Phasmophobia Overview Guide & FAQS

Introduction
Welcome to these quick tips and some common answers to the questions you may have. This guide will be a WIP for a little while to but wanted to publish it early to provide an alternative to other guides out there.

There are also some minor spoilers for keywords, so be warned but otherwise generally spoiler-free.

And if you like this guide please leave a comment, rate and favourite it!

Tips
I’ve tried to categorize these as best as possible. General, before you enter the house, investigating, and hunting.
General
There’s generally three stages to a round:
Find where the ghost is, best chance for this is to use your thermometer or find a ouija board. Whilst doing this you can also search for bones to photo and pick up for extra money.
Find out what the ghost is, by using the ghost writing book, spirit box, UV etc.
Complete any bonus objectives, this can somewhat be integrated into stage two while you’re trying to figure out what it is.
You don’t need to say the ghosts name until you want it to start a hunt.
If playing the role of sugar daddy/mama and you’re hiding in the van most of the round. Move equipment to the door for your fellow ghost hunters so it decreases their travel time.
You can turn on/off or light equipment in PC/VR player’s hands, or on a VR player’s belt.
Turning on too many lights will flip the circuit breaker.
You can export/import photos from your camera into the following path: “Steam\steamapps\common\Phasmophobia”. You’ll see them saved as “savedscreen” 0 to 5.
You can access the white board anywhere in the lobby by pressing [SPACEBAR]. Yes that includes from within the lockers.
Before You Enter A House
Most important equipment to bring to most sites are:
Thermometer
Motion Sensors
Crucifixes
Smudge Sticks
Lighters
This is due to them all being potential bonus objectives for the extra money, and thermometers are probably the best way to find the ghost outside of finding a ouija board.

Use a camera at the start of the round to take a photo of the objective board. This means you don’t have to ask someone in the truck for it’s name and can just check your journal.
Investigating
Use a thermometer to find the ghosts haunted area quickly. You want anything lower than 11.9°C / 53.42°F. Ghosts often wanders so you may have also found it’s patrol route.
Use a EMF reader on the ouija board. Sometimes it can give you that all important EMF 5.
When using the spirit box, it will say “no response” if voice recognition is working but the ghost is… not responding. Try and use both local (V) and global (B) chat to achieve this. You can also do it without using either of the push to talk options as the mic is open for voice recognition.
Remember to close doors, as the ghost will often open a door as part of it’s activity pattern (can also close them) but this will help you locate the ghost room potentially.
Place motion sensors low down, if the ghost is a child, then it won’t trigger them if it’s high.
In bigger maps like Asylum and High School, the haunted room will often already be open or have a light on. You can potentially ignore most rooms and just look for the one that is open/light on.
Sound sensors are great on big maps, but make sure you don’t overlap them for the most efficiency.
You don’t need to shine a UV light on fingerprints to get a photo of fingerprints as evidence. Just take a photo of the lightswitch/window/door that you know they are there for it count in your journal.
If you have placed salt down, place a glowstick/UV light near it so you can see footprints if the ghost walks there.
Hunting
If you have two crucifixes, and the ghost is haunting a small room. Place one inside that room centrally, and the other in the hallway or adjancent room.
Want the ghost to go on a hunt? Sing 𝄞𝄞 “Run, hide, I’m scared, I’m scared” 𝄞𝄞 over and over again in the house whilst throwing the ghosts name in there to for good measure. Guaranteed results.
Keeping your sanity low can be beneficial as the ghost will hunt allowing you more photo opportunities.
If being hunted, break line of sight, hide in a room with the door closed and be quiet. Being quiet includes any loud noises such as taking photos, talking, spirit box, and talking.
You can also outrun most ghosts, just don’t stop running/go to a dead end.
Ghost hunts can last up to a maximum of 50 seconds (can last longer if in a modded lobby, or it bugs out).
You can clip through doors/walls, you are not safe if you’re sitting behind them directly as the ghost will get you. This also applies to windows and external doors of houses.
If a Jinn is haunting the house, turn off the circuit breaker. This will weaken them and slow them down.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
Common Questions
Q: How many developers are working on this game?
A: Just one, DK.

Q: How do I find a ghost on a bigger map like Asylum or High School?
A: Use sound sensors, and thermometers. Split up the party and go in different directions checking each room whilst also saying “Show us a sign”. A door should creak or be already open, a room will already have the light on, a tap will run or a phone will ring for you to home into.

Q: Do I need to bring the equipment back to the truck?
A: No you don’t need to bring it back. The only time you lose equipment is when you die during a round but depending on difficulty you’ll get some insurance money back.

Q: How do I use crucifixes to prevent a hunt?
A: If it’s a large room place both the crucifixes in that room evenly spread out for maximum efficiency. If a small room place one inside, and one outside in the hallway or an adjacent room. Then you just need it to try and manifest in the radius of either crucifix by baiting the ghost into a hunt. Also worth having someone in the truck to tell you once the objective is complete.
Additional Note: Crucifixes only have two charges, so each crucifix can prevent up to two hunts.

Q: How do I use the ouija board?
A: Activate the board so you can see it glowing and ask a question like “Where are you?” The ghost will then respond by moving the planchette on the board and spelling out it’s answer. If the lights flicker, then this means you have taken a 40% sanity hit.

Q: How do I use a spirit box?
A: Go in the room or very close to where the ghost is haunting with the lights off. Ask questions in, local/ global chat or just in general since the mic is open for voice recognition. This can be either on the floor, or in your hand. If the ghost prefers to be active when people are alone, you will need to do this alone for a response.

Q: How do I use smudge sticks?
A: With a lighter in your inventory press “F” whilst the smudge sticks [burrito/massive joint] is equipped then walk with it into the haunted room or chuck it in.

Q: What do smudge sticks do?
A: They do numerous things:
Can prevent the ghost from hunting for a period of time (or longer for spirits).
Halt a hunting ghost for 5 seconds giving you time to hide.
Prevent a Yurei from leaving their haunted area for a period of time.

Q: How do I use the parabolic microphone?
A: Best on larger maps like Asylum/High School as it’s range is incredibly long, it’s basically a sniper. If you see the number spike above 8, go in that direction, also worth going in the direction if it’s picking up sound but no one else is in the building. Be careful as your team mates can also make noise which the the parabolic microphone will detect.

Q: Are footprints, fingerprints?
A: No, your feet are not your fingers. Instead the footprints can show you the ghosts patrolling path. Along with getting you some extra money from the footprint photo.

Q: What are freezing temperatures?
A: Below 0°C or 32°F. You’ll also be able to see your breath.

Q: How do you turn off the annoying car alarm?
A: Find the car keys then left-click on either front doors of the car.

Q: Can you take photos of the ghost on the CCTV monitor?
A: No, photos taken over the CCTV monitor will not count as a ghost in your journal.

Q: Why did all the lights go out / circuit breaker go off?
A: Having too many lights on in the building can flip the breaker, the ghost (especially Mares, but not Jinns) also love to turn off the circuit breaker.

Q: What counts as a Ghost Event?
A: Ghost slamming a door, singing, gurgling or hissing in your ear, showing itself in your face. The ghost entering it’s hunt phase and/or killing someone is not an event.

Q: What does levelling up do?
A: You gain access to new equipment, levels and difficulties.

Q: How do I reset my save/level?
A: You can delete your savedata.txt file in “%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Kinetic Games\Phasmophobia\” repository. You’ll also need to ensure that steam could is not enabled: right-click Phasmophobia in steam, go to the “Updates” tab and untick “Enable Steam Cloud synchronization for Phasmophobia”.

Q: Why are there lobbies that exceed four players or have coloured usernames?
A: These are modded lobbies and it’s recommended to avoid them at all cost, as they can corrupt your save. Devs are aware of this.
Guessing Ghost Types Without The Third Evidence
You can quite accurately guess ghost types without the third piece of evidence or even without the second.

Yurei
Sanity dropping very fast when in the house?

Mare
Turn on a light in the haunted room. Does it flip the breaker/turn it off pretty quick?

Demon
Aggressive of the bat, even when you had high sanity?

Shade
Boring as heck?

Banshee
Only gets active when you go in and then starts hunting? Because let’s be honest, it always wants YOU and not the others.

Jinn
Gets angry and starts to hunt whenever you’re in the haunted area?

Poltergeist
Likes to really move objects and cans around.
Photos For Extra Money
There are several photo opportunities that can provide extra money and these are:
Dead bodies. Yes, get rich of your dead friends…
Voodoo dolls which reside on the farmhouse maps.
Bloody Cleaver, in Bleasdale Farmhouse, Living Room (On the Table).
Bones.
Dirty water.
Ouija boards.
Fingerprints.
Footprints.
Ghost writing. (only in beta as of 16/10/2020)
Door being creaked open by a ghost and other ghostly interactions.
Ghost itself.

Hope you enjoy the post for Phasmophobia Overview Guide & FAQS, If you think we should update the post or something is wrong please let us know via comment and we will fix it how fast as possible! Thank you and have a great day!