SOO,
You've found yourself inside a haunted house with a ghost roaming around. Suddenly you hear your teammate scream the ghosts name. "NOAH JAMES NOAH JAMES NOAH JAMES NOAH JAMES NOAH JAMES!!!!!". Suddenly, your flashlight and thermometer start to flash. Then, you see a ghost faster than frickin Usain Bolt charge at you and wrap it's nasty hands around your neck. You died! Congrats!

The hunt mechanic is a mechanic that is designed to make your contract a little bit harder. When a ghost hunts, it has a chance to kill a player (or multiple if on nightmare) for good (unless you have Tarot Cards). All electronic devices will start to flicker or malfunction. For instance: if you are holding a spirit box while your flashlight and the ghost is near you during a hunt, the ghost box will start to flicker ridiculous numbers while the 'x' and ghosts symbol will repeatedly light up. This does not count as ghost box evidence just so you know.

There are a majority of hiding spots throughout each map, but the higher the difficulty is, the less hiding spots there will be. For the sake of easiness, I will be using Tanglewood Street house as the example. Say the ghost room is the Nursery. When the ghost initiates a hunt, that is where it will spawn. Each difficulty has a grace period that gives you a short amount of time before it comes to hunt. Those times are as follows:

• Amateur: 5 seconds
  
• Intermediate: 4 seconds
  
• Professional: 3 seconds
  
• Nightmare: 2 seconds
  
• Cursed hunt: 1 second
  We'll get into cursed hunts later ;)

How to not attract the ghost
If your in the the nursery and the ghost starts its hunt there, your best option is to run into the hallway outside and hide in the closet to the right (if it's not blocked of course). Once your in it, close the closet doors. Make sure to press T if your holding a tool (or right click if your holding a flashlight)
to turn your flashlight off, as this will attract the ghost. Also make sure to turn off all equipment as that will also attract the ghost (don't ask me how this game makes no sense lmao). Also, be quiet you stupid chatter box! The ghost can hear you from up to 9 meters away. That's only if you talk above a certain volume though. Also, if you click the global chat button for even a millisecond, that will also attract the ghost.
All of these things will not attract the ghost:

• Head Mounted Camera
  
• Small Flashlight on shoulder
  
• Footsteps from the player
  
• Door, closet, and locker noises
  
• Electronics on the floor, even when turned on (great for finding EMF 5)
  
• Crucifixes
  
• Lit smudge sticks
  
• Candles and glowsticks, even when lit
  
• Players outside the investigation area
  
• Players talking on Global Chat outside the investigation area

Some ghosts have special detection abilities. They are as follows:

• The Deogen will never break line of sight, so as the description implies, "You can run, but you can't hide."
  
• The Yokai is a stupid deaf little ghost so it can only hear voices and detect electronics that are 2 meters away from it instead of the typical 9 meters.
  
• Is you use a smudge stick on a Moroi, is will enter the wandering phase for double the amount of time (12 seconds).
  
• If the Banshees target is inside the investigation area, it will not hunt any other players (even if it has line of sight). If the target is not inside the investigation area, it will hunt like a normal ghost.

A hunt is mostly random, but still does have a bunch of requirements.

Setup Phase
A ghost cannot hunt while the setup phase is going on. Those times are as follows:

• Amateur - 5 minutes
  
• Intermediate - 2 minutes 30 seconds
  
• Professional and Nightmare - None

A setup phase can be ended early if any of the Cursed Possessions initiates a cursed hunt.

Hunt Requirments

• One hunter must be inside the investigation area
  
• Average Sanity
  - For most ghosts, your team has to have an average sanity below %50, the exceptions are:
  
  • Demon - %70
    
  • Deogen - %40
    
  • Onryo - %60
    
  • Shade - %35
    
    
  • Yokai if hunters are talking within 2 metres of the ghost - %80
    
  • Raiju if near an active electronic equipment - %65
    
  • Mare if lights turned off at ghost's room - %60
    
  • Mare if lights turned on at ghost's room - %40
    
    
    
  • Thaye:
    
  • Starting Age (0) - %75
    
  • For every age up - -%6
    
  • Ending Age (10) - %15
    
    
  • Banshee checks only it's targets sanity
    
  • Demon can hunt at any time because of special ability
    
  • Shade will not hunt if at least one player is in the ghost room
    
  • Onryo cannot hunt when it is near a fire source, it will blow out the flame instead, but there is a 50-50 chance for it to hunt when blowing out a flame

Trigger Words
Emotion Words
The ghost has a chance to hunt based on how you express your emotions. Saying the following words has a chance to initiate a hunt based on fear:

• Fright
  
• Frighten
  
• Frightened
  
• Horror
  
• I am scared
  
• I'm scared
  
• Panic
  
• Panicking
  
• Scare
  
• Scared
  
• Scary
  
• Spooky

Command Phrases
These are like the emotion words, except they are commands that you can yell out to the ghost or your teammates:

• Bloody Mary
  
• Do Something
  
• Hide
  
• Kill
  
• Manifest
  
• Run
  
• Show me
  
• Show us
  
• Show them
  
• Show your presence
  
• Show yourself

Insult the ghost
Believe it or not, saying certain cuss words can anger the ghost. They are as follows (I censored so steam doesn't send a hitman to my door):

• F**k
  
• S**t
  
• B**ch
  
• C**t
  
• A*s
  
• A*s hole
  
• B*stard
  
• Mother F**ker
  
• Crap
  
• P***y
  
• D**k
  
• D**k Head

If the ghost tries to hunt and a dropped or held crucifix is within 3 metres of the ghost, (or 5 metres if the ghost is a Demon), the ghost will not initiate the hunt, and eat a big yummy chunk out of the crucifix. The crucifix can be used twice before becoming useless (for a total of 4 times). Each time a crucifix is used, there will be an additional 5 second delay before the ghost can initiate another hunt.

Having a candle, campfire or lighter within 4 meters of an Onryo, it will act like a crucifix. The Onryo will however try to blow out the flame which has a chance to initiate a hunt, regardless of sanity level.

Lighting a smudge stick near a ghost will keep it from attempting to hunt for different times for different ghosts. The ghosts are as follows:

• 60 seconds for a Demon
  
• 180 seconds for a Spirit
  
• 90 seconds for all other ghosts.

There is no way to prevent a cursed hunt. Smudge sticks still work during a cursed hunt, but have less of an effect.

Cursed hunts are a lot more difficult than regular hunts. A cursed hunt is initiated by the use of a Cursed Possession.
The ways are as follows:

• Voodoo Doll - Heart pin pushed in or player reaches 0 sanity
  
• Haunted Mirror - Player reaches 0 sanity
  
• Oujia Board - Saying "Hide and Seek" or walking away without saying "Goodbye"
  
• Music Box - Ghost gets too close to music box
  
• Tarot Cards - Death card pulled
  
• Summoning Circle - Automatically happens after trapped phase is over

I have guides on a few of these objects and more coming out on the rest. Check them out if want a more in-depth guide :)


Cursed hunts last 20 seconds longer than normal hunts, and have a 1 second grace period no matter what difficulty you're on. Even if you are at %100 sanity, the ghost can still initiate a cursed hunt. The ghost also ignores cool downs.

That's basically it

What you probably think is that if it sees a player, it will follow it and if it breaks line-of-sight, it will stop. Sorry to inform you but it is WAYYY more complicated than that. Oh boy here we go:

The ghost will first have a 50% chance to set a waypoint to a location where it last detected a player from the previous hunt. If it fails, it will immediately enter the "wandering phase", where it will set a waypoint at a random location near it, move to that waypoint, check for players, then keep repeating till it finds a player. The ghost always takes the shortest path to its waypoint.

If the ghost finds a player, its wandering phase will stop and it will enter the chasing phase, setting a waypoint at the player it detected. Once it reaches the waypoint, it will keep settings way points on the detected player until it is unable to detect any them. Once it can no longer detect a player, it will search in the vicinity, before returning to the wandering phase. If multiple players are detected at the same time, it will set a waypoint at the nearest player.

The way the ghost detects the player is through tracking points. You have 3 tracking points in your head, and 3 in the legs. If a ghost can see all the 3 the tracking points in one area (not 1 in the head 2 in the legs or vise versa), the ghost now has line of sight for the player, and will chase it until it can no longer see all 3 waypoints.

If the player is seen going into a hiding spot, the ghost will set a waypoint to the hiding spot, then force open the door(s) of that hiding spot. You will most likely die unless you can close the door(s) fast enough.

All of these speeds are estimates, as it's hard to measure speeds in a video game.

Almost all ghosts have a speed of 1.6 m/s
The ghosts speed will gradually increase while it is chasing a player, with a max speed of 2.5 m/s
If it loses line of sigh of the player, it will go back to 1.6 m/s
Some ghosts have special speed abilities. They are as follows:

• A Jinn will move at a speed of 2.5 m/s if it is chasing a player further than 2 metres away while the fuse box is on, but if it gets within 2 meters of the player, it will move at 1.6 m/s. It will move at normal speed if the fuse box is on.
  
• A Moroi will move faster the lower the average sanity is, with a speed of 2.25 m/s at %0 average sanity.
  
• A Raiju moves at a speed of 2.5 m/s if it is within a small radius of any active electronic equipment. It moves at 1.6 m/s if it is outside the radius.
  
• The decoy twin of The Twins moves %10 faster than the normal ghost speed, while the main twin moves 10% slower than the normal ghost speed.

The hunt will end if the ghost successfully kills a player or the ghost's hunting time is up. If on Nightmare difficulty, each kill will extend the ongoing hunt by 15 seconds. When the hunt ends, the ghost will disappear and go back to the ghost room. All turned on lights will turn off after the hunt and can be turned back on

You can tell if a ghost is done hunting when you can no longer hear footsteps or if all lights are turned off.

• A light switch cant be flipped while a hunt is ongoing, making it a good way to figure out if it's hunting!

Whew! That was a long guide. I hope it was helpful as I put a bunch of work into it. You can now successfully know if a ghost is hunting, how to properly hide from a ghost, and all the mechanics hunts and ghosts have. If you enjoyed this guide of found it helpful, leave a like! If you want to come back to this later, favorite it so it shows up on top of all other guides on the community tab. If you think this was just the best guide ever, consider giving me an award, it helps out a ton.

Check out my other guides if you want:

• Oujia Board
  
• Spirit Box
  
• Uno Reverse
  
• Tarot Cards
  
• Voodoo Doll
  
• Haunted Mirror
  
• Music Box
  
• Summoning Circle
  
  
• DOTS
  
  
• How to identify ghosts with no evidence
  
• Easy Apocalypse Trophies
  
• All Trophies
  
• How to fix the game not opening

See any details I missed? Have a suggestion for a guide? Leave a comment!
Thanks for reading, cya!





Credits:
Keatsheimy - Writer
AaroNAUTTI - Light Switch Trick

Note:
I kindly request that you do not recreate or copy this or any of my other guides, as I put a lot of research and hard work into them. If you would like to use something from any of my guides, please contact me by leaving a comment. Thank you!