How to win the game

[Wicked Sick]

How to beat the game if you made one of the biggest mistakes of your life and bought this crаp.
1. Yes there is one strategy. Run like hell and collect stuff along the way. The game is generating corridors, rooms and stuff randomly, so don't bother trying to find the way back, just run forward. If you have a few seconds you can enter the room and pick up the page. If the hatman is too close - you should pass by even if you hear there is a page / item in the room.
2. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT HIDING. With one of the updates, hatman has wallhack a priori installed, so even if you "hide" in any room/toilet, he will see you through walls. He will not go away even if you "hide" and turn off the light. He will wait for you outside the room, so basically you can no longer hide because now hiding = trap.
3. AVOID STAIRS. If you have a choice wheter to turn right to the stairs or to the left corridor or go straight on the corridor - you choose corridor. Hatman will spawn nearby with high chance if you are using the stairs (maybe this is the feature of the game)
4. Another thing is - avoid stucking in the corridor with the deadly pit if you don't have a crowbar. Because there is a very high chance that hatman will be on your back and so you will stuck and will have to restart.
5. Don't be shy and use televisions to save your game. ( If you want two achievements about beating the game without saving - don't use TVs, make it edgy >:D )
6. The breaking point is when you pick up an old fuse in the electropathy room. Hatman turns into the ghost of the daughter right after you pick up the fuse. He is faster in this form. RUN LIKE HELL. There's a chance he will spawn even closer to you than in the beginning of the game. And it is then harder to lose him. The hardest part is to find the last pages when you get up from the basement.
7. When you open the journal, in-game time stops and you can read the page.
8. Unproven strategy to lose hatman is to run away from him with the torch turned off. Or even turned off during all game.
9. It might sound risky, but do no hasten the plot. When you pick up matches and crowbar, just moon around to find 3-4 pages before picking up machine handle. IMPORTANT: moon around after taking the fuse. Try to find as many pages as you can before going down to the basement. Next - try to find 2-3 more pages at the basement after taking the hammer. Finding as much pages as possible before getting up from the basement will significantly simplify last part of the game.
10. All in all there is one way to cheat Hatman (some kind of a bug). After picking the fuse Hatman will turn into the girl but if you will be able to slip very close past him, he will growl in an effort to catch you and will turn back into his big form with purple glowing. This will simplify avoiding him later. However his speed will remain the same as girl's (a bit fater than regular).

P.S. About achievements.
Paranormally Active. Run into 50 shadow people.
In the first room you have to kill 50 shadows with your torch. You don’t have to do it in one walkthrough, you just have to collect 50 in sum. (The counter of shadows in the achievement section is broken)
A Good Book. Listen to your daughter read all the pages of her journal in a game.
BEFORE the last scene when you run to the light door, open the journal and listen to daughter’s voice reading all pages. Don’t hurry and wait until the voice will definitely stop reading. If you missed this point, be sure to have saved game to go back and read the pages. After the light door you can open the journal and listen daughter's words of joy on the last page. (The counter of pages in the achievement section is broken as well)


P.P.S. Greeting developers:
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[Sigh Man Vanz]

Nice summary. I gave up on this game when I found out that hiding doesn't do anything... I hate games that rely on luck.

[MrMcSwifty]

A+ strategy guide. You should consider posting this in the Guides section.

About the hiding mechanic, I was actually able to successful hide from him a handful of times. My theory is that, once he sees you, it's impossible to hide from him. But if you duck into a dark corner or bathroom stall as soon as you "hear" him, and before he sees you, he does sometimes wander away. Key word there, sometimes.

I was even able to avoid the little girl ghost once by just ducking behind a doorway as soon as I saw her down a hallway, then peeked around the corner and watched her wander off in another direction.

So the mechanic does work, but only sporadically. Definitely bugged for the most part.

I also can't get the Good Book achievement even though I've done it exactly as described, multiple times. That's probably something on my end though.

Other than that, everything you said was spot on. Thanks for posting!

[Wicked Sick]

You´re welcome!
Talking about Good Book achievement, try to read all the book just over the place where you got the last page. Don´t go anywhere. I mean in the exact moment when you find the last page and the page counter breaks, just stop where you are and start reading. Do not hurry at all (i spent about 10 min listening) Press "v" to autoplay on the first page. Listen for the 1st page and wait for 3-4 seconds before changing to the second. Do the same with every page.

An interesting point is that i was rushing through in order to get "beat-the-game-in-30min" achievement, so i had no time to listen. I won the game, teleported in normal asylum through the light door and listened to the very last 22nd page. But then i loaded the save, teleporting me back in the Hatman's world, found the 21st page and started listening the book. So i kinda done it all backwards lol (22nd, 1st, 2nd, ..., 20th, 21st). It all hapened in the same playthrough and it worked. You can also try this tactics.

[MrMcSwifty]

Brother, I owe you one! I did it how you described and finally got this achievement that's been driving me nuts for the last few days!

Actually, the first time I did it just like you said, after listening to all the journal entries for 20+ minutes, when I went back to the game the everything was glitched. Every door in the game was blacked out and there was a bookshelf where the daughter's bedroom was supposed to be, so I couldn't progress. Even after reloading my save.

God I hate this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game, lol...

Sooo had to start over... yet again... but this time I was able to progress normally after listening to all the journal entries. From there, the achievement popped like it was supposed to in the elevator at the end.

Finally!

So, thanks again for finally solving this one for me. I feel like I need to repay the favor, so if you'd like, please feel free to browse through my gift inventory and take your pick of any game that might interest you!

[Wicked Sick]

A walkthrough is done: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=674672192