It's hard to believe that it has almost been a whole year since Midnight Ghost Hunt 1.0 launched. As we approach our 1-year anniversary, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past year, share where we are now, and give you a little teaser of what's to come.
Looking Back
Over the past year, we've been working hard to keep Midnight Ghost Hunt fresh and exciting with a steady stream of updates. From balancing tweaks to brand-new features, we've listened to community feedback and pushed out changes that (hopefully!) made the game even better. Some of the highlights include:
Update 1.1: This update introduced the 'Copycat' ghost ability, allowing ghosts to duplicate props; the 'Ecto-Rush' ghost ability, enabling quick dashes; and the 'Berserk' hunter perk, providing damage and speed boosts when health is low.
Update 1.2: This update brought the new Hunter Perk 'Farsight', allowing hunters to see corrupted and poltergeist props through walls, and the new Ghost Haunt 'Conjurer', enabling ghosts to spawn random large props at their location.
Update 1.3: Just in time for Halloween, we added five new cosmetics, including the 'Vampire' and 'Lost Astronaut' ghost skins, and 'Pumpkin Hunter' and 'Witch Hunter' skins for hunters.
Update 1.4: We celebrated the festive season with the 'Scary Santa' ghost skin, 'Jolly Spectral Cannon' weapon skin, improvements to ghost abilities like 'Apparition' and 'Trickster', and decorated with Christmas-themed props.
Where We Are Now
After our 1.0 launch last year, the rest of the team moved on to other projects, leaving just Kite and I (Skedog) to keep MGH going—and only part-time at that. What this meant for MGH was less frequent, and smaller scale updates.
We were hoping to see stronger player retention and growth, but that has turned out not to be the case. Despite that, Kite and I have continued working on MGH because we love the game; and we know there is a small, but passionate community that loves it too.
I personally have been involved with MGH for over 6 years. Through ups and downs, highs and lows, MGH will always hold a special place in my heart, and I feel very lucky to have been involved at all. It is the first game I have ever worked on, and I couldn't be more proud of what we created.
Of course, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Kite has been the heart of MGH from the very beginning:
Hey y’all, Kite here. Figure I’d jump in and sort of look back on MGH development and ramble for a little bit. It’s not a eulogy, probably more like a nice little trip down memory lane.
Midnight Ghost Hunt was my first game, and looking back, I couldn’t be prouder of what we created. It started in 2017 with a simple idea—what if we took the chaotic fun of Prop Hunt and gave it a world, a setting that made sense? I was a huge fan of Prop Hunt back in college, playing it in Garry’s Mod and watching streamers create these ridiculous, memorable moments. I wanted to take that concept and evolve it, adding depth and a framework where hiding in furniture actually had a reason. Ghosts hiding in objects just made sense.
On a side note, that means I’ve been working on this game in some capacity for almost 8 years, and that certainly has made a few more grey hairs appear. Hah!
At the time, I barely knew how to use Unreal Engine. I had taken a class on Unreal Engine 3 in community college, but when I started, I was mostly learning through tutorials and trial by fire. Coming from an artist's background in VFX, I wanted to take a shot at indie game development, and Midnight Ghost Hunt became my way of doing that. What started as a simple idea grew into something much bigger, especially after teaming up with Coffee Stain. Their feedback and support helped expand the scope, and as the team grew, so did the game.
Making a PvP multiplayer game as my first project was... a pretty insane challenge in hindsight. PvP brings so many unique design hurdles—every mechanic has to feel good from both sides, and with competitive games, there’s always a risk of frustration and friction between players. Having to deal with anti-cheat, moderation, various service outages, was definitely a trial by fire. But through all the challenges, I kept learning, and I’m incredibly proud of what we pulled off.
Of course, I didn’t do this alone. Midnight Ghost Hunt wouldn’t be what it is without the incredible people who worked on it over the years. I want to give a huge shout-out to everyone—developers, moderators, and internal testers—who contributed their talent and effort to making the game what it is. And I especially want to thank Skedog, who has been the backbone of this project. From keeping the Discord running to basically being a producer helping keep us all on track, Skedog has been absolutely invaluable. He’s been the MVP of Midnight Ghost Hunt, and I’m so grateful to have met him through this project.
And to the players—thank you. Some of my favorite memories from this whole journey are from the alpha and beta weekend events. The chaos of everyone rushing to get a key, jumping into matches, playing late into the night—it was an absolute blast. There’s nothing better as a developer than seeing people have fun with something you made.
And if you were there, you probably remember how we’d end the tests—I’d take everyone who stuck around to check out some of the new maps in progress, and then we’d all head to the R&D map, this big floating test box. And right before the servers shut down, we’d all jump into the void together. That’s a memory I’ll always hold onto.
