Developer: Silent Forest Games
Publisher: Silent Forest Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Prop Haunt – Preview
Right in time for spooky season, we’re looking at Prop Haunt, a 4v1 multiplayer horror game by indie studio Silent Forest Games. Currently in Early Access, this horror experience leans more into the casual side, with four players taking the role of ghosts that haunt a building. The last player is a paranormal investigator who must evade the ghosts’ tricks and eliminate them all before they take over. It’s simple, but a lot of fun, especially if you can get some friends along for the journey. Settle in on a cold autumn night, and let’s see what kind of mischief we can get up to.
Prop Haunt immediately charms with the straightforwardness of the setup, needing little in explanation of narrative or lore. A building is haunted by ghosts, and it’s the investigator’s job to exorcise them. If they don’t, the ghosts can gather up enough power to destroy full rooms and even pierce the veil between the living and the dead. And we probably don’t need to tell you why that has to be avoided.
Overall, the game looks good, if a little bit rough around the edges. We can tell that Prop Haunt was made with downloaded assets. Still, they’re all utilized well to make for visually interesting rooms, with multiple maps allowing for some variety in the settings you get to haunt or investigate. Similarly, the user interface feels a little clunky to us, with the amount of text on screen and the constant button prompts. However, putting these small design flaws aside, the game’s graphics are nicely put together for somebody’s first official project. We feel similar about the music and sound effects. They’re far from terrible, but seem to mainly consist of stock audio. Nothing terrible about that, and some of the music was actually pretty dang good. The game encourages sitting in VC for proper communication between the ghosts that are working together, though the investigator is on their own for the run of the match.
As mentioned, Prop Haunt is a 4v1 multiplayer horror game with pretty simplistic mechanics and more of a party game vibe, though that doesn’t mean there are no scares lurking around the corner. The game will be vastly different, depending on whether you’re playing as a ghost or the investigator. The ghosts work in a team of up to four players, though you can also play the game with one ghost and one investigator if you want a hard challenge. But due to difficulty scaling, we recommend making sure your ghost team consists of at least two players. As a ghost, you can move around the building into different rooms and haunt items. The nature of the haunting can differ, and you have free rein on what objects to haunt. Haunting items without being caught will allow you to increase your power, eventually leading to more tricks you can pull.
A lot of these tricks will further impede the investigator’s progress. You can cut out their power, for example, or cause technical failures that prevent the investigator from catching ghosts. You can even jumpscare the poor guy if you’re feeling evil. While the ghosts do outnumber the investigator, being subtle and working together is still key, since the investigator can easily win by wiping all the ghosts out near the start of the game. Meanwhile, the ghosts need to bide their time, building up enough power through hauntings to destroy entire rooms. If they destroy enough rooms, they win the match.
If you’re playing as the investigator, it’s your job to keep an eye on the cameras, cycle through different rooms, and catch ghosts in the act. The quicker you can catch them, the more you can prevent them from gathering their powers. But as the match progresses and the ghosts become stronger, they can start messing with you more. Sometimes, they even force you to get up from your desk and move around, which suddenly transforms the game into a more classic first-person horror. The game is obviously more tense and scary when you play as the investigator, but we recommend playing the game in either position at least once to see what you like more. It’s definitely a good time whichever one you pick.
Conclusion
Prop Haunt is relatively new on the scene of multiplayer horror, but we personally found it a nice change of pace compared to other games in the genre. We think it’s more fun playing this with friends and not strangers, as the rivalry between the investigator and ghosts is best experienced that way. But for an Early Access game, this already offers a lot, and we’re excited to see what more will be added.
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