Phasmo

I've been playing a fair bit of Phasmophobia lately... Ghosts and spooky stuff seems to be just part of my life now, ever since I started working at a haunted house about 8 years ago. If you're not in the know, Phasmophobia is a game about "hunting" ghosts, and using evidence to determine what type of ghost is haunting a house/building.

If you've never played the game, I can easily recommend it. It's available on Steam Early Access for about $14, with a full release planned for late-2024, though the developers say that could change. It is a horror game, so if you do not like horror or horror-like games or experiences, it's not for you. It's also available in VR if that's your inclination, but my experiences with the VR mode is limited and I can't recommend it based on poor performance and controls.

From a perspective of a gamer who initially didn't like, or understand, the game, I wrote it off until early this year when I saw some videos of Hermitcraft members playing it (Specifically, the GIGS crew of Grian, ImpulseSV, GoodTimesWithScar, GeminiTay, and Skizzleman) and started understanding how the game's mechanics, and more importantly its tools, worked. It kind of helped that they were friends enjoying playing a spooky game together, and their antics and personalities definitely made it easier to digest the game.

Another thing that helped my understanding of the game isn't something I saw or did, it was the fact that in late-2023 the game's developers wiped profiles and re-did the game's tools, making 3-tiers of quality for each item, which affects its functionality, effectivness, and re-balanced how the game functioned.

The game features 24 different Ghosts that you can possibly find, as well as several Cursed Items, each of which has an equal chance to spawn in the map, though only one can spawn per match, and each ghost can be identified using a combination of 3 pieces of evidence from the 7 available. Obviously, that math doesn't fully math, so it's a bit trickier than just finding out which of the pieces of evidence you're getting, but I won't get into that here.

What I will get into is that I'm enjoying the game far more than I thought I would, and it's due to some streamers/content creators that I enjoy watching playing the game. This happens to me at times and it surprises me when I see people trying a game, being somewhat good at it or at least enjoying it, and then I try it and have fun when I invite my friends. With Phasmophobia, it's definitely been a situation like that, where I saw some YouTubers playing it, I decided to give the game a second chance, and now I'm really enjoying it. I do die a fair bit, due to inexperience and lack of tools, but overall it's an incredibly fun game that, had I given it a better chance the first time I played it, I might have enjoyed it more and played more often.

What somewhat helps me in my enjoyment of the game is that I know, and work with, some people who are actually Paranormal Investigators for a YouTube channel. I was speaking with them a few months ago at the haunted house we work at together, and they mentioned how many of the tools and objects that are used in Phasmophobia are actually tools that they use in real life for their investigations, at least to a degree. To my surprise, I googled some of the tools they use and they were almost exactly as they appear in the game.

With that all in mind, I highly recommend Phasmophobia, and you can click the link below to get to the game's page on Steam.