We’re bringing you some exciting tech news! We’ve partnered with NVIDIA to bring DLSS to Midnight Ghost Hunt.
NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is AI rendering technology that increases GPU performance. DLSS taps into the power of a deep learning neural network to boost frame rates and generate beautiful, sharp images for your games.
In Midnight Ghost Hunt, this means that you get to enjoy those sweet, sweet extra frames and take advantage of a 4K monitor (if you happen to have one lying around) yet cutting down on hardware strain at the same time!
NVIDIA Reflex dynamically reduces system latency by combining both GPU and game optimizations.
If your PC has an RTX 20 or 30 series graphics card, make sure to take advantage of it the next time you play MGH! Which reminds me…
We’ll be having another beta test this month, so get ready! 😉 Exact timing and more details coming soon, so keep an eye on our Discord and Twitter for updates!
As we move toward the closing of the year and the dawning of another very exciting one, it's time for a look back at the long and fascinating road that has taken us here!
2021 was the biggest year for Midnight Ghost Hunt yet - the team grew in size massively, and we made huge strides toward delivering a fun and polished game.
The feedback from our Alphas and our very first Beta have helped us on the path to making MGH an exciting and wildly fun game, and your kind words of encouragement have kept our spirits high.
So, what all went down in the MGH world this year? Glad you asked! The answer is… lots! Let's take a peek.
JANUARY
In January, the Midnight Ghost Hunt team expanded significantly when two amazing teams from Sweden became part of the MGH family. Partner studios She Was Such a Good Horse and Ernst & Borg Studio were brought on board to help make MGH the best game it can be.
She Was Such a Good Horse is a studio made up of veteran developers who came on board to support the project across all aspects of development, including the production of art assets, animations, code, and design decisions. Over the last year, we’ve moved forward in all these aspects immensely!
Ernst & Borg Studio has brought a combined experience in both traditional architecture and environment artistry to the environmental design of Midnight Ghost Hunt. Looking back to January 2021, it’s amazing to see how far the environments within MGH have evolved. The niche expertise of E&B Studio has truly brought the environments of MGH to life.
Both of the teams were super excited to be part of the MGH journey and got started by familiarizing themselves with the project, existing maps, weapons, gadgets, and abilities and taking a critical look at the game. The teams then started to work on multiple different facets of Midnight Ghost Hunt simultaneously. Museum was worked on heavily, Ghost Ship saw its very first blockout during January, the fan-favorite weapon Reaper was created all the way from concept to its first pass animations, and the Hunter Bot AI went through some major improvements!
Museum Map
First concept of the "Reaper"
Ghost animation revamp
First blockout of the Ghost Ship
FEBRUARY
By February, things were in full swing and the teams in Sweden and the U.S. were working in synergy, right in time for the first Alpha test of the year! The February Alpha test took place between the 12th and the 15th and included a ton of new and improved content including:
✨Map: Museum
✨Hunter Weapon: Reaper (Sniper Rifle)
✨Hunter Weapon: Sledgehammer
✨Ghost Ability: Corruption
✨Hunter Skin: Professor
✨Prop Animation Overhaul
During the end of January and early February, the team was heavily concentrated on prepping for the Alpha and working on implementing new prop animations, finalizing the Sledgehammer, and adding a ton of quality of life improvements.
After the test was over, it was time to go over the feedback we received and balance, balance, balance. The feedback given by the community is truly invaluable to us, and we appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to write feedback for us!
Though the Alpha test required a large amount of both prep work and post-alpha workshops, the team continued to work tirelessly behind the scenes all throughout the Alpha craziness! During February the team worked on new props, the concepts for the Vacuum and the Salt Shotgun (two of my personal favorites). One of the larger undertakings was the first-person animation rework, which included tons of stages from introducing new bones for the character rigs, a brand new camera setup, and procedural weapon animations.
Prop animation: roll
First concept of the Salt Shotgun
VACUUM WORK IN PROGRESS
MARCH
During the spring and summer of 2021, the team was deep in development and were able to establish new concepts, features, maps, weapons, and more.
The animation overhaul continued successfully, and more and more weapons and gadgets were transferred from the old system to the new one during the month of March. The Hunter’s generator got a facelift, and became the workbench-like structure it is now.
The Team's AI genius Måns was able to take the Hunter bots to a new level, improving their movement and rotation, teaching them how to use the radar, and nudge and shoot props. The bots learned to choose different targets, investigate new props in the area if the Ghost they saw disappeared, and were prompted to move to a different area if the Radar reading was zero. There was still more work to do regarding the Hunter bots, but we were definitely moving in the right direction!
In March, we also saw the first concept for the Hunter gadget Spectrophone and continued working on the Ghost Ship map.
Hunter animations
Spectrophone concept
Generator blockout
Generator prepped and ready to go
Ghost Ship starting take shape
APRIL
April was a very idea-rich month, and the team worked on both improvements on old weapons, gadgets, abilities, maps, and props but also a large volume of new ideas on all fronts.
Spectral Cannon, Harpoon Bazooka, and Project X got new animations in both first and third person, the Generator redesign was finished, and Frostbite (which was code-named Nail Gun) came to life. Some of our favorite props were also designed in April. Hint: One of them can shoot you, the other eats you!
…give up? Well, that would of course be our iconic hero props Ship Cannon and Mimic Chest!
All of the maps were also reassessed and potential improvements were mapped out (pun intended), to make sure they were fun and fair to play in as both Ghosts and Hunters. April also saw the first blockout of Graveyard, the newest map in the roster.
Chomping chest
Project X animation rework
MAY
In May, the development continued with the first iteration and implementation of the Hunter perks “Healing Aura” and “Quick Reload” and bringing the Frostbite in-game.
Lots of old favorites also got the rework treatment including the Radar, Grenades, Pathfinder, and Defibrillator. Work on the Ghost Ship and Graveyard maps continued, and the idea of underground catacombs for the Graveyard was born. We also came up with two new concepts for weapons, but we’ll hold onto that information for now. 👀
Frostbite animation test
Frostbite in-game test
Graveyard test
Skullroom plan for the Graveyard
JUNE
In June the team dedicated quite a bit of time to level design. Graveyard’s room structure started to take shape and Asylum went through a few different layout changes. The first round of polish also took place in Mansion, Asylum, Factory, and Ghost Ship.
Hunter bots were also put through quite a bit of work through the summer and they were taught to use even more gadgets and switch to the Vacuum or the Defibrillator if necessary. Tons of smaller fixes were also implemented in June.
Many of the mechanics related to Ghosts were worked on, most prominently being a total rework of the possess animation & VFX. The VFX for being broken out of a prop were also revamped with an entirely new animation for the smoke/shards. The team also added a wobble animation to highlight when a prop is possessed as a nice visual cue. Ghost consume also went through the first VFX iterations of the year.
Before the much-needed summer break, the team came up with the concept of the Flamethrower (thanks to the hotter than hot summer weather). Ragdolls were also heavily improved with a complete revamp of the physics, including Hunters getting back up after being revived.
Ghost crouch/in-air animation smoothed out
First concept of the Flamethrower
Ghost possess
JULY
In July most of the team was enjoying a much-needed and well-deserved summer break. ☀️
Towards the end of the month, the team slowly got back into the world of Midnight Ghost Hunt. Level Design continued on with collision fixes, the blockout of a map that remains under the “TOP SECRET'' label, and tons of optimization work.
Although the team tried to spend some time chilling and enjoying the summer, they still had time to work on Hunter bots, Miasma VFX, Ghost melee VFX, Death Grip, Spirit VFX, revive animations, and possess effects. I have no idea how they do it!
I (Tinny here! 👋) also had the honor of becoming part of the team MGH at the end of the month, and I’ve been so happy to be part of MGH’s story and community. You all rock!
AUGUST
Mid-August was time for our BIGGEST (and last!) alpha test ever! As we had a longer time between tests, we had a massive catalog of new content to share. Some of the new things we introduced during the August 2021 Alpha:
✨Maps: Ghost Ship & School
✨Weapons: Salt Shotgun & Frostbite
✨Gadgets: Spectrophone, Vacuum, C4
✨Ghost abilities: Death Grip, Apparition, Revamped Poltergeist, Telekinesis, and Trickster
✨Features: Experimental Party Support & Team Assignment, Visual Polish & Animation Overhaul, Experimental Controller Support
Once again, we received very thoughtful feedback and critique that helped us continue on making MGH better than ever.
The team also continued with some behind-the-scenes work, such as future content like the Medic Box and the Riot Shield. Tons of map tweaking, bug hunting, and optimization also took place backstage.
In August and September, we also tried out some new types of content on our blog. We took some deep dives into the data behind our August Alpha test and looked behind the scenes on how the team came up with the initial idea of a gadget or a weapon coming to life in-game.
Are these the types of things you like to read about? What other types of content would you like to see in the future? Let us know on Discord or Twitter!
First pass on the Med Kit
SEPTEMBER
Based on the feedback we received during the August alpha test, we started to make some changes. We realized that the Ghost Ship map was a bit too open and decided to add some things that would break the line of sight faster. We added a fence on the beach, modified the layout of the cave, and added some shelving in the ship to give Ghosts a few more options for hiding spots.
Hunter Bots went through a plethora of bug fixes, attack range tweaks, and improved attack/grenade/trap behavior.
We also started work on our new matchmaking system this month, but things really kicked off in October!
Ghost Ship fence modification
OCTOBER
October was, of course, the month of the Ghosts and a very exciting month for Midnight Ghost Hunt. We were preparing for our first ever closed Beta test. The whole team was buzzing with excitement and extremely thrilled to reach this milestone in the development journey. We didn’t think there was a better time to organize a Beta test than Halloween!
The Beta test introduced a whole host of new content, including exciting new features we’d been working on for quite some time, and were very happy to unveil for the community to check out. Here are some of them:
✨Features: Matchmaking, progression, cosmetic overhaul, prop layout variations, new voice chat system
✨Map: Graveyard
✨Weapons: Flamethrower, Riot Shield
✨Gadget: Medic Kit
✨Hunter Perks: Overkill, Gadgeteer
In addition to the Beta test at the end of the month, the team and some partners worked super intensely to get the matchmaking feature to a testable level. It was a complicated process but we’re so happy that we were able to test it on Halloween with you all (even with a couple of hiccups)! We’ve kept on working on it, and believe it can only get better from here on out!
Before the test, we also took a few sprints to be able to deliver cool new features like prop layout variations and progression unlocks.
The prop layout variations really helped change up gameplay with each match and we were pretty pleased with the result.
Progression certainly received a lot of feedback and has been internally discussed and worked on much since October. Stay tuned for more information on that.
Our brand new cinematic teaser trailer for MGH was published in announcement for this beta - if you haven’t seen it yet - check it out here!
How did you like the new Graveyard hero prop, Gargoyle? We must say it’s become one of the team favorites since the last test, and we can’t wait to see what kinds of mischief you get up to when we play next time! 😉
NOVEMBER
In November, we took a few deep breaths after the conclusion of our first beta test.
Reviewing all the bug reports and feedback from the beta was our biggest priority, and creating a plan of attack on how best to action these points.
Many bugs were fixed, maps were polished, and feedback implemented. Unfortunately, we’re not ready to release detailed information quite yet, but you should definitely keep an eye on this space in the coming year!
DECEMBER
There’s so much new stuff that the team has been working on during the last couple of months, and we’re really itching to show you what’s to come. For now, I have to hold my tongue, though, and keep a few secrets a bit longer! We can’t wait to see you in the new year, we have a feeling it’s going to be a pretty good year for MGH.
On behalf of the entire MGH team, I want to thank you all for the support throughout this wild and eventful year! We truly could not have done it without your excitement and passion propelling us along, or your feedback guiding us! Merry Ghostmas and Smashing New Year, Ghosts and Hunters! We’ll see you in 2022!
Yes, you read that title correctly! 😉 This Halloween weekend, we will be running our first closed beta test.
This beta test will start this Friday, October 29th and run through the Halloween weekend. The test is currently planned to conclude 3AM EDT Monday, November 1st.
To celebrate moving into closed beta, we've got a lovely new teaser trailer for you to check out!
Although this is our first closed beta, the NDA/no streaming rules will still stand. We have many new systems and features added that have not yet been tested at scale. We want to make sure these run smoothly before opening up for content creation, as first impressions count! Thank you for understanding, and stay tuned for news on content creation in the future.
Moving into closed beta means we are focusing more on polishing and improving existing content rather than creating new gameplay content. With this test, we think we’ve reached a good threshold of available content for a potential initial release. We feel we’ve reached a good amount of available maps, weapons, gadgets, and so on.
We would, of course, love to hear your thoughts and feedback, so keep ‘em coming on Discord and beyond!
Now, let’s see what’s new in this closed beta!
🖥️ NEW FEATURES 🖥️
Matchmaking
We’ve implemented a real matchmaking system for this test. We heard the feedback from our last test loud and clear - making fair matches is our biggest priority. Too many new players were facing off against seasoned alpha pros. This system will attempt to place you (and your party) with players of similar “skill” or playtime, similar region/ping, and more.
This is a very experimental new feature that has yet to be tested at a large scale - so that’s what we’re doing during this beta!
Progression
Instead of overwhelming new players with all the gear and ability possibilities and hundreds of combinations, we’re introducing a progression system. Fear not, leveling up is quite fast and you’ll be able to unlock all the gear and abilities once you hit level 17. We’re looking forward to hearing all of your feedback regarding this feature. If you’re a returning tester (first and foremost, thank you for joining us once again), your player level won’t be wiped out during this test, so worry not!
Cosmetic Overhaul
When you complete matches and earn XP, you’ll get a specific amount of ghost shards. Ghost shards can be used to unlock cosmetic items like skins and emotes. We wanted to experiment with a different type of system that gives you the ability to unlock skins and emotes you like the most, instead of them unlocking randomly after leveling up.
NOTE: We are not planning any microtransactions as a part of this system - it’s just a way to unlock the cosmetics you want. We will let you know if this plan changes, depending on our pricing model on the full released game.
Prop Layout Variations
Each room of each map will have several different prop layouts. This means that the props will populate the rooms in different locations. This should provide a lot more variety in the gameplay and Hunters with photographic memory won’t immediately know that a Ghost is hiding in a prop due to its location. Memorizing prop locations, hard mode!
New Voice Chat System
We have changed our voice chat provider, which should generally work better for our purposes. We’ve also implemented some ghostly touches into area voice chat, make sure to test it out. 😉
🗺️NEW MAP: Graveyard🗺️
Our new map is very appropriate, considering it’s Halloween. Are you ready to explore this multi-level cemetery? The church and the surrounding burial ground are full of new props, hiding spots, and mysteries. Remember to keep an eye on the skies as well, you never know where the Ghosts might be hiding. I bet you’re dying to get in. 💀
🔥NEW WEAPON: Flamethrower🔥
The Flamethrower is the newest addition to the MGH weapon line-up. It sprays anti-Ghost acidic flames and burns props over time. With the Flamethrower you can burn props, but you have to make sure that they’ve fully caught on fire. This works similar to the Frostbite from last test - this makes it a little harder to probe for Ghosts in props with.
💪NEW WEAPON: Riot Shield💪
Holding up the Riot Shield blocks incoming damage. After several hits the shield can overheat and you’ll need some time to let it cool down, during which you will be vulnerable. The Riot Shield also has some offensive capability with the shield bash, though with low damage and a knockback effect. It can be particularly useful after Midnight to absorb some hits, or to block incoming Poltergeist floating props or even Miasma.
🩹 NEW GADGET: Medic Kit 🩹
Medic! This is a box of medical bandages that will let you heal yourself or your teammates quickly. Each box has 3 heal charges available. You can either directly apply bandages, or leave the medic kit on the floor for others to use on themselves.
During our last test, we received feedback about the Hunter’s instant heal at the Generator being very frustrating to deal with. They could instantly recover from all damage you dealt to them every few seconds. This has been removed! Now they must equip this gadget and apply the bandages. This can take time and can be interrupted with any damage.
✨NEW PERKS✨
Overkill Want to cause some carnage? Are you a self-proclaimed FPS god? If so, Overkill sounds like the perk for you. Instead of equipping one weapon and one gadget, you can abandon the gadget slot and equip two weapons instead.
Gadgeteer The Gadgeteer perk is the reverse of Overkill. If you’re a true gadget lover and different types of gizmos and doodads are your thing, feel free to discard the weapon slot and go for two gadgets instead.
We’re looking forward to finding out what kind of combos you all will come up with!
🗝️KEYS🗝️
If you have a key from any previous test, you can join the MGH beta by simply reinstalling Midnight Ghost Hunt - Beta Test (previously called Alpha Test) on Steam to participate.
If you don’t have a key, there are a few ways for you to acquire some for the upcoming beta. Here’s how you can go about it:
JOIN US ON DISCORD! As usual, we’ll be giving away keys on our Discord, so remember to invite all your friends to join our server if they haven’t got a key! Keep an eye on your DMs, because our key bot will be hard at work a few days prior to the beta.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER! We’ll be giving away keys on our Twitter leading up to the launch of this test, so follow us there for a chance to snag a key!
SIGN UP ON THE MAILING LIST! Sign up on our newsletter here for a chance at a key! We won’t be sending as many via email due to spam filters causing many lost keys, but it’s also a good way to keep up to date with development!
We’re beyond excited to play Midnight Ghost Hunt with all of you again! We’d also love to hear what you are most looking forward to. Let's chat on Discord & Twitter, and we’ll see you on the hunt this weekend!
Have you ever wondered how we come up with the concepts for all our weapons, gadgets, maps, and so on? In this series, we’ll dive into this process and how we take things from an initial concept to ready-to-play!
In this first installment of behind the scenes, we'll be taking a look at the Spectrophone! We introduced this new Hunter gadget in our most recent test in August.
The Spectrophone tracks Ghosts by giving you a specific direction to follow - it won’t tell the Hunter how close the Ghosts are, but it lets you know whether or not you’re pointed in the right direction. Your job is to keep an eye on the waveform display and locate them by following their ghostly sounds.
The initial idea for the Spectrophone was to design a gadget that plays up the ghost sound recorder/detector trope in various ghost hunting media.
At this point in the concept phase, we’re still exploring what visual cues and tech we could draw from. Visual cues are often elements that make the design interesting but can also serve to improve readability so players can easily understand what the gadget is and does just by looking at it.
As you can see above, some of the inspiration used for the Spectrophone included old phones and voice recorders, satellite dishes, and radar speed guns. Our general gadget aesthetic in MGH is very DIY, built at home with whatever was available in the Hunter’s lab. Nothing extremely high-tech, and we try to utilize recognizable pieces of tech from the 1980s and prior.
Once we arrived at some ideas we liked in the concept, we started exploring shapes in 3D. Our 3D & concept artist Felix is an absolute wizard when it comes to this stuff! (We’re super lucky to work with such a talented bunch of individuals - you can get to know some of them by reading one of our older Dev Blogs!)
Once we have it roughed out in 3D, we go through multiple rounds of feedback and discussions as a team. We felt the first concept for the Spectrophone was a bit too cartoony - it looked like some kind of laser or classic sci-fi weaponry instead of a gadget.
We also needed to keep in mind how the Hunter would actually hold and use the device. We experimented with a few options here. We tried one design where the Spectrophone was held cupped in the Hunter’s hands against their body (a bit like a Rolleiflex camera, for example).
We also tried a positioning that looked a bit like a Steadicam set-up. Neither felt quite right, so we continued to iterate. The shots above really help illustrate how the ideas evolve and grow.
We felt that the old voice recorder wheel felt out of place, and perhaps a little bit too old-school, 60s style. We decided to bring the Spectrophone tech up to the 80s and 90s by switching the voice recorder wheels for a retro cassette recorder. Starting to sound familiar?
Around the same time, we also considered the option of making the Spectrophone into a two-handed gadget instead. We were also fiddling with an idea of a neck strap that would allow the left hand to tune the knob and other controls of the Spectrophone. At this point, we felt like we were definitely heading in the right direction, and decided to continue with that design.
In the end, we decided to ditch the idea of the neck strap, and go with two gadget pieces connected by a phone wire. Although the gadget has a sound component, a clear visual read-out on the display was an important element to keep for extra clarity.
Once we were happy with the general look, it was time to animate it, start sound design, and put it in-game!
We were quite happy with the great paranormal vibe Dennis was able to create for the Spectrophone with his clever sound design. This pairs well with the display, and also serves as a nice cue for Ghosts to hear if they are being detected currently.
When the audio & animation elements have been finalized, it’s time to make some final tweaks and get to testing! Before we share the new content with the players, we go through tons of internal testing, and then we balance, balance, balance. Once the gadget has been released into the wild in an alpha test, we pay close attention to how balanced it seems and how it’s used to see if any further tweaks or adjustments are needed to ensure it’s fun and fair.
So, that’s the development process for the Spectrophone gadget in a nutshell! Thanks for reading.
Please let us know if you like this kind of content and would like to see more behind the scenes content. If so, let us know which gadgets, weapons, abilities, or maps you’d like to see most! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so hit us up on Discord & Twitter!
This week, we’re conducting an in-depth analysis on the usage of various Hunter and Ghost loadout options during our most recent alpha test!
This data helps us understand how people are playing, and for insight on what adjustments need to be made. Let us know which loadout was your favorite and why on Discord and Twitter!
HUNTER GADGETS
Hunter Gadgets
In Alpha Learnings Vol. 1 we discussed which Hunter weapons were most popular during our most recent alpha. This time, we’re taking a peek at the most popular gadgets.
First place goes to Radar, with 29.5% of players selecting it as their gadget of choice. Being the default gadget, it doesn’t surprise us to see Radar at the top of the list, but it is good to know that everyone still feels Radar is a useful gadget!
Second place goes to Vacuum with 20.9%. The feedback showed that splitting Vacuum away from Spectral Cannon was a good decision! The vast majority of the feedback we saw showed that this change helped add more teamwork to the matches, which is great news! As always, we are super thankful for all the feedback, it helps us make important decisions like this.
Pathfinder earned itself a bronze medal with 17.7% of the players searching for ghostly footsteps through the monitor. We did hear some concerns about the monitor being difficult to look at for extended periods of time - maybe even a bit nauseating - we’re looking into ways to improve this!
Our new Spectrophone gadget came in fourth, being picked 10% of the time! The feedback showed that having a fully directional gadget was very effective at finding ghosts. We were thrilled to find out that the Spectrophone found its place alongside Radar and Pathfinder, and that they could be combined to make finding ghosts even easier!
As seen in the chart above, the rest of the gadgets were selected pretty evenly. Many of them were fairly niche use cases, but there were situations where they came in handy. Of course, your playstyle really determines the gadgets you choose. Grappling hook is great for chasing ghosts once they are found, but you have to find them first!
HUNTER PERKS
Hunter Perks
Lightweight took a landslide victory as the most popular Hunter perk with a whopping 40.1%. Like Radar, Lightweight is the default - so this isn’t entirely surprising. Sprinting after ghosts or running away from danger is always useful!
A pleasant surprise to see that Healing Aura, a brand new perk, was chosen 18.3% of the time! Being able to heal from chip damage, such as Miasma, makes a lot of sense as a Hunter. Healing Aura fills that need nicely!
GHOST PERKS
Ghost Perks
The race for the number one perk slot was close, but Ghostly Reach came out on top with 29.5% of players choosing it. It is our default, of course, and is useful in most situations.
Coming in as a close second was Perception, which was selected 28.7% of the time. We may be looking at ways to make perception feel a little more fair - like adding a range limit, past a certain distance the Hunters visibility would fade off. Let us know what you think of this!
Overall, we’re pleasantly surprised to see more and more players stray from the default loadout and try out different combinations of abilities and perks!
The rest of the Ghost perks were much more evenly split. Ecto-slow and Ghostly Focus were both selected by over 10% of Ghost players, clocking in at 12.3% and 10.4% respectively. Do you swear by one of the lesser-used Ghost perks? We’d love to hear why!
GHOST HAUNTS
Ghost Haunts
All of the haunts were quite evenly split, with the default haunt Chill having a tiny edge at 17.9%. Push Object and Shove Hunter were right around the corner garnering 16.9% and 15.6% respectively.
Side note, have you considered using Shove Hunter to push a hunter off the top of Ghost Ship into the salty depths? It is very fun, ask me how I know 👀
False Trail was among the most popular haunts at 14.3%, and comes in handy if the Hunters are using Pathfinder. Lead the Hunters away from your teammates, and save the day!
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Thanks for reading through all of the analysis, folks! We have at least one more Dev Blog in this series coming your way, where we’ll go through even more interesting data and put on our analyst caps once more. Remember to keep an eye on this space, because we want to keep serving up all the juicy bits of data we can get our hands on!
One final reminder that our Alpha Survey is closing in a few days, so if you haven’t answered it yet, make sure to do it HERE! 💭
Thanks for joining us once again for an exciting deep dive into alpha stats, and have a wonderful weekend!
We’re back with another helping of interesting stats from our latest alpha! This time, we’re diving deeper into more specifics on win rate and match outcomes. If you didn’t get a chance to check out the latest alpha, be sure to follow along on Discord and Twitter for an opportunity to get in on our next testing rounds!
HUNTERS
Let’s look a little deeper at the Hunter win conditions, and how often they occurred. There are 3 ways Hunters can win a match: destroying all Ghosts before Midnight, destroying all Ghosts after Midnight, and escaping after Midnight has run its course.
Hunter Win Conditions
As you might expect, most Hunter victories occurred before Midnight. This is when the Ghosts are weak and try to hide. During our latest alpha test, 74.8% of all Hunter victories were this type.
After Midnight strikes, things get a little bit trickier for the Hunters - the Ghost’s onslaught can be brutal. The data points to 23% of all Hunter victories occurring via destroying all Ghosts AFTER midnight, which is a little bit higher than anticipated. It should be a pretty rare occurrence to successfully pull that off, with great teamwork and coordination. As we mentioned in our last blog, C4s/traps/grenade camping strategies ended up being a bit too powerful overall, as well as the instant generator heal every 5 seconds. We think in the next test we’ll find a better balance there.
Lastly, Hunters could also win by just surviving the Midnight duration. This was the rarest victory during this test - coming in at 2.2% of all Hunter victories. Even with various Coldblooded and Grappling Hook strategies, it became more consistent to just fight the Ghosts after Midnight than running away. We’ll be looking into this as we continue to balance and tweak the game to find a good medium.
GHOSTS
Ghosts have two win condition types: taking out all Hunters before Midnight, or after Midnight. As you might expect, destroying the Hunters after Midnight is much more common, as that is their attack phase. About 84% of all Ghost victories turned out that way during the last test.
Ghost Win Conditions
Aggressive Ghost play pre-Midnight is possible but can be tricky to pull off. This occurred in about 16% of Ghost victories. It can be punished quite quickly by coordinated Hunter play, and recovered from with timely defibrillators. However, if Ghosts can catch a Hunter out alone by themselves, or the Ghosts wombo combo their abilities together, it makes for a pretty fun and exciting strategy. Lead Developer Kite’s tip: Comboing Death Grip + Poltergeist + Corruption + Miasma coordinated in one room makes for a bit of a meat grinder!
MAPSSACRE
Throughout the alpha weekend, we saw a pretty balanced play rate of each map, which was encouraging to see. Ghost Ship was our most played map at 17.4% of all matches played - which makes sense, it has a very strong theme and was featured in our alpha teaser clip.
Map Play Rates
The rest were fairly evenly split - even School, our other new map, that was mistakenly not included in the quick play rotation on the first day of the alpha.
It seems that we’ve got a fairly solid roster of maps so far - we will continue to incorporate feedback on each map as we continue, and try to make them all equally interesting and balanced going forward. I heard a little birdie mention to me that Factory might be getting another layout/polish pass, but you didn’t hear it from me.
Ghost Ship
According to the data, Ghost Ship was definitely a bit Hunter favored. Hunters took home the win 59.4% of the time on Ghost Ship. The community feedback was fairly clear on this front - too wide open, not enough smaller props, not enough clear good hiding spots. We’re working on this internally.
Ghost Ship Match Outcome
We, of course, want maps to have different identities and strategies, but we want to ensure the balance is within reason, and we’ve got some ideas to get there. For starters, we’re thinking of breaking up the line of sight a bit more on the beach and tweaking the cave to be a better place to hide. Let us know what you think on Discord - what does Ghost Ship need in your opinion?
School
On the other side of the spectrum, the School map was certainly more Ghost favored. 56.4% of matches in the School resulted in Ghost victories. As the community feedback noted, we’ve got a lot of prop clutter in various areas, and some very tight choke points that favor Ghost escapes and abilities.
School Match Outcome
We think this adds some cool unique flavor to the map, but we’re thinking of making some adjustments to prop counts and layouts to make it a little closer to that coveted 50/50 ratio. Let us know on Discord your thoughts on this map, of course!
PRECISION CHANGES
Overall, we want to start with relatively small modifications here to even things up a bit without doing anything too drastic that might radically alter the levels.
We feel like we’re already relatively close, but as they say, the last 10% can take quite some time. We’ll get there, and stay tuned for more updates on that front!
MORE JUICY DATA COMING SOON!
That’s all the analysis we have for you this week! We’ll continue digging through the data and have another blog post for all you curious folks in the coming weeks, so be sure to check back soon. Let us know if you enjoy this kind of dev blog or if you’d rather see other types of content. We think it’s interesting to dig into data like this and give context and start a discussion, but definitely let us know your thoughts. We appreciate it!
With MGH’s latest alpha weekend in the books, we’ve started digging into all sorts of statistics and other data to get a sense of how things went. We’ve also been sorting through all the great player feedback we received in places like our Discord and Twitter.
First off, we want to thank everyone for playing and sharing their thoughts. This has been incredibly helpful for the team to identify the game’s biggest priorities going forward. Thanks for helping us make MGH as good as it can be!
A quick aside - we heard the calls for a proper matchmaking system loud and clear during this test. It became very clear that experienced players were grouping up and making the new player experience frustrating. We are looking into potential solutions and will keep everyone posted.
This week, we thought it would be interesting to deep dive into some interesting stats and data from the most recent test. In the coming weeks we will continue to dig into more data, so keep an eye out for that!
GHOSTS VS. HUNTERS
Let’s start with the biggest stat: overall win-rate between our two teams, Ghosts and Hunters! Hunters definitely had the edge this time around, taking home the W in about 53% of matches all weekend long. We’ve already got a pretty good idea of why that is, and what we will look into changing to get closer to that elusive 50/50 split.
Ghosts vs. Hunters
A common strategy we noticed was for Hunters to camp around the generator after Midnight, utilizing traps and C4 to annihilate the red Ghosts. This allowed the Hunters to utilize the generator for an instant heal, making it very frustrating for the Ghosts to confirm any kills during their period of revenge.
Ghosts essentially needed to one-shot Hunters quickly or they didn’t really stand a chance at breaking that healing cycle if the Hunters were coordinated at all. On the Saturday night patch, as a stop-gap measure we increased the generator cooldown from 5 seconds to 10 seconds. But we recognize this is not a solid long term fix, as a longer cooldown makes changing your loadout feel very clunky if a wrong selection was made.
As for a longer term fix, we are investigating a number of options. Our current thinking is to decouple healing from the generator change loadout functionality. More details to come on that front, but please let us know in our Discord or other channels your thoughts on this topic!
C4 and grenade spam was a fairly common strategy, as well. C4 felt very low-risk to just spam it at your feet and hope for the best. As of our Saturday night patch, we added self-damage to C4 in an attempt to add some risk and strategy to the use of the gadget. We also reduced the maximum amount of C4 to 3, down from 6 on the Friday patch (which was a little absurd). We will see if these changes are enough, or if we need additional tweaking.
Grenades seemed less of a problem since the large timer before it detonates, but we are looking at ways to prevent the endless spam of them near the Generator, as that feels a bit unfair of course.
We will keep trying things out internally and will keep everyone posted. As always, let us know your thoughts on our official channels!
YOUR WEAPON OF CHOICE WAS…
You’re probably all dying (haha, 👻) to find out which weapons were community favorites, right? Or perhaps you already know, because approximately 22% of all of you Hunters selected Salt Shotgun as your weapon of choice. The second favorite was the other new weapon, Frostbite, at 20%. We’re hyped to see you testing out the new weapons! Shotguns and SMGs are FPS favorites, so we’re not too surprised about these results seeing as they’re both basically a means to the same end: deal damage quickly (either via one big, strong boom, or a bunch of little ones).
Hunter Weapon Breakdown
We heard the common feedback that Salt Shotgun’s damage falloff is unclear and perhaps too harsh - doing either high damage or very little at all. We are digging into this and would like to find a nice balance going forward.
Frostbite was thought to be a bit overpowered on our Friday patch - a little too easy to freeze props. We made a slight tweak on the Friday night patch to both the damage and the freeze speed, and that seemed to make it feel more reasonable.
AND THE FAVORITE ABILITY GOES TO...
Ghost abilities are very dependent on your playstyle and we didn’t have as clear favorites as the Hunter weapons. The reworked Poltergeist ability was a slight favorite, with almost 15% of Ghosts using this ability. Corruptor and Phantom were closely behind Poltergeist nearing 13% each.
Ghost Ability Breakdown
Poltergeist being redesigned as a floating haunted object trap seemed to resonate with many players, especially with its combo potential with the Corruptor ability. Flying exploding furniture can be very effective!
Overall, it’s nice to see that there is enough balance among our Ghost abilities to get people testing out a bit of everything. We will continue to monitor these and make some changes (such as the Death Grip + Ghostly Focus combo being a little bit absurd), but overall we are pleased at the state of things here.
That’s it for this week - thanks for reading! Next week we will continue digging into interesting stats and data points. Don’t miss it!
Once more, we humbly thank you for joining our latest alpha test and sending great feedback and bug reports. We truly appreciate it!
I know we’ve kept you Ghosts and Hunters waiting for another chance to play, but fear not! You don’t have to wait much longer - it’s time for our BIGGEST Alpha weekend yet!
Mark your calendars, because the next Alpha test will start this Friday the 13th: AUGUST 13th - 15th!
Seems like a pretty fitting date, don’t you think?
🗺️NEW MAPS🗺️
(Yep, plural.)
Ghost Ship It’s a pirate’s life for you! Ghost Ship will take you back to simpler thieving times. Are you ready to explore this haunted ship in a lost pirate cove? Time to get up to pirate shenanigans! Possess all the pirate booty you can get your ghostly hands on. Maybe you can even find some hidden treasures? Watch out for the cannons and mimic chests, though.
School It looks like someone has been summoning spirits on Prom Night! What happened to all the students and staff? Hunters, gear up & find out what spooky shenanigans took place on that fateful night. Ghosts, never let the hunters leave and bury the secrets with them!
This hellish high school has a quaint 80s charm, and fans of our classic Mansion map are sure to enjoy hiding in these narrow hallways and hidden ledges.
Oh, and there’s a possessable disco ball. That’s pretty cool, I guess.
💣NEW WEAPONS 💣
Salt Shotgun Did you know Ghosts don’t like salt? Our latest weapon is a double-barreled shotgun that spews salt shakers! The Salt Shotgun deals some serious close-range, high-sodium carnage, so spray away!
Frostbite Freeze!We think Frostbite is the coolest submachine gun weapon out there. The supercooled shards can stop a possessed prop in its tracks like nothing else.
📱 NEW GADGETS 📱
Spectrophone The Spectrophone will allow you to detect ghostly sounds in front of you. While the Radar gadget detects how close you are to a Ghost, the Spectrophone only gives you a direction. This pairs well with Radar to “triangulate” those tricky Ghosts.
Vacuum Vacuum is now its own gadget!Those pesky ghosts could get revived if you don’t vacuum up their shards - so make sure you have at least one handy on your team. (Spectral Cannon no longer has a vacuum function.)
C4 Bombs away! If you’re surrounded by possessed props, our handy new C4 explosives could save you and your teammates. C4 is sticky and can be placed on walls, props, ghosts, etc.
👻 NEW GHOST ABILITIES 👻
There are five new ghost abilities for you to explore! These new additions make the ghost gameplay a bit more dynamic & versatile, allowing for new gameplay strategies to be uncovered.
We encourage you to try comboing abilities with your spooky teammates for maximum effect. Become the tricky Ghosts that you were born to be, and confuse & mislead the Hunters every chance you get!
Death Grip Death Grip is a Hunter-trapping ability. If Hunters walk over the trap, ghostly arms will grab them from below and hold them in place until broken. Excellent for losing a tail, or for holding a Hunter in place before hitting them in the head with a lamp.
Apparition Apparition spawns a fake Ghost that will run in a random direction. This is great for a quick distraction during a getaway.
(Revamped) Poltergeist Poltergeist has been reworked into an entirely new ability - you can now haunt an object, causing it to float menacingly. If a Hunter approaches the floating object, it will hurl itself at the Hunter automatically. One shot to the floating object will cause it to fall harmless, however. Combos great with Corruptor.
Telekinesis Old Poltergeist has been renamed Telekinesis. This still lets you remotely charge up props to deal damage, just with some bug fixes and overall aiming improvements.
Trickster Tricksters can select any prop and move them to a specified location, making it seem as though the moving prop is possessed by a Ghost player. Extremely good for causing a distraction and even blocking incoming shots.
🖥️ NEW FEATURES 🖥️
Experimental Party Support & Team Assignment We’re trying to make the game easier to play with friends. If you are in a party with friends, you will now stay on the same team as them when joining lobbies. No more being split from your friends!
We haven't tested this at scale yet, but hey… that's what Alphas are for!
Expanded Tutorials and Practice Play We've revamped our tutorial experience to be more in-depth and should help new players get a better grasp of important mechanics. We’ve even got fancy voice acting! (Please give us feedback on this!) After the tutorial, you can also go to the new practice area to give your spooky skills a little sharpening. Target dummies, and a safe location to practice and learn about all your gadgets and abilities.
Visual Polish & Animation Overhaul We've taken a full polish pass on all animations, giving them a much better feel and fluidity. Weapons should feel more impactful and weighty. Many weapons and abilities have had their visual effects improved as well.
Experimental Controller Support In an effort to make the game as accessible as possible, we’ve spent some time to set up basic controller support. Should work for in-game and in most menus. When switching to a controller, all of the key prompts should update immediately with the new gamepad buttons.
This is experimental and probably has lots of issues, please report any bugs or feedback in general in-game!
And that’s not all!There’s a lot more stuff - but we won't be spilling all our secrets quite yet!
We'd prefer you experience them for yourselves. This is our biggest alpha test to date, and we’re super excited for everyone to give it a try.
As usual, we will be giving a large amount of keys out over the course of the alpha. If you already have a key, you can play! Just reinstall Midnight Ghost Hunt - Alpha Test on Steam on Friday.
If you’re so inclined, there are a few ways for you to acquire keys for the upcoming Alpha. Here’s how you can go about it:
JOIN US ON DISCORD! As usual, we’ll be giving away keys on our Discord, so remember to invite all your friends to join our server! Keep an eye on your DMs, because our key bot will be hard at work a few days prior to the Alpha.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER! We’ll be giving away keys on our Twitter leading up to the launch of this test, so follow us there for a chance to snag a key!
SIGN UP ON THE MAILING LIST! Sign up on our newsletter here for a chance for a key! We won’t be sending as many via email due to spam filters causing many lost keys, but always a good way to keep up to date with development!
We’re beyond excited to play Midnight Ghost Hunt with all of you again! We’d also love to hear what you are most looking forward to. Let's chat on Discord & Twitter!
