Haunted Dorm Guide: Everything You Need to Know

The curfew bell tolls for thee, and your friends. All the good dormitory buildings have been taken, but you and your buddies got this one on the cheap. Sure the floors are a bit dirty, and there’s a pungent stench, almost like old rotting meat, in the air. Not to mention all those whispers and stories about this place from the townsfolk and the school staff. But a bed is a bed, and you all go to your rooms. You turn in for the night, and sleep tight.

Knock, knock, knock, your door goes. You choose to ignore it, as you dream away, but the knocking gets louder and louder. Smashing through the fabric of your dreams, a claw gouges itself into your eyes, your face, and your very soul. You’re dead now… And you collect your ingame rewards. You really should have spent extra for a better door!

Welcome to the Haunted Dorm! And our guide for it too, of course. Haunted Dorm is a horror-themed single player (It looks like a multiplayer game, but they have yet to implement true multiplayer so have fun with the AI) tower defense game, where you can either play a monstrous Dream Hunter, or be one of the several people sleeping in the dorm.

For a single player game, teamwork can really save your butt, since the safest dorms are usually those near another “player’s” door, where you can bring both that dorm’s and your dorms’s turrets to bear on the Dream Hunter. And that also applies to the Dream Hunter:

While they start alone, every kill they snag turns another player into an AI-controlled Ghost (At least, in certain maps, or if you’re playing as a Dream Hunter) which helps you kill the rest of the dorm mates, and work well when you attack a door with them. At least in Dream Hunter Mode and Ghosts and Angels Mode.

DEFENSE TIPS

The main game mode has you cast as one of the hapless students/journalists/average joes common in horror and slasher movies, simply trying to get some sleep in a dormitory run by an adorably shady-looking honey badger.

The goal is to kill the Dream Hunter, so you can sleep nice and tight for the rest of the night. For this, you have some strategies at your disposal, and quite a lot of brooms. Brooms that, for some reason, shoot things at the nasty night crawlers lurking in the corridors.

Build and Upgrade Priorities

There are a lot of powers and a few structures in the game, but the three you’ll keep an eye on are your Door, your Bed, and your Turrets.

The Door is there to keep the Dream Hunter out of your room, and by extension, out of your face. It has a ton more HP compared to the Turrets you can put behind it, but unlike the Turrets, you can’t replace it if it’s destroyed.

This means upgrading the Door is a high priority especially early on. You will usually have just one Turret in the early rounds of a game while dumping all your resources into the Door and Bed, alternating between the two since Bed upgrades make Door upgrades easier.

The Bed is your priority after the Door for upgrades when things are hot, but becomes the first priority if things are quiet, since upgrades to the Bed practically double your income per second every time. Early into the match you will need to pour most of your resources into the Door while you improve your Bed, but after the second or third Bed upgrade, your income will be fast enough that you can splurge on Turrets, which are cheap, but not cheap enough to spam usefully in the earlier stages of a match without sacrificing the all-important Door. After another upgrade to the Bed, upgrading Turrets past their second level becomes viable.

Turrets, initially taking the form of brooms but eventually giving way to shovels, power hoses and holy-water-filled exorcism bubble blowers, give you firepower, but they’re weak enough early on that you’re best off just making one or two and upgrading it only once early in a game.

You’ll find yourself  dumping everything else into the Door and Bed until the Bed is upgraded enough to make Turret spamming and upgrades a non-issue. Once you can set up turret spam and have a decent (Maybe a Steel Door level 5) Door in front of them, immediately upgrade them at least once for the range improvements.

It’s in that order that your priorities lie. Door, then Bed, then Turrets. By the time it’s safe to set up a Broken Game Console and  Door Repair Station (And start hammering the Dream Hunter with support powers), that means you’re almost done killing the Dream Hunter anyway!

Door To Door Defense

After you go to bed and upgrade your Door once, look around your Dorm for any other friendly Doors nearby you can defend. Put it in range of a turret or more so you can help your fellow player kick the Dream Hunter out of their Door’s face. Always remember that you aren’t the only player in the map, in spite of the game doing its best to make you tunnel-vision into your own Door.

This is another reason Turrets should at bare minimum be upgraded at least once after being placed down, so they can easily reach allied Doors instead of just your own. Of course, it’s still trouble if the Dream Hunter focuses on you first early in the game, but it’ll improve your chances at survival.

Game Start Split Up

Check where everyone is going when the game starts, since a Dorm can only hold one player at a time. You have 30 seconds before the Dream Hunter arrives, but you get money as soon as you sleep on the Bed. Winding up in the same room as another player will waste a ton of time as you scramble to another vacant Dorm.

That being said, traveling in pairs is a good idea as that increases the chance you and the other guy occupy two dorms close to each other: This means your turrets can help the other player, and theirs can do the same for you.

Know the Dorm Layout

Knowing which dorm to head to, or what you can do in a specific dorm room, is a good idea to make up a plan as you go. Dorms each have different layouts, some having less space for turrets but being in a better position to defend other doors, or being in easy range for other dorm mates to defend it with you.

Of particular note as an example is the U-shaped Dorm directly to the bottom-right of the Normal Map’s start position, having less space but with the door facing another door directly: Not only would the Dream Hunter not have a straight shot to your bed should your door go down (Thus saving precious seconds in such a situation), having a player in the other dorm directly above the U-shaped dorm means you can defend each others’ doors naturally, simply by defending your own respective doors normally.

Thus turning that corridor into a nasty little death trap with barely any mental effort. Also, check the floor tiles, because that indicates you might be in a different map altogether.

An Ad Break

It might seem like a good idea to only grab the Free Door Upgrade Card while you aren’t in the middle of a game, since you’ll have to watch a 30 second or so ad to get it. That is until you realize this is a single player game and all the “dorm mates” are AI.

The game is paused when you watch ads, so don’t worry too much about when you get it, other than getting it as late into the game as you can. This goes the same for the Dream Hunter Mode’s ad that gives out free equipment: The game is paused while the ad plays, so don’t worry about getting killed while it does.

That being said, it might be best to watch the ad either at the center of the map where each edge of the map door is easily accessible, or near one of said doors in case the gear spawns close by.

Free Door Upgrade Late

The Free Door Upgrade card does exactly that, upgrades the door for completely free by one level. The second best time to use this card is when your Door becomes very expensive, and the third best time is during an emergency, usually in the form of the Dream Hunter about to kick your door down.

And the absolute best time? When the door is expensive AND the Dream Hunter’s about to kick it down! Not only does a door upgrade increase a door’s max HP, it also fully repairs the door. Belaying this card’s use as much as possible could let you skip over a thousand coin upgrade cost instead of having to wait for a thousand coins now because you couldn’t wait for 200 coins a while ago.

Angelic Presence

In Ghosts and Angels Mode, you can revive as a Ghost to support the enemy Dream Hunter (You basically act as an extra Dream Hunter), or watch an ad to revive as an Angel, supporting your fellow dorm mates after death. Angels don’t have much they can do, but they are stealthy short of directly blocking a Dream Hunter’s way, and they have the ability to Trap a Dream Hunter, much like the Trap structure.

Your job is basically to annoy the Dream Hunter and prevent them from escaping when they’re at low HP. Use corners to your advantage and try go get just close enough to the Dream Hunter that they can’t see you, but you can hit them with a net. Otherwise, they’ll slap you and you have to wait for a while at the respawn screen.

If you revive as a Ghost on the other hand, refer to the section about Dream Hunter gameplay, since a lot of it applies to Ghosts, except Ghosts lack Berserk and Shock, cannot get equipment, but move a heck of a lot faster than Dream Hunters and have roughly the same durability.

DREAM HUNTER TIPS

Once you accumulate enough Dream Hunter Fragments (You can get them from winning matches, but you can also buy them with Honey badger Coins at 50 coins a pop, which you get whether you win or lose), you can permanently unlock Dream Hunter Mode.

As the Dream Hunter, your job is to kill those sleeping murder movie victims. Sounds easy enough, the targets are sleeping and merely defenseless humans right? Yeah, good luck getting past all those turrets and that giant metal door in your face! Here are some tips to make life as a Dream Hunter easier, and help you nab those kills.

Heal Thyself

The 4 doors at the edges of the map aren’t just potential start positions for you: They’re zones which regenerate your health as a Dream Hunter, and retreating to them when you’re injured allows you to be far more aggressive early in the game, when the sleepy people are at their most vulnerable. This also allows you to commit to a door attack more heavily, perhaps allowing you to get an ally ghost early on.

Hammer Time!

Another benefit the 4 doors at the edge of the map have: They occasionally spawn equipment for your Dream Hunter to wear and use. Who knew horror movie monsters needed armor?

While you should always grab what you can, one item to really look out for are Hammers: Wooden or Iron Hammers not only give you a noticeably thick boost in damage power, they also allow your attacks to crit, making them very important for breaking doors down.

Getting a Wooden Hammer early is the luckiest thing that can happen to you, as earlygame Doors (level 1-5) aren’t usually strong enough to handle them. Not to mention, DPS is very important in this game if you’re the Dream Hunter. After all, all the armor in the universe won’t help if your DPS isn’t good enough to get past Repair Benches!

Be Aggressive

Now that you know the map edge doors can heal you, you also know that it can pay to be highly aggressive, especially early on. The biggest reason for aggression though isn’t just the ability to break down doors: Leveling up is based on how many hits you do, not how many things you break or dorm mates you kill.

Equipment is also much more likely to appear when you level up, so throwing yourself at a door and retreating once in a while to heal up is pretty much the only reliable way to get stronger and eventually eat everyone’s faces.

Hit The Loners First

The most dangerous thing a Dream Hunter can face is a corridor defended by two dorm mates, especially a corridor which has doors facing each other. Attacking such doors means you’re being shot at by two Dorm rooms’ worth of turrets instead of just one, drastically reducing the chance of this horror movie ending in the gruesome massacre you want.

Players with more isolated doorways on the other hand typically are less likely to be supported, and you can deal with them a bit more easily. Clean the loners out first (Unless the death corridor is close enough to your start spot that you can smash it before it gets too dangerous, and you can get heals easily), as killing a player turns them into a Ghost. Ghosts are extra AI-controlled Dream Hunters. Once you have enough of them on your side, attacking a death corridor should be easier to pull off.

OTHER STRUCTURES

Beyond the Bed, Door and Turrets, there are many other structures you can build to help keep you sleeping like a baby. Here there are, arranged by the tab they appear in.

BASIC TAB

Basic Structures are exactly that, basic. They’re necessities toward survival, though they’re not part of the main three since you’ll get them later on, rather than at the very start. Especially the Game Console, as you need it to get not just all the other support structures, but also for the later Door, bed and Turret upgrades.

Game Console

The Game Console generates Energy, needed for not just support powers, but also the higher tier Door and Bed upgrades. You’ll usually get one by the time you’re making 16-32 coins a second, since it’s a fairly expensive piece of kit at 200 coins. You’re also usually upgrading the Door and Bed instead before that.

The most important thing this allows you to build though is the Repair Bench, a device that automatically repairs your door. It’s usually good to get 2 Game Consoles before you start upgrading them, unless your dorm is particularly cramped. You’ll know the game has really begun once you have one of these up and running.

Repair Bench

A must-have after you get the Game Console, the Repair Bench automatically repairs your door when placed. You can place up to four of them, and they’re a great way to dampen the Dream Hunter’s DPS.

On the other hand, as a Dream Hunter, you usually want to attack Dorms with starter Repair benches as soon as you can out DPS them, so they don’t accumulate more later once they get an Game Console to make more. They’re also quite cheap, so get them as soon as you can, only replacing them if you think you need the extra floor space.

Mines

Not technically part of the Basic structures tab, but it’s simple enough it ought to be anyway. Mines generate gold much like an extra bed. They cost a whole ton of Energy most of the time, so you usually won’t see them in action unless your match goes on for a hilariously long amount of time.

And even then, by that time your Bed may be powerful enough that you’re better off using the space for more Turrets or other defensive tools. At best, the Copper Mine might be a good substitute for an ATM, since it’s cheaper than the other mines and provides constant income, vs the ATM only giving income when your turrets are firing.

COOL TECH TAB

Cool Tech tab structures are typically special offensive structures whose job it is to help you kill the Dream Hunter faster. Either by dealing extra damage or disabling the Dream Hunter’s movement. They can be very useful late into the game, as being trapped within range of a lategame Dorm’s sheer firepower can be an absolute death sentence for a Dream Hunter.

Trap

The most likely way you’ll secure a Dream Hunter kill, the Trap disables a Dream Hunter’s movement, skills and attack, making sure they take more hits from the turrets shooting at them. Since their attacks get stopped, this is also a useful way to buy time for an emergency Door upgrade.

As a Dream Hunter, getting caught by one of these things while you’re escaping a dangerous double door corridor is a death sentence, so always remember which Dorm has these equipped when planning your attacks. It always fires after you leave their Door. This is a must have for long matches.

Barb

The Barb covers your door in barbed wire, dealing 1% damage to the Dream Hunter every time they knock on it. 1% of a low level Dream Hunter isn’t much, so it’s better used later into the game when the Dream Hunter has more HP, since that 1% will mean a lot more. That being said, getting one at the start of the game pre-placed in your Dorm is still extra damage!

Guillotine

The Guillotine attacks any Dream Hunter at low HP, dealing heavy damage by throwing a giant meat cleaver at them. Since it only works if the Dream Hunter is almost dead, getting one pre-placed in a Dorm can be a nasty surprise for any earlygame Dream Hunters who are a bit too aggressive for their own good, often making it impossible for them to escape if they commit to a failing attack for far too long. Typically less of a must have than the Trap, since turrets will give more consistent firepower than this.

HIGH TECH TAB

If Cool Tech structures are offensive, High Tech structures are mostly defensive, typically increasing your dorm’s longevity in ways that strengthen you, rather than hurt the Dream Hunter directly. While you will get the better ones late into the game, finding them in other maps as pre-built structures can be a lifesaver, as most of them are great even early into the game.

Spell Catapult

The Spell Catapult launches a spell-disabling sticker at the Dream Hunter if it tries to use Shock or Berserk. Essentially the same as a Trap in that it also stops movement, except it only activates if the Dream Hunter use your skills nearby.

Be careful when using skills near it as a Dream Hunter, since it can ruin an attack and give your target time to upgrade their Door. Of course, there’s always waiting until you’ve got a Knife or Hammer so you won’t need to use Berserk on their door!

Energy Shield

The Energy Shield temporarily makes your door invincible once it hits 30HP. This buys you time to make enough cash to upgrade it, or at least repair it, both of which restores the door’s HP. The Energy Shield is useful at any stage of the game.

Early on, it can typically buy you enough time to get yourself a door upgrade thanks to earlygame’s low prices, with which the Energy Shield can activate again if its HP drops again. Later into the game, it’s less good at that, though you will have things like Repair Benches to undo damage while the shield is up. It can also partially waste a Dream Hunter’s berserk skill.

ATM

A powerful mid-late game structure, the ATM converts damage your turrets deal into Coins, allowing you to make income more quickly when being attacked. This won’t make the Dream Hunter think twice about attacking a dorm since it’s an AI, so make use of that cash and start upgrading your turrets as soon as they start knocking on your door.

On the other hand, as a Dream Hunter, attacking someone with a pre-placed ATM is generally a rather bad idea unless you are absolutely confident you’ll kick their door down.

Which will almost never happen earlygame barring extremely lucky Hammer and Knife drops, because you just gave them the money to upgrade their door. ATMs are a bit less effective later into the game, when the door is so expensive that even turret income can’t make it go fast enough, and if you’re the Dream Hunter, you’d have several ghosts supporting you.

Refrigerator

Typically a stronger choice than the Energy Shield, the Refrigerator freezes your Door, slowing down the attack speed of any Dream Hunter slapping it. It’s useful all through the game and is fairly expensive, so going for a Dorm with a frosted door is usually a good idea unless the dorm is very poorly positioned, absolutely puny, or too far away from other dorm mates.

As a Dream Hunter, don’t even bother attacking a frozen door unless it’s underleveled enough for you to blow chunks off of it with every hit… or if you don’t have a Hammer.

WORKSHOP TAB

Workshop structures are mostly passive buffs for Turrets. They usually raise attack speed, other than the range-increasing Watch Tower. They’re not only expensive, they also work best once you’ve already established loads of Turrets in the first place, so they’re usually going to appear late into a match. While they’re not as useful early game, their sheer high cost means getting one as a pre-built dorm structure can be great if you can survive long enough to take full advantage of them.

Watchtower

Cheap in Honey Badger Medals but highly expensive in Energy use, the Watchtower increases the range of all turrets in your Dorm, which allows you to more effectively protect other Dorms nearby while also making it so your turrets shoot the Dream Hunter earlier. While it costs a lot of Energy, it may eventually be cheaper to get one of these than it is to upgrade all your turrets if the fight lasts particularly long.

Particle Accelerator

Costing a whopping 500+ energy, the Particle Accelerator is one of the most powerful structures you can get late in a match. It does something very simple: It raises the attack speed of all your turrets, drastically increasing their DPS.

Due to how costly it is, a dorm with a pre-built Particle Accelerator is a big fat jackpot, as long as you last long enough to take full advantage of it. Which usually means making it to the point where setting up lots and lots of turrets becomes viable.

Solenoid

A cheaper alternative to the Particle Accelerator, the Solenoid increases all your turrets’ attack speeds depending on how close the Dream Hunter is to the door. Just like the Particle Accelerator, this increases your overall DPS against the Dream Hunter.

As a Dream Hunter, you might want to attack dorms that have these early or really late, either when the dorm is too weak to take advantage of a pre-built Solenoid, or when you’ve accumulated some Ghosts and are in a very strong position to attack.

And that’s the end of our Haunted Dorm guide. Don’t hesitate to leave your own tips in the comments below, and remember to have a good night’s sleep!