HOW TO PLAY PHASMOPHOBIA (for newbies)

Overview

I will help you to make your first steps in “Phasmophobia”!

Introduction

1. “What’s the purpose?”
2. “How do I play?”
3. “How do I communicate with the ghost and people?”

Today, as a player of 30+ hours, I’ll do my best to help you to figure out the basics of “Phasmophobia” and will answer the questions above! I probably do not have enough experience to spread all the mechanics of the game, and I probably do not know everything myself, but I can help newbies at their first steps! 🙂

Feel free to correct me if I’ve explained something incorrectly or if it is no longer relevant!

The main menu

The first “location” of “Phasmophobia” is the main menu! Have a look around, here you can do… Pretty much nothing! You will have to press on the screen to set the controls up and to start/join the game. All the action is here.

Anyways, all you gotta do is to start setting your things up and to complete the tutorial (which is useless to me, I didn’t understand a thing when first played the tutorial) is to click on the desk.

Here you have:

• Play
• Training
• Item store
• Options

First of all check your “connection” with the game. The game hears you, which means you will have to use your voice to communicate and which also means you need to check if you’re well connected

Now click on OPTIONS and keep clicking forward through AUDIO, then Voice recognition > TEST
Do what the game tells you to and happily close settings if the game hears you well. It’s important, because if you have no voice connecton you won’t be able to use most of the items.

As a person who writes this guide I would recommend you to complete it, because tutorial is important to new players and it’s always better to let the game itself teach you instead of annoying other players with “teach me how to play” or “sorry, I’m new, not gonna do a thing right” (exactly what I didI sure didn’t do that)

But also as a person who didn’t understand A THING in the tutorial plus got SO MUCH SCARED I wold say… You know asking other people and figuring everything out yourself is maybe even more fun! 🙂

So do the thing if needed, not much explanation needed here.

After you click on PLAY you will see so much buttons and so much options to start with.

If you have no friends like I don’t have any you want to join random people or create a lobby yourself, let’s say this.
Simply click on any lobby on the middle or create your own by clicking on CREATE PUBLIC

If you’re playing with friends and if they’re new to the game as well, click on CREATE PRIVATE or JOIN PRIVATE GAME
Every private lobby has a code, so you’ll have to ask for it or (after creating a lobby) to share it with friends to play together (top right corner)

Now you will have to prepare for a match

Press BUY to buy stuff if you have any money (you prob don’t)
Press ADD to add all the stuff that you’ve bought

If you’re the host
Press SELECT JOB to choose a map and don’t forget to read the description of it, then make sure everyone in the group is ready and pressed READY UP then you can start it by pressing the START button.

The purpose (+objectives)

After you and your (possibly) friends loaded to a map you would probably get confused with “okay what now?”
The most imporant thing how is to know what you are supposed to do and how do you do it.

Here’s what you need to do:
You need to detect what type of ghost you’re dealing with by using equipment.

Here’s how you do it:
You will have to use your equipment you’ve bought earlier (or free one that automatically appears in your truck) to find any evidence.

What is evidence:
The evidence (three of them to be exact) is your search results. You find them by using equipment.

Speaking of your purposes. You also have extra objectives that give you extra money for each completed! For most of them you will have to use equipment.

Extra objectives and just the main objective of detecting the ghost type are not neccesary to complete. You can leave the area without any evidence, but you won’t get much money out of it which means you won’t be able to buy much equipment to make your life easier.

Another important thing!
Eveytime you load to a match, the game will get you a random ghost name you can call for to anger it and to force it to show activity. The game also tells you if the ghost is easy to communicate with or not.

Where you can see the objectives and the ghost info:

Here your keys are:

The van

The van is the place where you can truly feel safe.
It contains your equipment and other stuff you will have to use while seeking for evidences.

Here’s what you have:

• Objectives (no more needed to talk about)
• Equipment
• Activity stats
• Sanity stats
• Sound stats
• The location’s map
• The video screen
• The timer
• The key

I will tell you how to use each of these positions in a short way with links to wiki!

You will need EQUIPMENT (once again) to detect the ghost and communicate with it.

ACTIVITY STATS will show you how active the ghost is at the moment.

SANITY STATS shows you your SANITY which depends on how much of communication with the ghost you had. The lower sanity – the unsafer you are.
More about sanity here[phasmophobia.fandom.com]

SOUND STATS will be revieled when using a special tool “SOUND SENSOR”. It detects the sound and shows it on the board.
More about sound sensor here[phasmophobia.fandom.com]

THE MAP you will need for not much things. You will need it for finding the FUSE BOXlater about it and tracking your teammates around the house.

THE SCREEN will be used only when the VIDEO CAMERA is placed. Then you can see the insides of the house with or without night vision. It helps to find an evidence.

THE TIMER will give you a bit of time from the start to a moment when the ghost starts acting. Before you run out of time you can rush into the house to place the evidence, or to yell at the ghost for no reason – it won’t do a thing.

And then you grab THE KEY from the start to open the main door. Me and my crew always forget that and then somebody has to go back to the van to grab it.. So…. Don’t forget about that.

The journal

What is the journal and what is it used for?

By pressing [J] you can open your journal that contains the information of your tools and stuff, info about ghosts, pictures taken with photo camera during the match and evidence progress.

The equipment

When speaking of equipment ~ You’ve got a kind of starter pack that always appears in your van and that you don’t have to buy (in case if you’re poor or greedy and I sure am not). Then you’ve got purshasable ones that you lose after death. Sometimes that happened to me when I spent about ~$500 on tools and lost it in the net game because was too stupid or scared :/

Default equipment you’ve got:

• Spirit Box
• Ghost Writing Book
• Photo Camera
• EMF Reader
• Video Camera
• UV Flashlight
• Flashlight

Purchasable equipment:

• Candle
• Crucifix
• Glow Stick
• Head Mounted Camera
• Infrared Light Sensor
• Lighter
• Motion Sensor
• Parabolic Microphone
• Salt Shaker
• Sanity Pills
• Smudge Sticks
• Sound Sensor
• Strong Flashlight
• Thermometer
• Tripod

More about each item you can read here[phasmophobia.fandom.com]

If I tried to explain each of them I’d probably die. Since this guide is for newbies all you gotta know is you can detect the ghost type with the starter items, purshasable ones just make it easier.

But I’m very kind so I’ll write about starter equipment at least!

SPIRIT BOX is needed for an evidence of SPIRIT BOX

How to use it: Turn the lights off, turn spirit box on with your mouse button and ask questions through it. The ghost will give a reply in case if it’s in the same room as you or close enough. Some ghosts are shy so you will have to be alone in the room or in a specific radius.

You can ask one of these questions and so the ghost will possibly reply to these:
– “where are you?”
– “are you here?”
– “is anybody here?”
– “are you angry?”
– “hello?”
– “how old are you?”

these are questions that I asked myself and got a reply to

GHOST WRITING BOOK is needed for an evidence of GHOST WRITING

How to use it: Place it in the ghost room by pressing or anywhere else [F] and so the ghost will write a message which is an evidence.
“No mechanics currently seem to exists that limit a ghost’s abilities to write in the book. It can be written in while being held. It can be written in while in light or darkness. It can be written in while in view of the player. It does not have to be right-side up. It can be written in while in the player’s inventory, and it doesn’t have to be held out” – taken from phasmo-wiki

PHOTO CAMERA isn’t for any evidence, but can be used to complete an objective or making extra money from taking pictures from stuff around (a bone, a voodoo doll)

EMF READER is needed for an evidence of EMF LEVEL 5

How to use it: Turn it on by pressing your mouse button and walk around the house to detct any activity. In case if the EMF reader gives the red light it is an evidence of 5th level.

“Whenever a Ghost interacts with the environment and depending on the type of interaction, the EMF Reader will light up various numbers of its LEDs. If the Ghost causes multiple interactions within a short time frame, the one with the highest EMF Level will be indicated by the EMF Reader” – taken from phasmo-wiki

VIDEO CAMERA is needed for an evidence of GHOST ORB

How to use: Place the camera inside the house by pressing [F] (DO NOT FORGET TO TURN IT ON) and turn the light off around it. Come back to the van and use the video sceen to detect the ghost orb. Press on the ingame keyboard to switch between cameras or press the ingame mouse to switch between normal and night vision mode (ghost orb looks like dust flying in front of the camera)

UV FLASHLIGHT is needed for an evidence of FINGERPRINTS

How to use: Turn UV flashlight on and walk around the house with it to find prints on the floor, doors, windows or any other places.

FLASHLIGHT is not used for any evidence, but you have to use it to see.

The house (+ large locations)

If it’s not Prison, Asylum or High school, you will get a street house or a farmhouse which are not so big and pretty chill to play on.

Before getting inside, grab the key from the desk in the van and then you can open the main door. Inside you will have couple bedrooms, bathrooms, storages, pantries, possibly a garage,a basement and an attic.

You can hide in the closets, bathrooms and storages. The ghost will most likely not check these places. Speaking of closets – there you are completely safe!
But careful, don’t make any noice, otherwise the ghost will hear you!

In every house you’ll have Fuse box which the ghost will turn off sometimes. You will need to turn it on if needed, it usually spawns in garage, basement or attic. Anyways, you can always check where it is on the map in the van!

Also, every location has a ghost room. This is where the ghost will appear the most of times, will spawn in, will give the most info. It can be detected by using a thermometer or an EMF reader (if don’t have a thermometer, walk around until you possibly find a freezing room)

Also you can find the ghost room by using Ouija board which randomly spawns on the map. Directly ask “where ae you now” and then the ghost will probably answer.

Another way to detect the ghost room – asking for a sign.
Press B or [V] and say out loud “give us a sign” or “give a sign”

In these houses you will not spend so much time on looking for the ghost room, but in Prison, Asylum and High school you will need to hav a specific plan.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO ON THESE MAPS or what always works to me:

1. Take a thermometer and enter the location
2. Walk around the location and keep asking for a sign, while entering the rooms and checking the temperature (ALWAYS CLOSE DOORS BEHIND YOURSELF AND TURN THE LIGHT OFF and so ask your teammates to)
3. When you see a room with possibly an opened door, working light or low temperature, it is the room

The ghost (+ hunting mode)

On each map you will have a different type of ghost with its different abilities.
Check on every ghost type and its evidence in journal.

During the match the ghost will show paranormal activity, which you can see on Activity stats board in your van. When the activity increases to 10 the ghost enters the hunting mode, spawns in the house and walks around for its prey. The main door locks so you won’t be able to enter the house or escape during the hunting mode.

You will have to hide, and so your safest place will be a closet or any small room like bathroom or pantry. In my opinion, the most unsafe places in the house during the hunting mode is garage, basement or attic, because you will probably have nowere to go and will have to loop the ghost around to leave the room.

The ghost can start hunting anytime, couple times per minute. Depends on how much you call for its name or generally anger it, your sanity or the ghost’s abilities. Also if it’s shy or agressive.

The conclusion

So now I spilled almost everything I knew about. I believe my guide can be found helpful by some people, if so, please let me know!
Also feel free to incorrect me or mention some things that I didn’t explain in this guide!

Some helpful links:

• Phasmophobia: gameplay, objectives, controls[phasmophobia.fandom.com]
• About equipment and how to use it[phasmophobia.fandom.com]
• Info about ghosts[phasmophobia.fandom.com]
• About maps[phasmophobia.fandom.com]