Graveyard Keeper II guide

Graveyard Keeper 2

This guide is a work in progress, but it will grow. If you spot any errors, or have any other thoughts or comments, let me know. I’m still busy playing (or was), while mentally jotting the changes since the original, what’s better, what’s not, and were the progress walls are. The guide is as per v1.009 and improvements are coming.

THAT said, after getting to the end and restarting – and quitting in frustration, I would say, it’s a good game, but it’s just not ready. It’s early access passed off as final release. Give them a month or two or eight to fix, well, everything, then look at it! At the time of writing (about a week into it’s release, while the reviews are ‘mostly positive’ a good 25% are not and the majority all have the same vibe: “It starts well, BUT… it’s unfinished, it’s a mess, it’s inconsistent”, and while I want to say, “this is a great game”, the truth is, it’s POTENTIALLY a good game – provided they finish it, fix all the issues, fix the factory, fix the merchant order system, do more QoL… Yeh!

Not one to miss, it’s not that bad, but they did not do themselves any favours putting it out the door in this state.

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In many ways, this version is dumbed down from the first story. Alchemy is massively simplified, the NPCS traders and their options are not restricted to specific times and days for the most part. (The village traders and a few others (like the astrologer) never shut, whereas the town stalls only open during the day).

Creating zombies is massively simplified too.

Destroying assets loses you half the mats now.

However, the main supply of Gratitude for Faith is a mess.
Being frank, the warehouse system in the new game is shit compared to the previous Graveyard Keeper. I’ve worked in warehouse, this, this is chaos. Reading the community posts, a lot of people are unhappy about this as well, with a number saying it’s borked and you should remove the porter and just handball the items until LAZY Bear fix the issues. Poor show, guys! It’s incredibly ANNOYING to set up a factory to make 50 grates of pumpkins for a quest – and find some quirk or bug or other bullshit means the game sold them for something stupid like 25c each on arrival and never completed the quests. And this happens constantly.

The porters cannot be trusted, they’ll take everything ticked and sell it for buttons. You can try and micromanage it and only produce exactly the right number of crates to meet the order(s) and change the carry list each time.

The only reliable method I’ve found so far is to turn off porters until needed on the day, and advance craft the 30 most likely crates (veg, thread, brick) and, using the carrier perk (stack 4 on my head) perk, run back and forth with the porters. They really dropped the ball on this, in my opinion. I am so disappointed with them!

Shit like this is why people say “leave a game a year before buying” and, honestly, at this point, I’d suggest leaving the game a few months while we beta tester, oops, sorry, players find all the bugs for them to fix!

Best solution I’ve found is you completely ignore the days and Faith (until you have tier III order unlocked) and focus on one task at a time:

That negativity aside, loading the old game up to do a comparison surprised me by just how much superior the graphics are in this new story. See for yourself:

Overall, money is largely meaningless now and there’s a lot less thinking and planning and farming in this game, at least until you get to pushing ahead with battles in the town and setting up your factory to meet warehouse orders – which doesn’t happen ‘cos they screwed it up!

MENU:

• First steps: Getting ‘Oops Surgery’ out of the way, and unlocking the church
• Alchemy and related
• Skulls and zombie perks
• Fast * * * points levelling for tech trees (short video)
• Days and tasks of the week
• Earning gratitude (and coin)
• Restoring the town trade
• Tier III warehouse trade orders
• Soldier zombies and the riddle of steel
• Setting up your zombie factory and assembly lines
• Head scratchers, walls, quirks, quest gating and bugs
• Final thoughts and Steam review
• Links
• Bonus extra

 

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First steps: Getting ‘Oops Surgery out of the way, and unlocking the church

I’ll start with saying, at present, the game is not as polished as it could be. *cough*

It’s not a bug, precisely, but the way the game works: if you plan to succeed at everything, you will probably fail. Weird, right!

In this game you buy perks with Faith via Inspiration point unlocks, ‘Oops surgery’ being one of the inspirations. If you improve your anatomy skills, which you need to do what with you being the graveyard keeper and all, well you cannot complete this because you have skills – and it requires you to NOT have skills and to fail repeatedly.

Unless they add a debuff to the game, there is no fix*, you have to restart, which I’ve done. In doing so though, I noticed a handy trick. Blue points, especially at the start of the game, are notoriously hard to get. I noticed a loophole, a way to get the points you need – to fail.
*(I suggested they alcohol)

Basically, if you put equipment down in the mortuary you get a blue * point. Doesn’t make a lot of difference when you need about 100 points but wait… Between not burying corpses (apart from the first) and not cremating them, you can keep putting pallets down and racking up the bodies.

It’s tedious. You get a corpse, carve a bit off it, store it, wait a week, repeat. Eventually you unlock the next, and the next, thus:
Soft parts > Skin and bones > Skull and teeth > Autopsy, advanced > (Embalming) > Autopsy, Master.

But you can speed the process!

Here’s the thing, there’s only so much space, so you can’t put scores of pallets down – but you can put half a dozen, break them apart (recovering the materials) and put them down again.
Now you can get six blue * points a minute. The video below gives an idea (sorry, I don’t talk)

 

Unlocking the church

If you played the first game and are in a hurrry to start earning Faith, complete all the quest in the village to get a nun visiting.

‘All’ being about three, maybe four of the “get me wood”, “get us bowls” variety, so not a great choir.

 

Dry Cleaning VI

As an aside, restarting (or having the above knowledge before it’s too late!) lets you /try/ again for the ‘Dry Cleaning VI’ inspiration (to clear out dry bushes).
The emphasis is on try, until they get their act together!

There’s clearly a bug that makes it stick at 71/80 and I suspect pre-ordering the game and getting the sauna is the cause!
There is a finite number of dead bushes, they don’t respawn, there’s not enough to cut down (for many people), so it is just not completable when there’s nothing to dig up.
This needs fixing!
(Simplest ways for them would be a) adding extra dead bushes, b) set a few to respawn, or c) give regular bushes a % chance to die and become dry bushes).

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Alchemy and related

Alchemy ingredients, ordered by colour. (Excludes apothecary powders)

Alchemic concoctions, ordered by use, and suggested ingredients. Some are hidden!

Additional food and drink buffs

 

 

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Skulls and zombie perks

If you haven’t worked it out already, the prowess of your zombies are tied to their collar, which is linked to their skull count. And you can’t max them ‘cos steel, so you only have access to mediocre zombies for your army. (More on this in a bit though)).

Whether the level of your zombies makes a difference for them as soldiers is debatable as there is no tech or perk tree for combat… Or is there!? )

The bronze collar (0-5 red skull) is fine for the church choir and porters.

The gold collar (0-10) is OK for gardeners, miners, etc, but you still need to be thinking ahead.

The steel collar (0-99) is the sweet spot, but also, well, annoying beyond the issue of unlocking steel as the realistic hard cap is 36. So absolutely nowhere near 99. It might – just might- be possible to get a little higher, but finding body parts with 4 or 5 red skulls just doesn’t happen. Maybe it’s something for the future.

As a side note, if you wanted to maximise your cemetery, you can swap the red parts and solutions for white and get an angelic 36 white skull corpse, but the graveyard has a cap of 14 white (with no red), so it’s a mote point.

THAT SAID, unless you want to multitask your zombie, anything over 20 red skulls is generally wasted.

While you can get 36+, just 20 is enough for most zombies.

It is similar to upgrade an existing zombie.

I don’t talk, sorry, but this gives you a look at how to upgrade a low level zombie into a higher one, for instance a 3 to a 10 red skull worker.

If you had a steel collar to use you could use the same method to increase it to up to 36

Drop the corpse on the floor, left click on its brass collar to replace it with a gold one from your inventory.
Then put it on the autopsy table and left click on the organs to replace them.
You cannot go over 10, so parts jugging may be involved.

The point of the skulls is they unlock perks.

Murph, below, only has 3, so he just plods along. But I can operate on him, give him a new heart, etc., swap his collar, and BOOM, maxed gardening perks.

If you are wondering, they get skills points the same way your character does, by doing stuff.

I do think Lazy Bear dropped the ball a bit on this one though ‘cos you are left scratching your head over mindless porters and that choir…

Porters, choir and treadmillers
Would have been nice to see perks for these.
The porters and the like: awards points and perks based on number of products moved
Choir: points and perks based on number on masses attended
Points and perks for treadmill zombies based on time and revolutions (think Conan on the ‘Wheel of Pain’)

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Resurrection Day

IMPORTANT NOTE!

Note that you can only throw the switch ONCE. One time per week. That is it! Sucks, but that’s how they went with it.

The only way to resurrect more that one corpse a week as to put in as many resurrection tables as possible (so 4).

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Fast * * * points levelling for tech trees

I don’t speak, but the video shows all you need. It’s fast, uses no energy, costs nothing, and racks up points like crazy. Enjoy.

As a plus, you probably need a tonne of these potions, but that’s for the next video (on buffing zombies)

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Days and tasks of the week

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Earning gratitude (and coin)

Initially it is just the trader Herm in the village, who will buy: wheat, carrots, beet, cabbage*, onions*, and river fish fillets, getting you up to 24 favour a week. He won’t buy higher quality veg like silver or gold, only bronze*
You get 1 favour for the first 15 of a given crop, 2 for 30, after than nothing until the next reset (on Pride day)
5 river fish fillet gets you 2 points.

The inn keeper Januarius, as well as giving 1 gratitude per burial certificate will buy your beer at the rate of 1 favor per 10, capped at 5 gratitude per reset. However, as you can see below, he is not interested in mead, wine or beer, though he will sell you [5] town gratitude tokens for 10s each.

Once you start clearing the town of zombies you can also fulfill merchant orders in the warehouse, though – apart drop the first one for Jack – it’s a lot of work and better left until you have your zombie factory well automated. (Which, as I’ve said, is not a fun experience. They actually tested this warehouse system and were have with it!?)

 

Green Scrolls: Another highly recommended option is to repair the derelict houses and draw number people to town. The more houses you restore, the more Green Scrolls you receive. These can be handed in to Linda on Lust day, which increases the population. This is turn means you can earn more gratitude per week – and thus more Faith.
Those 23 scrolls translated to +23 weekly gratitude, raising me from 24 to 47, so much more faith from mass! (47 Gratitude translated into 48 faith that week, using the Faith prayer)

 

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Restoring the town trade

As you progress and start clearing the town of zombies new areas open, and with them, new prospects and opportunities. Naturally, nearly every building and stall has been destroyed by the rampaging zombies and, also naturally, they want you to rebuild it all – for free.

The lower town trade is split into eight available* merchants and four artisans, the latter being unlocked when you free the Workshop Courtyard. While the zones are hard coded, the placement is not, so you can and should restore them in the order that best suits your needs and play style. Unfortunately, Lazy Bear made no effort to mark their location so unless you have a great memory you waste a lot of times wandering in circle trying to find the one you want, by which time they have closed for the night! Quite annoying, really!

Anyway, the market stalls comprise an alchemist, apothecary, baker, fish stand, furniture maker, jeweller, tailor, and vegetable stand.
*NOTE, however, that you only have 7 market slots available, you cannot put all 8 down, and you cannot remove them once they are placed.)

The artisans are the brewery, builder, smithy, and tavern.

(The Patron of Merchants achievement is awarded for restoring for 11/11 stalls in this part of town).

Like the initial trader, they lose interest once they have the week’s quota for a given item, which is typically 20 to 30 items (2 points), and also if you fill their gratitude quota (typically 20 to 25 a week at level lII).

.

These images of tier I traders below will help you choose. Some will only give 1 or 2 gratitude points, and not easily, others 12, but perhaps a better consideration is what products and which bags they sell – as much as what they are willing to buy. I suggest skipping the fish stall (grabbed from /reddit) as it can probably added later, as you expand further!

I’m working on the list now, but tier III merchants have a wider range they’ll accept and rise their weekly Gratitude cap to around 20-25.

Tier III Merchants weekly Gratitude options

I was putting in the values, including tier III, but a number of factors come into play and they are being raised shortly, so I’ve removed them. It seems these also raise the person item cap (e.g from 2 to 4, or higher).

Also, the higher the tier, the more Gratitude to can gain, rising to around 25 a week.

I’ve not totted it all up yet, and you’ll need a lot of zombies keeping busy, and a lot of doing little else but running around, but with the warehouse you are looking at perhaps 500 or more available Gratitude a week – against a player cap of 200, Really though, getting over 100 is a struggle without a lot of pre-planning. Or a fully optimised tier III factory – and pre-planning.

I have noted a few anomalies and omissions, for instance, why doesn’t anyone buy pumpkins?

Alchemist

Apothecary

Baker

Brewery

Builder

Fish stand

Furniture maker [25 cap]

Jeweller

Smithy [20 cap]

Tailor

Tavern

Vegetable stand

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Tier III warehouse trade orders

Once you have the traders to tier III and your factory set up to big meet orders, all the above is moot, which is just as well as towards end game you can have a weekly cap of 200+ Gratitude to meet! (Not 120, Google :P ) One of the prayer scrolls needs 180 Gratitude accrued just to read.

Anyway, these screen grabs below will give you an idea, but typically, you can earn 110 Gratitude per order. (I’ve left out fishing as I can’t get that stall (yet?))

Just a shame you only have 30 storage space for them – and can’t trust the ordering system to reward the porters delivering them over the course of a week!

 

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Mercenaries, soldier zombies, and the riddle of steel

My life will be so easier once I unlock the riddle of steel, but Jack isn’t talking and it is definitely an end game unlock, so I idle in the trenches for now.

The mercenaries like you coin, and the price goes up after each battle. Fortunately, they like booze more and while they are initially happy with cheap plonk, they soon demand the good stuff – gold label wine. You can trust this to your zombie workers, but it’s probably best not to. My top gardener has 13 points in gardening, guaranteed success for planting gold quality needs 18, and I am only managing that with two food buffs. Obviously you can work up from bronze to silver to gold with much lower skills, but it’s more hit and miss. This short video below show it done ‘like a pro’.

Like the mercenaries, I equip my zombies squad with iron gear and two bows, two pikes. But as you progress, you die so much, lose so many barricades and archer towers… what’s the point. It’s stupid that they didn’t think about battle perks, given completing the game is really, REALLY dependent on you pushing the hordes back and – in some missions – having to do it twice without a break or a chance to resupply.

“If only zombie soldiers levelled up! They don’t though, do they! Do they? … They do!? For real?”

I was actually adding perks to one of my factory workers when I noticed. Blacksmith type work – and fighting – give you the requisite points.

I can attest it makes a noticeable difference. I can complete multi-part quests with just zombies squads – when the mercenaries leave, muttering, “You paid us for a battle, one, not a campaign! Come on, boys!”

Top tip!
Prepare squads (up to 16 zombies) by setting them up doing physical * work; equip then with an axe, pick, or hammer and set them to work mining, quarrying, wood cutting etc. to rack up those red * points.

Choices matter, but knowing when the problem is a bug helps too!

In the community forum a person less than happy. I pointed out that this OP made a fair point, it’s not always fun, that some of that is a learning curve, but some is also bugs.

I ran right into a wall with missions and for a few days said, “OK, I’m done, this is not fun, it’s just not possible!”

Then I watched a YouTube video of a way less geared player beating it.

No, he wasn’t better skilled than me (OK, I think he was, but that’s not the thing).

There was a bug were the green mist wasn’t clearing*.
In the video, the mist was clearing when he captured the flag, whereas I had 5 flags to capture and the zombies never stopped coming. Repeated in other missions.
*(This might still be a thing as some bugs are linked to how long your play session is. Playing too long without a break can break things)

In one mission the attacking zombies ignored pathing and my defences and ghosted though a building to reach me (only saw this once).

Now to things you can affect:

Zombie perks.
These make a BIG difference: more health, more damage, higher armour
Having them mining/quarrying for the rest of the week is time consuming, but it will get their points up.
Equally, you can have zombies mining etc until you can add them to your barracks.
Not losing fights adds points too :)

If you’ve unlocked the sewerena, these battles can get your perk points up fast and can be played on any day. Note though that each battle will get harder than the last.

Using the best possible armour, weapons, barricades and towers is a must.

Getting your winemaking up to gold to be able to keep hiring the mercenaries is also a must.

Have a good supply of all four battle potions and having them on your quick access is also a must. I like at least 20 of each and 40+ of the health potion.

Finally, and this I think is stupid, the game defaults to one picking one squad, when you can have 2,3 or more available. You have to click on the pennants and tell the game, “You know, I’d kind of not like to get destroyed, thanks. I’ll take as many soldiers as I can. Ta!”

As ever, I don’t talk, sorry, this is just a look at a typical (multipart) zombie battle in the game, here closing the eastern floodgate and, well, attempting to reach the bathhouse basement.

The latter did not go so well, but it shows how the game gets harder with every encounter (this includes fights in the sewerena).

Sewerena
If I’m remembering correctly, the above battle led to unlocking the Sewerena and sewer battles. Below is a typical example of a sewerana encounter.

The fights are all pretty similar and can be carried out on any day, but they get tougher each time, until “You are not prepared” echoes in your head. The one below was quick and easy. Later on, three squads and full barricades will be laughed at. Sending my teams to the gym to work out. I don’t think it will be enough though. Not yet.

Sewerena and I think sewer encounters in general can be attempted any day of the week, and multiple time a day – if you keep winning.

 

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Setting up your zombie factory and assembly lines

Setting up the factory does take a little getting used to, and the more it grows the more power, planning and thought (or wholesale renovations!) it requires. Even making the conveyor line a little longer adds to the power draw. I don’t talk, so I won’t be doing a video, but I’ll walk you though the basics and pre-steel options.

The conveyor belt is obvious, but do remember to rotate as required.

The conveyor splitter alternates flow and can be particularly handy for more complex lines. Crates will not go into a conveyor chest and must be collected from a supply station.

Conveyor chests are basically storage buffers, but can also direct material to your instructions. Chest I has 5 slots, chest II offers 10. You can manually fill them (as I have done with the vegetable packing further down. I could have done it differently and just fed crates instead of assembling them. See below)

The supply station is essentially a one capacity supply pallet, but the conveyor will keep feeding it. Again, remember to orientate it to your line.

Note that while there is an option to “add to the queue” you can’t. You can only have one product selected for manufacture.

Also ‘moving’ machinery WAS expensive!
There was bug (particularly affecting chests) were destroying an asset lost you something like a half of the materials, which seemed harsh to me. Testing, this has been patched now

As an aside, I’ve stripped my Graveyard factory apart many times and will probably make more changes yet, but one thing I’ve found, especially for the first machines, is that there is a sweet spot for each line, no matter what you are making.

I have worked in many factories and industries (food, furniture, chemical, nuclear, others) and assembly lines in real life is not rocket science. There’s a flow and feed pattern. Raw materials > pre process > treatment > finish/assembly/packaging > warehouse/shipping.

Letting players just stick it anywhere and hope is not good design!

 

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Feedback, head scratchers, walls, quirks, quest gating and bugs

Feedback
I’m not just negative, I do report bug, tell people what worked as a fix for me, admit when the probelm was the operator (me) rather than the game, and do offer what are I think good suggestions.

:zombie perk reset
For instance, many people want the option to reset a zombies perks. My idea an electric chair (that only worked when you flipped the switch on Envy day). This would be an apt way for the game to reset their perks to zero, and would limit its use.

:two tool slots (suggested by another player)
I replied:

:Drunk / Tired debuff… (cf Oops surgery)

Interestingly enough, the very next day they added it in a patch, or partly at any rare, so now your zombie can equip a weapon AND a tool, but only one being active at appropriate.

Missing recipes etc by end game (as at 1.009)

Kitchen table II: [?] x1
Kitchen oven II: [?] x1
(Cooking tech tree: [?] x1)
Millstone: [?] x1

Sewing table: [?] x2

Steel anvil: [?] x1
Woodworking bench: [?] x3

Writing desk: [?] x3
printing press: [x] 1

Gardening and vine plots: last fertiliser slot blocked from access

Crafting steel tools
I’ll start with this one as, embarrassingly, it caught me out too. I have the skills unlocked, I have the steel anvil, so why can’t I craft these items? What gives?

If you “cannot” craft steel tools in Graveyard Keeper II trying scrolling down to the bottom of the anvil options

Some of the walls (or perhaps bugs?) can be annoying, or at least quite confusing.

Manure
One of the most irksome omissions is not being able to assign a zombie to the manure pit. Why ever not? You can get by for fertilising crops, but once you look at maximising the cemetery, the requirement rise somewhat.

Management
Also and particularly so for the factory and soldiers, it would have been nice to manage your zombies from one screen and not have to micromanage them all, which is very time consuming, both in real terms and game days flashing by. I long passed 50 zombies and am probably up around 100 and you have to manage what activity they, or rather an NOT doing because there’s a problem with the supply chain. And their skill perks to assign to perks so they can be better at their job. (This ties back to the start of the post and not knowing where the heck you are up to with weekly warehouse orders!)

Garden storage bug
Another bug involved upgrading the garden storage in the factory (or perhaps things connected to it – which turns off the conveyor lines.
Google suggests that “A broken or glitched garden storage III conveyor in Graveyard Keeper 2 is typically caused by an index or inventory mismatch bug (such as an ArgumentOutOfRangeException) triggered when a machine or conveyor tries to process an empty stack or interact with a removed/demolished object”
The fix was easy, I deleted the first conveyor belt in each line.
Now I just have to reset production because I have cabbages coming down every line .

Ghosting glitch
In one of the town missions rather than following the path and attacking the barricades, they took a shortcut by ghosting through a building.

Deranged woodcutters and miners
The bug involved the woodcutter(s) you place in the forest. Every so often they glitch and instead of going into the haunted wood they stay in the sawmill yard and chop away at the lumberjack stand. this same bug or glitch is repeated with miners.

Guard not there?
Another, presumably known bug is quest givers and NPCs disappearing. Apparently this is caused by playing too long in one session and the game losing track of thing, with the fix being to quit and restart. Here’s what Google had to say:

Nun of your business
In another, which could be anything, the quest line with the nun stalled. I added 5 zombies to the choir. NOTHING. Weeks passed. Nothing.
I remove the choir and put them to work. Quest completed!
So now I have the angry nun coming to hear the choir – that I’ve put to work in the mines!
(No, it didn’t make a difference to the story or quest line in the end.)

It gets even more head-scratching when you do work some of them out.

For instance, depending on win and losses (it seems) the mercenaries will only fight so far and eventually refuse, losing a battle being the trigger.
(This is separate to them wanting wine instead of coin).
So, as long as you keep winning, all good, but the minute you fail – for any reason – they can’t be hired to fight again that day, it seems. Fair enough.

At some point in the progress though they just seem to decide to cut their losses and refuse to be hired at all. You can upgrade them further with steel, which may incentivise them to fight again, but you can’t hire them. It’s really rather unclear!

Now, to get steel you need your reputation with Jack to 70, but that is tied to another chain of quests and offers no clue that this is indeed the case.
(No, Google, it’s not related to supplying the warehouse with iron, itself a separate head-scratcher, and not with town progress to free and repair his workshop).
Essentially – unless I’m wrong – you have to clear all the zombies from town to get the rep up with someone else so as to progress another chain quest, which in turn adds a quest to Jack. That unlocks more. And it’s all tied together with “Maybe come back next week?” spaghetti”

With me so far?

So, unless you can clear the town solo (you can’t) you appear stuck.

The solution I found was to recruit an army of zombies – and hope. Which itself is a long, tedious job.

At this point – only days into the release – it’s a lot of guessing and the Internet is scratching their collective heads too. All I can say for sure is that several game weeks passed and the mercenaries only agreed to be hired again when I equipped and added 4 zombies.

Then I solved it. Maybe. I think!

Honestly the hired or not hired status of the mercenaries baffles me. Lazy Bear need to do an update that shows their status. Like “Payment first! / Ready for action / Recovering”

I think this game and it’s earlier version is the best, but this release needs polish!

I won the battle, freed all that side of town (Huzzah!) and Herbert wants to talk to me. Go to Herbert, and nothing. Still walls up!

*Bangs head against the wall*

I understand it’s all linked, but a status hint would be nice, sometimes.

Further progress shows there are more gates and quest lines to pass before you can unlock steel.

Spoiler alert: Nobody ‘teaches’ you how, you progress to the royal foundry, buy 3 steel, give them to Gunter and it’s unlocked. Rather deflating, if I’m being honest.

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Final thoughts and Steam review

Would I recommend this?
Yes – with caveats. Really, yes BUT wait 6 months and see if they fix everything.

ESPECIALLY the warehouse issues.

Visually it is far superior to the original Graveyard Keeper, but it’s riddled with bugs and has other features unimplemented in the rush to get it out the door…

For instance, zombies have fishing perks. But zombies can’t fish. Which is it?
That screams, “Get it shipped, fix it later, nobody will notice.”
WE NOTICED!

There are balance issues, and a mess of bugs, and the odd typo (well one I’ve noticed), but I can live with those, but the warehouse system, which is hugely tied to the whole point of your zombie factory and earning your weekly Gratitude at higher levels, that is completely borked. They should be ashamed of how BAD this is!

It’s not just buggy, it’s a complete poop show. The system in the original Graveyard Keeper worked fantastically, I don’t know why they felt the need to change it so much. Or change it to the point where it’s almost unusable and the whole “automation” CANNOT be trusted unless you minutely micromanage it, and even then…

Even though there is an option to “add to the queue” for factory machines like the smithy and assembly line, you can’t, another sign of a rushed – UNFINISHED – release, more focused on deadlines and bringing in money than player satisfaction.
(To clarify, you can queue something, but you cannot add another product to that queue, even though the option to do so is there and that is how it works elsewhere in the game.)

FIX THIS MESS!

I love the game, loved it’s first version ever more, but damn, this is bad and I reckon it will start being reflected on bad reviews.

As a final thought, while I like the addition of battles (as opposed to dungeon delving) and the factory mostly, and it’s graphically superior… in every other way the original Graveyard Keeper is either equal to it, or much better, making Graveyard Keeper II feel like a let down, really.

My feeling, besides a few bad choices (like direction for the warehouse), is money concerns and or publisher pressure to get it out the door on time meant corners were cut. I understand, contracts, crunch time, all the rest, but it still feels like a betrayal to loyal fans.

I’m not knocking the game, just disappointed. Let down, really. Hopefully they will get their act together and fix the issues, but the warehouse fubar looks hard coded so I’m not hopeful :/

They could sort it, but is the will there now they have sales money rolling in? We shall see!

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Links

You might also be interested in the first version of this game and its DLCs, in which case, if you get stuck, my guide to Graveyard Keeper will help

At the minute (September 2026) Graveyard Keeper is 80% off on Steam! You won’t be disappointed!
(£3.35 for base game, £8.85 with all the DLC expansions. #Worthit)

Lazy Bear Games

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Bonus extra, apt for the game, I think: Monster Mash

I was working in the lab late one night,
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly, to my surprise

[Chorus]
(He did the Mash) He did the Monster Mash
(The Monster Mash) It was a graveyard smash
(He did the Mash) It caught on in a flash
(He did the Mash) He did the Monster Mash

(Wa-ooh) From my laboratory in the castle east
(Wa-ooh) To the master bedroom where the vampires feast
(Wa-wa-ooh) The ghouls all came from their humble abodes
(Wa-ooh) To get a jolt from my electrodes

[Repeat Chorus]

(Wa-ooh, tennis shoe) The zombies were having fun
(Wa-ooh, tennis shoe) The party had just begun
(Wa-ooh, tennis shoe) The guests included Wolfman
(Wa-ooh) Dracula and his son

(Wa-ooh) The scene was rocking, all were digging the sounds
(Wa-ooh) Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds
(Wa-wa-ooh) The coffin-bangers were about to arrive
(Wa-ooh) With their vocal group, The Crypt-Kicker Five

[Repeat Chorus]

(Wa-ooh) Out from his coffin, Drac’s voice did ring
(Wa-ooh) Seems he was troubled by just one thing
(Wa-wa-ooh) He opened the lid and shook his fist, and said
(Wa-ooh) “Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?”

[Repeat Chorus]

(Wa-ooh) Now everything’s cool, Drac’s a part of the band
(Wa-ooh) And my Monster Mash is the hit of the land
(Wa-wa-ooh) For you, the living, this Mash was meant too
(Wa-ooh) When you get to my door, tell them Boris sent you

[Repeat Chorus]

(Wa-ooh, Monster Mash) Mm, Mash good
(Wa-ooh, Monster Mash) Easy, Igor, you impetuous young boy
(Wa-ooh, Monster Mash) Mm, Mash good
Mm, lunch
(Wa-ooh, Monster Mash)
(Wa-ooh, Monster Mash)
(Wa-ooh, Monster Mash)
(Wa-ooh, Monster Mash)
(Wa-ooh)