Laboratory I

Alchemy in Graveyard Keeper 2 works on runes rather than ingredients. A formula names a number of red, green and blue runes, and your job is to find anything in your bag that adds up to them. Nothing anywhere writes down a list of things to combine.

Twenty nine formulas exist and every one is defined the same way: some quantity of red, green and blue. Healing Potion is two red.

Dream Dust is one green and one blue. The Philosopher Stone is three of each.

Runes are a property of items, revealed by studying

Seventy items in the game carry runes. Water is one green, a Stick is one green, Cheese is one of each color. Nothing on the item tells you this until you have put it on the Study Table once.

That is the hidden dependency behind the whole system, and it is why alchemy feels closed off for the first few hours. Studying pays technology points and opens the alchemy half of the game at the same time, which is the part nobody tells you.

Formulas start hidden. You discover one by mixing runes that happen to match it, and every discovery is written into the Folio, which is the in-game record of everything you have found.

All the formulas you’ve discovered are recorded in the Folio. / To craft something new, you need to discover its formula.

Tutorial: Alchemy

Every formula, cheapest first

Six formulas need only two runes and they are the ones to aim at first. Lacquer is 2 blue, Paint is 2 green, Healing Potion is 2 red, and Dream Dust is 1 green plus 1 blue. Zombie Motivator Potion and Damage Potion fill out the tier.

Three and four rune formulas are where most of the useful middle game sits: Berserker Potion at one of each, Preservative at 3 green, Healing Potion II at 4 red, Spices at 2 green and 2 blue, and Explosive Dust at 2 red and 2 blue. Skim the list once and you start recognizing a total when you see one.

The expensive end is small and worth knowing by name. Reanimation Liquid is 2 red, 1 green and 4 blue, Umami is 4 green plus 4 blue, and the Philosopher Stone tops the list at 3 3 3 for nine runes in one mix.

There is always a cheapest set, and the game never shows it

A mix has to hit the total exactly. Overshoot by a single rune in any color and the button stays dead, which sounds punishing and is the opposite: it means every formula has a shortest possible answer, and ten of the twenty nine need one ingredient and nothing else.

A Red Mushroom is 2 red on its own, so it is a Healing Potion with a flask and nothing more. Peat is Dream Dust, a Swamp mushroom is Paint, a Night flower is Lacquer and a Tooth is a Damage Potion.

The rest of that list is worth knowing because the ingredients are things you already walk past. Cheese carries one of every color, so it is a Berserker Potion by itself, and so is Salt. Coal or Beeswax makes a Weak growth elixir, a Pumpkin makes a Preservative, and a Stone stands in for the mushroom when your Healing Potions have run the patch dry.

Every completed mix also pays technology points equal to its own runes, and the cost is the same three seconds whatever you brew. A one ingredient mix is therefore the cheapest technology in the game, and it feeds the alchemist inspiration on the way past.

Every one of those shortest answers is in the alchemy calculator, which reads the relationship in both directions. There is also a way to buy a formula outright. The Apothecary stocks nineteen Alchemic Powders, one for every rune total up to three, priced from five gold for a single rune to thirty for one of each color.

Mix the cheap version deliberately the first time. Discovering a formula writes the exact combination you used into the Alchemy Workbench as a repeatable craft, so an expensive set you stumbled onto is the one you are left holding.

Dream Dust is a formula like any other

Plenty of people go looking for a Dream Dust recipe and find the Plague Doctor instead. He does hand over the knowledge, but what he is handing over is a formula like any other: one green and one blue.

It is joint cheapest in the game alongside Lacquer and Paint. Once you know that, any two items whose runes total one green and one blue will make it, and the fairy you needed it for stops being a bottleneck.

The benches, and which you need

Laboratory I is where mixing happens and it costs four Wooden Plank, three Bronze Detail and three Glass. It holds two ingredient slots, which is the detail that decides what you can make on it.

Laboratory II wants two Oiled Beams, three Iron Detail and two Lens, which puts it behind the iron chain. Its third ingredient slot is the whole reason to build it, because six formulas have no two ingredient answer anywhere.

That study is worth doing for its own sake. Each one costs the potion and fifteen Science, takes six seconds, and pays 100 and 20. It is a one time craft and it hands back a Story on the way out, which makes Healing Potion III and Berserker Potion III the two most profitable things you can put on that table.

The supporting benches matter more than the upgrade. The Flask shelf is six Wooden Plank and eight Bronze Nails, the Distillation Cube is two planks, two Bronze Details and twelve Brick, and the Folio itself is four Leather Scroll and three Board.

The Alchemy Workbench is the expensive one at six planks, eight Iron Nails and ten Bricks, and the Formulation Bench wants a Polished Bronze on top of four planks and four Bronze Details. None of those four gate a formula, so build them for the bench space rather than the recipes.

Where to start

Build Laboratory I and the Folio together, then study every cheap item you already have in quantity. A palette of known runes is worth more than any single formula, because the formulas are additive and the cheap items are the ones you can afford to spend.

Two things about the window catch people out. Alchemy Flasks are drawn from the laboratory’s own storage while the ingredients come from your bag, so a backpack stuffed with flasks still leaves the button dead. Alchemy asks nothing of your Anatomy mastery either, and every mix takes the same three seconds and returns exactly one flask however many runes it swallowed.

After that, aim at the two rune formulas first and let the Folio fill in. Reanimation Liquid is the one worth working towards deliberately, because nothing else resurrects a zombie. You can buy it instead, from Gunter or the town alchemist at any tier, though brewing it is far cheaper once the lab is up.