Ghost Room

A **ghost room**, officially referred to as the **favourite room**, is a specific room that the ghost will "prefer", or base specific actions upon. Those can be limited to whole rooms of a building but can also include hallways, some stairwells, enclosed areas, campsite tents, etc. Ghosts may leave their room while hunting or simply being more active due to a player's decreasing sanity, but in general, their activity will be localised to the favourite room and its immediate surroundings.

Finding the favourite room in itself is not an objective found on the Objective Board, however, it simplifies the task of identifying the type of ghost correctly and allows players to gain photo rewards more quickly. The favourite room remains the same per each game on all difficulty levels except for Professional, Nightmare, and Insanity. The favourite room plays a lesser role once the type of ghost has been identified correctly and will usually serve as a reference for player activity during hunts.

## Mechanics

### Favourite room

Whenever a map is loaded in, an area will be randomly selected as the favourite room. The favourite room is relevant for the following behaviour:

* The ghost will spawn in the favourite room at the contract's start.
* The ghost will teleport to the favourite room at the end of every hunt.
* The ghost will roam back to the room after certain conditions are satisfied.
* Ghost Orbs, if the ghost has the evidence, will be present in only the favourite room.
* The Haunted Mirror will show a view of the favourite room.
* *The Hermit* tarot card and the "I wish to trap the ghost" wish from the Monkey Paw will teleport the ghost to the favourite room and temporarily trap it there.

### Ghost's current location/room

As an invisible entity by default, ghosts can perform *roaming* simply to walk around. This can include roaming to another room; this does *not* change the favourite room. The following behaviour relates to where the ghost actually is:

* Ghosts will interact with objects in a certain radius around itself.
* Ghosts always start a hunt from its current position (except for The Twins in some cases).
* Ghosts can initiate ghost events (naturally) if the player is within a certain range of the ghost.
* All evidence (other than Ghost Orbs) are tied to either the ghost's current location or being in the same room as the ghost.
* Ouija Board responses always give the ghost's current room, not the favourite one.

Generally, ghosts will spend most of their time in the favourite room and will not roam far off. Still, they may move far away from their room if they have an ability that allows them to do so (the Wraith's teleport ability, the Banshee's roaming ability, and the Phantom's travel ability), or perform a ghost event on a player that is somewhat far from the ghost room (but not too far). These instances are technically not a "roaming phase, " but may roam after performing these actions.

### Changing favourite rooms

Three criteria are used to determine whether the favourite room will change. Suppose the ghost performs a 'long roam' and ends up in a room that is not its current favourite. In that case, the ghost will perform a chance roll based on the *Changing favourite room* difficulty setting:

* **None (Amateur, Intermediate):** 0%
* **Low (Professional):** 33%
* **Medium (Nightmare):** 66%
* **High (Insanity):** 100%

If the chance above succeeds, a second chance roll is performed on the complement of the average sanity (or insanity); for example, an average sanity of 80% has a 20% chance of succeeding. If both chances are successful, the favourite room will change to the ghost's current room.

The Goryo cannot change its favourite room by itself, even with favourite room changing set to High. Using a specific Monkey Paw wish can force the Goryo to change the favourite room once.

## Definition of rooms

The investigation area will be bounded by physical barriers and one or more exit for all maps. The ghost can only be present within the investigation area; the ghost cannot exit or spawn outside the investigation area. Some maps also contain outdoor areas where the ghost may be present:

* Maple Lodge Campsite and Camp Woodwind: Outdoor camping area (limited by the wooden gates)
* Sunny Meadows Mental Institution/Restricted: Square courtyard

For all other maps, only indoor areas are considered part of the investigation area; this includes hallways and corridors.

Some maps have corridors or hallways which *cannot* be chosen as the favourite room. The ghost can still roam into these rooms, provide evidences in these rooms, interact with items in or around the room, and spawn in these rooms during hunts or manifestations, but Ghost Orbs cannot be present in these rooms, and the ghost will not teleport to these rooms after a hunt.

The maps with such rooms are:

Brownstone High School
* All hallways and staircases of both floors (not including Lobby)

Maple Lodge Campsite
* Campsite A
* Campsite B
* North East Path

Prison
* Main hallway (the entire stretch connecting both prison blocks up to the metal bars segregating the hallway and the cell blocks, as well as the attached staircase)
* Second floor corridor (the corridor connecting both staircases)

Sunny Meadows Mental Institution
* All hallways and staircases of both floors (except Entrance Corridor)
* All inaccessible rooms

### Room segmentation

Mechanic-wise, rooms may be segmented differently for the ghost than what is visually perceived by players. Rooms separated by walls may be merged to be considered as one room, while rooms that are not separated by walls may actually be regarded as multiple rooms. The Ouija Board's answers to the ghost's current location, as well as the location of Ghost Orbs, depend on each room's defined boundaries.

##### Rooms not separated by visible walls

Some rooms that seem like a single room are broken down into multiple rooms with no apparent visual barrier. For example:

* The Kitchen and Dining Room in Bleasdale Farmhouse are actually two different rooms despite no wall or barrier visually separating them.
* The hallways on each level of Brownstone High School are divided into three separate sections: the left, front, and right.
* In 10 Ridgeview Court, upon first entering the house, what appears to be one room actually consists of three different rooms: The Foyer, Dining Room, and Living Room.
* In Maple Lodge Campsite, the outdoor paths and tenting areas are split up into several "rooms" not including the tents themselves.

##### Rooms composed of multiple walled rooms

Some favourite rooms actually consist of two or more visually-distinct, walled rooms connected by doorways. For example:

* Nearly all smaller bathrooms or storage rooms that are attached to a larger bedroom are considered as part of the same room as the bathroom, except for the Grafton Farmhouse storage (which is bigger than the connected bedroom).
* In 42 Edgefield Road, the "Basement" room consists of both the hallway and the attached storage room.
* In Brownstone High School, each Science Class Room (i.e., Science Class Room 1, 2, 3, and 4) is a room that consists of two rooms separated by a wall and a door.
* On the Prison's second floor, the Infirmary as a room actually consists of two rooms that contain medical beds.

In any favourite room that consists of two or more walled rooms, any Ghost Orbs, Freezing Temperatures, or other evidence may appear in *any* of the walled rooms. The ghost can spawn for hunts in any of these rooms. This is essential to know, for example, to complete the crucifix objective.

## Tips

* As the favourite room or the current location of the ghost can be a corridor, hallway, or large room, there may be difficulties for the players especially when it comes to the accurate use of equipment such as crucifixes and Incense.
* Rooms on small maps containing stairways (i.e, basements in most houses, the Foyer on Ridgeview, etc.) will always include said stairway when chosen as a favourite room.

## See also

* Locating the ghost
* Third-party tools#Evidence and map tools

## References

1. ↑ https://discord.com/channels/435431947963990026/765596827537244200/906221726554267678