Source: Love Mac | Software download link: Graveyard Keeper for Mac
一、 Detailed Explanation of the Core Interface and Work Areas
《Graveyard Keeper》is a pixel-style game that blends management, simulation, adventure, and dark humor. Players take on the role of a modern person who unexpectedly becomes the manager of a medieval graveyard. Its interface is mainly divided into the following core areas:
- 主工作区（屏幕中央）：The main scene of the game, including the graveyard, church, workshop, forest, town, and other areas that can be explored and interacted with.
- 角色状态栏（屏幕左上角）：Displays the character’s health (red hearts), energy (blue bar), as well as the current date and time (the in-game cycle). Energy is the resource consumed for all work and is restored by sleeping or eating.
- 快捷工具栏（屏幕底部）：Up to 12 commonly used tools or items can be placed here. Use the number keys
1-9,0,-,=to switch quickly, or use the mouse wheel to switch. - 背包与制作栏（屏幕右侧）：Click the
Ikey or the backpack icon in the lower right corner to open it. The left side is the inventory grid, and the right side is the list of crafting recipes currently available, whose contents change depending on your location (such as the workbench or furnace) and the technologies you have researched. - Tech Tree Interface: Press the
Tkey to open it. This is the core of the game’s progression, divided into branches such as Graveyard, Church, Alchemy, and Farming. Spend “Tech Points” to unlock new crafting recipes and abilities. - Character Info & Relationships Interface: Press the
Ckey to open it. View character skills, unlocked recipes, quest logs, as well as relationships and trading options with NPCs. - Graveyard & Church Management Interface: When you are within the graveyard or church area, the graveyard quality rating and church quality rating will appear in the top-left corner of the screen. Click to view the detailed breakdown — this is the main source of the game’s economy and reputation.
II. Complete Walkthrough: From Starting a New Save to Your First Sermon
The following walkthrough will guide you through the core gameplay loop of the early game.
1. Creating and Starting a New Game
After launching the game, select “New Game” from the main menu. The game has only one save slot (auto-save), but you can also manually back up the save file (located at ~/Library/Application Support/Graveyard Keeper/).
2. Early Survival and Graveyard Maintenance
Step 1: Get Familiar with Movement and Basic Interactions
Use the WASD keys or arrow keys to move your character. Walk up to interactable objects (such as trees and stones). When the mouse cursor changes to a specific tool icon, click the left mouse button to gather resources or use the current tool.
Step 2: Gather Basic Resources
First, gather around the graveyard:
- Wood: Use your fists or an axe (crafted later) to chop trees.
- Stone: Use your fists or a pickaxe (crafted later) to strike stone blocks.
- Branches and Stone Pieces: Pick up items directly from the ground.
Step 3: Process the First Body
The story will guide you to transport the first body to the mortuary (the small house below the graveyard).
- Enter the mortuary and place the body on the dissection table (on the left).
- Examine the body: click on the body to open the management interface. You will see red and white skull icons, representing “health” and “decay” respectively. In the early game, removing the blood and fat (each +1 red skull) can improve the overall quality of the body.
- Use the Extract skill (requires spending green tech points to unlock “Anatomy” in the tech tree) to remove tissue.
- After processing, transport the body to the graveyard and use a shovel to click on an empty grave to bury it.
- Craft a wooden gravestone (crafted at a crafting spot within the graveyard area) and place it on the grave to increase that grave’s decoration score.
3. Unlock Technology and Build
Step 4: Research Technology
Press T to open the tech tree. Prioritize unlocking:
- Basic Construction (required tech point colors: mainly red and green): Unlock the simple workbench, stone axe, and stone pickaxe. This is the first step in resource liberation.
- Simple Dissection (green): An essential skill for handling bodies.
Obtaining tech points: Earn them through related activities (e.g., chopping trees gives red points, handling bodies gives green points).
Step 5: Establish an Initial Work Chain
- On the open ground near the graveyard, open the Build Menu (B key), select “Workplace,” and place a Simple Workbench and a Lumber Rack.
- Craft your first Stone Axe and Stone Pickaxe at the workbench. This will greatly improve gathering efficiency.
- Continue collecting resources, build a Furnace and an Iron Anvil, and begin smelting metal ingots to prepare for crafting higher-tier tools (iron).
4. Improve Graveyard Score and Prepare the Path
Step 6: Systematically Beautify the Graveyard
The goal is to raise the graveyard’s total score to 5 or above in order to open the church.
- Bury more processed bodies (try to ensure white skulls ≥ red skulls, and keep the total count high).
- Place a gravestone and fence for each grave.
- Clear all weeds (with a sickle or by hand) and trash (pick up) in the graveyard.
Click the cemetery rating icon in the upper left corner to view detailed deductions/bonuses.
Step 7: Repair and enter the church
Once the cemetery rating meets the requirement, the bishop will ask you to repair the church.
- Collect 5 wooden beams (crafted from wood at the sawmill) and 5 iron fittings (crafted from iron ingots at the forge).
- Go to the church door and repair it according to the prompts.
- After entering the church, you can walk behind the pulpit and left-click to preach. Preaching grants “faith” and money, which are core resources in the mid-game.
5. Saving and Exporting (Game Progress)
The game uses an autosave mechanism; it saves automatically when you sleep (in your home bed or any bed) or trigger important events. You can also return to the main menu at any time, and your current progress will be saved automatically.
Note: There is no traditional “export” file feature in the game; your progress is saved in a single save file.
III. Advanced Tips for Common Features
- The goal is to maximize white skulls (positive points) while avoiding generating too many red skulls (negative points).
- After researching “Preservation” technology (under the Alchemy branch), you can craft Embalming Fluid and inject it directly into bodies at the morgue, effectively removing red skulls and adding white skulls.
- Later, through “Dark Organ” technology, you can implant specific organs to adjust skull counts.
- After unlocking “Zombie” technology, you can create zombies and assign them work at the Zombie Workstation (such as chopping wood, mining stone, farming, and hauling). This is key to automating resource gathering and production.
- Building a Teleportation Array (requires Occult technology) allows you to quickly teleport between several key points on the map, saving a huge amount of travel time.
- Build an Alchemy Workbench as early as possible. Use the Alchemy Distiller to break down common materials (such as mud, blood, and poison) to obtain base solutions (Life, Death, Order, and Chaos).
- In the Alchemy Handbook (press C to view recipes), record the recipes you have successfully discovered—this is the foundation for completing many advanced tasks and crafting high-tier embalming fluids.
IV. Common Issues and Solutions
| Issue | Possible Causes and Solutions |
|---|---|
| Unable to talk to or interact with NPCs | NPCs have fixed appearance times (specific days each week). Open the character relationship screen (C key) to check the NPC’s schedule. Make sure you interact at the correct time and in the correct location (e.g., the shopkeeper behind the counter). |
| Energy depleted, actions slowed | Go home and sleep immediately, or eat food you are carrying. The long-term solution is to upgrade the “Kitchen” tech and craft high-tier food to carry with you. |
| Tools broken | All tools have durability. Once broken, they must be repaired at the corresponding workbench (requires a small amount of raw materials). It is recommended to upgrade to iron or silver tools as soon as possible, as they have higher durability. |
| Insufficient tech points, progress stuck | Each color of tech points corresponds to specific activities:
Perform related activities to earn corresponding points. |
| Cemetery/Church Rating Won’t Go Up |
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| Game Crashes or Closes Unexpectedly (Mac Version) |
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V. Shortcut Key Summary (Mac Version)
The following are the game’s default shortcuts; some can be adjusted in the settings.
| Function | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Open/Close Inventory | I |
View items and currently available recipes |
| Open Tech Tree | T |
Unlock new skills and recipes |
| Open Character Info | C |
View skills, tasks, relationships, and global recipes |
| Open Build Menu | B |
Place buildings, furniture, and decorations |
| Open Map | M |
View the world map and your current location |
| Quick Save | F5 |
Quickly save (overwrite the current save) |
| Quick Load | F9 |
Load the most recent quick save |
| Switch Hotbar Items | Mouse Wheel or 1-9, 0, -, = |
Switch items in the bottom hotbar |
| Use Current Item/Tool | Left Mouse Button |
Attack, gather, interact, place |
| Move | W/A/S/D or Arrow Keys |
Move the character |
| Interact/ |
