping Spot, one Short Log and twenty Sticks make the same 10 Firewood (15 with the Axeman perk). A Firewood shed turns every 2 Firewood into 20 Fuel, so:

• 1 Short Log = 100 Fuel.
• 1 Log at the Sawhorse = 3 Short Logs = 300 Fuel, or 400 at the Circular Saw.
• 300 Fuel covers 15 copper smelts at 20 Fuel each: 60 Bronze Ingots from the fuel of a single Log.

A shed’s Fuel serves every station in its work zone, so build one per zone with furnaces or kilns. Shed I holds 100 Fuel, Shed II 500.

11. Mastery only pays at 2x and 3x the requirement

Each crafting tick adds your mastery divided by the recipe’s requirement, rounded down and capped at 3. For a recipe that needs Building 5:

Building 9 is no faster than Building 5. When you sit one or two points below a multiple, a tool or food buff (tip 12) pushes you over the line at once. Star crafts (Stories, prayers, Newspapers, embalming solutions) and organ operations differ: they can be tried below the requirement with a per-tick chance of success.

12. Your toolbar is a mastery buff

Tools add mastery from the toolbar even when not held: rusty +1, bronze +2, iron +4, steel +6, one tool per kind. Axes and pickaxes feed Building, hammers and small tools Smithing, shovels and rods Farming, talismans Book writing, surgical kits Anatomy.

A Bronze Axe plus a Bronze Pickaxe add +4 Building on top of your own, the usual way to reach the Building 5 that Polished Bronze demands. Food stacks on top: Pumpkin soup +2 Building, Soldier’s stew +2 Smithing. Upgrade tools a tier before weapons.

13. Bronze from copper, nails from melted scrap

At Furnace I, 3 Copper Nugget + 1 Tin + 20 Fuel make 4 Bronze Ingots, while 3 Bronze Scrap + 20 Fuel make only 2. Copper veins near the house grow back, and Tin comes from washing Sand at the Sluice Box (Bronze Forge tech).

Scrap still makes nails: melt 3 scrap into 2 ingots and hammer them for 24 Bronze Nails and 24 anvil energy, against 18 nails for 36 energy when hammering the scrap directly. Hammer raw scrap only before your first Furnace and Firewood shed.

14. Rush the Circular Saw

A Log turned into 4 Wooden Plank the slow way (Sawhorse to Boards, then four Workbench crafts) costs about 42 energy. The Circular Saw does it in one craft for about 8, and cuts 4 Short Logs per Log instead of 3. Planks go into almost everything, so this is the best early comfort unlock. It needs Jack’s reputation 40, from Jack in a Boat (+20), Docked and Found and Workshop Hours: own Oiled wood, the node before the gate, by then.

15. Stations read your chests; sermons read only your backpack

A station pulls ingredients from its crafter, itself, your inventory while you stand in its work zone, and every chest, stockpile, well, Firewood shed, Flask shelf, Scroll Cabinet and Study Table in that zone. Keep storage inside the zone and stop ferrying by hand.

Other actions look only in your backpack:

• The prayer you want to preach at the lectern.
• Faith for activating Milestones and charging Hypno-devices, and the Town Gratitude you want to use.
• The collar when you prepare a corpse for resurrection (the Reanimation Liquid can stay in the room’s storage).
• The Exhumation Certificate when you dig a body back up.

Church and Faith

16. Attendance is the lower number, not a sum

Parishioners = the lower of your Likes and your church quality. Everyone who can come comes, each spending one Like, and every per-head reward scales with that number. Before each Wrath, find the smaller of the two and work only on that one.

Likes are capped by Town quality: 10 after Certificate, Please, +10 when Break Through to the Port opens the Port, then +1 per Green Scroll that Linda turns into residents on Lust, up to 200. Until the Port, three Interior Bench I reach the church’s 10, and anything more adds no one to the pews. Graveyard quality never adds a parishioner.

17. Bank Town Gratitude, never spend it at the cap

Likes never decay, but anything above the cap is lost on the spot. Town Gratitude is a storable item worth 5 Likes, the only way to bank them. Keep what battles and quests pay, then use it on Wrath to top up to the cap right before you preach. The Town Gratitude guide lists every source and the Likes caps.

18. Write your bronze and silver prayers before you get good

A prayer’s grade is decided by your Book writing mastery (a starred Story or the Sermon writer perk only adds a small head start): at or above the requirement, 8 for the Faith Prayer, it always comes out gold, and a gold Faith Prayer cannot start below 50 parishioners. Prayers are never used up, so write a bronze and a silver copy early (or take your talismans off) and carry all three:

Each copy costs a Story (3 Faith), 3 Clean Paper and an Ink. Every prayer is in the prayers list, and the perks that raise Book writing are in talents and inspirations.

19. Prayer for Storms makes Wrath a resurrection day

Normally the Resurrection device works only on Envy: one activation raises every prepared table, then you wait a week. A successful Prayer for Storms sermon grants God of the storms for 90 minutes: the device works on any day, any number of times. Preach on Wrath, raise a batch, prepare the tables again and raise another while bodies, collars and Reanimation Liquid last. Handy for the Necromancer achievement (50 resurrections).

It comes with the Reanimation tech: a Story, a Blank Softcover Notebook and an Ink at Book writing 8. It starts at 20 parishioners and always succeeds from 40. It also pays 20 coins a head plus 30 per graveyard point on success, the best money rate from about 25 to 65 parishioners (no perks, graveyard quality above about 50): 68 silver and 28 Faith at 40 parishioners and graveyard 200. Plan one.

Graveyard and corpses

20. Decide each body’s job before you cut

Every corpse in the morgue has three useful futures (the river takes bodies too, but pays nothing):

• Grave: many white skulls, few red. Pick out the Fat and Blood (tip 21) and bury it.
• Zombie: many red skulls. Keep all six organs, leave the pockets alone and check that your collar covers its red skulls (Bronze up to 5).
• Everything else: strip it, then cremate it. Each organ removal pays 1 red plus 1, 2 or 3 blue by grade, and a burn at the Crematorium pays the Burial Certificate plus 1 red and 2 blue with no energy or insanity.

A buried body’s blue points are gone for good. Never operate below the Anatomy requirement on an organ you want: a fair result destroys it, a bad one is a Surgeon’s Error (permanent -1 red, -1 white, and no resurrection). Skull maths in corpse quality.

21. Pick the Fat and Blood out of every body you bury

A grave scores the headstone and fence wreaths minus the body’s red skulls, capped by its white skulls. Fat and Blood in the pockets are one red skull each, and pickpocketing never fails, needs no mastery and pays 1 blue point. Leave Flesh in: it is a white skull. With a Wooden Cross I and a Wooden Fence I (3 wreaths), one forgotten Fat drops the grave from 3 to 2.

22. Lay out the graveyard before the first burial

An area that holds a filled grave can never be removed. Undoing a bad layout costs an Exhumation Certificate per body: 5 silver 50 from Januarius, who stocks only 1 to 3 at a time, plus 1 insanity per swing. Players have bought 18 to fix an early mistake.

Grave Areas I and II hold the most graves (6 each). An open pit, or a grave with a body not yet buried, costs 3 points; stumps, trees and stones inside an area cost 1 to 3 each. Wooden Gravestones II (25 red, 2 green, 5 blue from scratch, no gate) lifts a grave to 5; stone needs the Nun’s reputation 25. See graveyard quality.

Zombies and the PR Machine

23. Your zombie limit starts at zero

The zombie limit equals the Resurrection Lab’s quality: 0. The five free story zombies already exceed it. Resurrection is never blocked; instead, being over the limit at a check gives Excessive zombies, which cuts the Faith and coins of every prayer you can own. A silver Faith Prayer at 40 parishioners falls from 36 Faith to 8.

• Good fellow, a Book writing perk (see talents and inspirations), adds +10 permanently for one point. Take it early.
• The PR Machine, installed by Gunter after Congregation Trouble, adds +10, +20, +30, +50 or +80 for 1 to 5 weeks by tier. It is loaded on Gluttony only, and every run ends at the end of Wrath.
• Run I costs 2 Charged hypno-devices; run II costs 3 plus 10 Newspapers but lasts two weeks, so it burns fewer devices per week. From tier IV, runs need only Newspapers.
• Checks happen only when a run starts or ends, when God of delusions ends, and at two steps of Congregation Trouble. A successful Hypno Prayer switches the penalty off as an emergency patch.

Since 1.008 the penalty applies reliably, so count zombies before any batch. The weekly calendar shows when to load each run.

24. Give a new zombie a tool before anything else

Every zombie starts at 0 in all five masteries and can start almost nothing until it holds a tool of the station’s branch: +1 rusty, +2 bronze, +4 iron, +6 steel. An iron tool alone reaches the 3x cap on mastery-1 posts like the Lumberjack stand and the Zombie Miner, so spend that zombie’s red skulls on gathering perks, not mastery nodes.

Weak bodies are not wasted: Carousel walkers, porters, suppliers and gardeners ignore skulls. Zombies never eat or rest, and their tools never wear. Power and porters are in factory automation.

Money

25. Sell a little to every trader, every day

Most goods sell on a curve: the price follows the trader’s stock, a sale pays 75% of it, and each unit sold lowers the next. Stock drifts back by at most a fifth of its usual level per day, so an item with a usual stock of 10 sells about two a day near full price. Dump fifty at once and the fiftieth fetches less than half of what the first did; cheap crops dumped by the hundred sink to 1 bronze for weeks.

• Fixed-price goods ignore the curve: Burial Certificates, tools, weapons, armour and fish at the Fish Stand pay full base to any trader who buys them. Check the buyer first: no one takes bags, fishing rods or steel tools, and each shop refuses the tool of its own tier. A Steel Sword fetches 2 gold 50 from a tier III Smithy.
• The whole basket is one deal: only the balance is checked against the purse, so take a broke trader’s goods in the same window.
• Paint, brewed from two Water, sells to the Trademaster for a flat 2 silver for roughly the first 25 units.

By mid-game money stops being the constraint; Faith and Likes are. Full ranking in money making.

Common mistakes

• Building a grand church while Likes are capped at 10 or 20. Fill the smaller number first.
• Researching an extension and expecting it to appear. The Tool Rack, the Hardening Bucket and the Bellows must be placed next to their station; Bronze Craft alone does not let you make Bronze Details.
• Buying a node you cannot use yet. Check the station, the materials and the mastery before you spend the points.
• Forgetting the Faith on the church floor and the coins in the Donation box after a sermon.
• Missing Wrath. There is no make-up sermon, and a missed Envy without Prayer for Storms costs a week of resurrections.
• Visiting the pre-order Sauna without a backup save. Its food buff can leave a lasting penalty that 1.008 has not fixed; the known issues guide has the details.

For the full first week step by step, see the beginner guide. For sermons in depth, read church, sermons and Faith.