Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Phasmophobia, co-op suspense horror ghost hunting game

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,538
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth




Now this is some good horror.* I played the "peaceful ghost" tutorial and even that was enough to freak me out. Very slow paced game, no running around, where you're mostly not finding anything, but the whole time there's a ghost somewhere working up the rage to attack you. Use your tools to slowly look for evidence of what's out there. If you figure it out in time, tag it and get the hell back to the truck.

Haven't tried co-op yet but this looks great with friends. I'll take the UV flashlight and check the basement for ecto-fingerprints while you talk into the voice scanner in the nursery and see if any dead babies talk back. And if your radio goes silent I'll know it's because the ghost is coming after you and you're scared it will hear you if you say anything. (It will.)

*EDIT: I quickly changed my mind. See below.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 1, 2011
Messages
584
Cwn you play solo?

Was about to ask the same question. I want to play this in VR but after reading steam reviews it seems to me you are restricted to the first few missions if you don't want to go co-op?
There are no restrictions but large maps are basically impossible without enough people.
There are essentially two parts to identifying the ghost. First you need to find its location, which just comes down to combing the area room by room until you notice something abnormal. Once you know its location you bring in the equipment to see what signs it gives off (low temperatures, writing in a book that you leave for it, looking weird on video cameras, that sort of stuff). With a group that's fine, since you can split up to cover the whole area and then have everyone bring in the gear once someone finds it. On your own it obviously takes you much longer, and that's a problem because if you take too long the ghost stops playing around with the lights and throwing objects around and starts trying to kill you. If you already know its location you're taking a risk by trying to set up tools in the room where it may spawn at any moment. If you don't know its location then you may as well just give up at that point.
So yeah, small maps can theoretically be played solo. Large maps can't unless you get super lucky and find the ghost's room instantly or you take a huge amount of risks. And you lose equipment for dying so a low success rate isn't sustainable, especially since you have to pay for everything since there'll be nobody else bringing gear in.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
Trying this a few times with 2 friends was actually one of the best horror experiences I've had in a game for a long while. Not sure for how long it will keep being scary though. It feels like once you know more about how the game functions, that will take a lot of the horror out of it. If they continue developing the game, I really hope they will work hard at shaking up the mechanics as much as they can to try and keep "the mystery" as it were.

But just jumping in blind with a few others that also had not played it was actually really cool. And supremely scary at first. The way it unfolds is just fantastic.
 
Last edited:

mibbles

codex grandma
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2013
Messages
457
Just played through part of the tutorial. Nothing even happened and I still noped the fuck out of the game. Scary noises! Dark! Alone!

I'd be up to playing with a few fellow 'dexers, though.
:shredder:
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
I have played this with buddies a few nights. Really nice mix of horror and detective gameplay. I don't think I'd be able to play solo - having to be separated to lure out some ghosts is bad enough already. The way some of the items work is not clear at all - a crucifix has to be placed down before the ghost starts hunting and does nothing if placed late or held in hand and even then I am not entirely sure if it works against all types. Smudge sticks are a mystery to me but at least my buddies seem to know how they work. And then you add in the fact the ghosts behave differently around their home room and it becomes a rather inprecise science, but I suppose that's fitting since this is ghosts we are dealing with.

I want to say having two people for the larger maps is the absolute minimum and three is recommended. And this is on amateur difficulty. Grab at least one friend if you really want to try the game out.
 
Last edited:

GreyViper

Prophet
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
1,523
Location
Estonia
Surprisingly enjoyable game, the concept is solid what it needs is a progression and money sink. Since its a one-man project the new content is coming slowly, which I think the game needs if it does not want just to be the flavor of the month.
The best part I find is they give you basics and it's up to you to figure out how it works because not everything always works as they should.
For what it is it's a well done game for EA.

Regarding gameplay, I think he should have left the weak flashlight as default and a stronger flashlight for upper tier so candels could get more use. I also found that doing solo professional School can be more nerve wracking then doing Asylum since the school has some large open dark areas.
Not the best place to get stuck when the hunt starts.
Other than that it's also a good way to train people to overcome their fear.
phasmophobia-ghosts-memes9.jpg
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
The dev is apparently adamant against hiring more people, but that runs the risk of the game dying due to lack of content updates.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,538
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I ended up trying this with my friends and we found it frustrating and above all very dull. The ratio of "nothing happens" : "something happens" is way too high. Instead of making things tense as good horror should be, it just gets boring. And when "screaming into your microphone" is a key element to advancement, you have a sure recipe for irritation. A friend observed with some justice that this is a game not about enjoying yourself, but instead provoking streamer reactions on-camera. I refunded.
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
On amateur it does take too long to get a reaction out of the ghost, especially if you have to be alone or the ghost is shy. Intermediate/professional are way better in that regard.
 

XenomorphII

Prophet
Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Messages
1,198
This is great fun with a group of friends. Sometimes you get dud levels I feel like though. Ones where the ghost is too passive and the level too big. But even those can set the stage for more aggressive ghosts in other places, as long as it doesn't happen to often. Intermediate whooped our collective ass though when we moved up. It was great.
 

Ulysa

Scholar
Joined
Feb 26, 2020
Messages
191
I played a couple of maps with friends and it was fun and original, I actually enjoy the investigation aspect although it seems very simple. It's not reaally scary, more like fun scary. ( Idk about you but really scary for me is Alien Isolation for reference). Not sure how fun can it be solo, but with friends is worth the money 100%.
 

GreyViper

Prophet
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
1,523
Location
Estonia
It can be less eventful on Norma and Intermediate but at Professional you really start to feel the pressure and rising dread as the sanity plummets and you have to avoid 3-4 hunts just to reach the exit and then you have to go back to drop or check equipment.
I noticed its less of an issue in Asylum since the ghost can get lost or spawn in rooms where it has no line of sight to you. Hence there the hunts are not as serious as say on smaller maps.
We also had this interesting event, when a friend took a doll from ghost room. So all 4 of us were back in the van chatting when EMF goes off to lvl 5and activity spikes to 10. So the next few minutes we wondered how could EMF reader pick this up from the van when one of us noticed the doll was gone.
At first, we thought one of us was playing a prank, but when we went back to the room ghost was, we found the doll there. So what happened is that the ghost came to the van and took the doll.
 
Last edited:

GreyViper

Prophet
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
1,523
Location
Estonia
The new update is out and changed most of the game rules, so no more wham bam and thank you mam, 5 min and you have all the evidence. Man so many deaths, so much death. The ghost evidence got reshuffled and a new type of evidence was added.
So now you know the hunt is when the ghost is close to you and only then the electronic equipment starts going crazy.The ghost can spawn and start hunt without players knowing its too late. We were trying to figure out the ghost room when it started chain hunt.
4 went in and only 1 walked out, similar stories with other maps too. Its a nice change, still so much death.
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,861
Location
The Khanate
The visual and sound upgrades are also very good (don't know how much was changed in this update vs the previous). Improvements to model quality, lighting and fog make it look far more modern and less like a one man Unity project. Ghosts are generally scarier now due to far better sounds and making less overt appearances and indeed the difference between a hunt and not hunting appearing less binary. They're taking a good direction with the game.

Not sure about the prison, I only got to play one match there. In general the larger maps just don't play as well which I think is the general opinion. Also, the characters are really out of shape, can't run for more than a few seconds when their lives depend on it.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,156
Also, the characters are really out of shape, can't run for more than a few seconds when their lives depend on it.
Seems fitting if the idea was to make believable "modern people". Perhaps it is too realistic that way though.
 

NoSoup4you

Learned
Joined
Mar 18, 2021
Messages
123
Played game. Is cool. I bet it's gonna suck once you get good at it, but for now it's novel in a way 99% of new games aren't.
 

NoSoup4you

Learned
Joined
Mar 18, 2021
Messages
123
No, though playing solo isn't the worst thing ever on small maps. Kind of like Deep Rock Galactic, it becomes actually scary when alone, but really shines four-player with mics.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom