Heyo! Thanks for checking out this guide. This guide will teach you everything you need to know by the time you're level 20 or so. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING.

Here's my credentials; you can trust the stuff in this guide.

• I have been playing since 2017 and currently have ~800 hours in the game
  
• I've been on the leaderboard (top 50 players by total wins) since 2018
  
• My winrate is usually 54%-55%. Nothing crazy, but enough to prove that I know what I'm talking about

This is the tutorial video that plays when you boot up the game for the first time. If you haven't seen it, please do so now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoSxtK-pPnQ&feature=youtu.be

Terms
Hammer: After the group has refused four proposals in a row, a fifth refused proposal will active the hammer and hackers will automatically win. The final proposal before the hammer 'strikes' is also called hammer, and if someone "has hammer" they have the fifth proposal.

Passing hammer / Passing to someone: When you pass, the person who has hammer will change. This is known as passing hammer to the person who now has the fifth proposal.

Critical nodes: The nodes where the amount of players you must propose are equal to the amount of agents in the game. This term is not really used anymore, but the concept is important and I will be using the term throughout the guide.

Framing: Making an agent look suspicious

Protocol: What hackers use to avoid double hacks (this has its own dedicated section)

Bluffing: Securing a node as a hacker to make it look like you are an agent.

Alpha: Someone who always hacks nodes when they are a hacker. If someone hacked a node, people will sometimes say that they "alpha'd" it

Beta: Someone who tends to bluff nodes when they are a hacker, especially ones with two players. If someone secures a node, people will sometimes say that they "beta'd" it.

Abbreviations
Acc: Anything to do with accepting the team proposal

Ref: Anything to do with refusing the team proposal

Sus: Suspicious

Prop: Proposal

PoV: Point of view

IMO: In my opinion

R#: The rules of protocol, in order of their priorities.

N1 / N2 / N3 / etc: Node 1 / 2 / 3 / etc.

Refusing Hammer
When it is hammer, it does not matter what the proposal is. You must accept it or hackers win. If you refuse it or tell people to refuse it because you do not trust the people in the proposal, you will look like a hacker trying to win from hammer. When it is hammer, make sure you say it a billion times in chat so everyone gets the memo. Keep in mind that some people might accidentally refuse because they're not paying attention.

Passing Your Own Hammer
When you have hammer, everyone must accept what you propose. As such, you should want hammer on the player that you trust the most, which is yourself. That said, I actually find myself passing hammer every now and then. It's mostly because I think it's funny, but finding the situation where its acceptable to do this way beyond the scope of this guide, so as a blanket rule just don't pass hammer.

Keeping hammer on a confirmed hacker
Leaving a confirmed hacker with hammer will force everyone to accept a hacked node, which is a bad idea. Many new players will accidentally leave hammer on a confirmed hacker because they are too preoccupied not making other mistakes. Be careful!

Keeping hammer on someone who is not in your prop in a critical node
This has the same logic as keeping hammer on a confirmed hacker. When proposing for a critical node, you are implying that you think the people who you are not proposing are hackers. Why would you let them have hammer?

Passing hammer without a good reason
Simply put, if you pass hammer to someone without a good reason, everyone will think the hackers are you and the person you passed hammer to. Make sure you have a good reason to pass hammer if you decide to. Good reasons to pass are usually along the lines of not trusting the current person with hammer, or wanting to give hammer to someone you trust more.

You should always propose yourself in your nodes as you are the person that you should trust the most.

Some people believe that it is ok to not propose yourself in an attempt to propose multiple hackers at the same time. This is because if both hackers choose to hack the node, the game announces that both players hacked the node. This instantly confirms several players as agents and allows for a comfortable agent win. On the other hand, if both hackers choose to secure, agents get a free secured node. This strategy is very effective against brand new players. However, if you fail to include multiple hackers in the proposed node, or the hackers successfully hack exactly once, the player who proposed the node is usually accused of being a hacker, alongside one of the players in the node. This scenario results in a hacker win almost every time. Additionally, protocol, the meta strategy on how hackers can avoid double hacks, completely counters this strategy by allowing hackers to consistently avoid the double hack and double secure scenarios, and get that game-winning single hack.

This section is beyond the scope of this guide and is completely unnecessary to read in order to learn the basics. However, I thought the scenario was a cool exception to putting yourself in the node, so I included it anyways. If you want to read this section, read the rest of the guide first, and then come back to this afterwords.

There is exactly one scenario where not wanting yourself in the node is the correct play. Imagine a 5 man game. N1, regardless of who is in it, is secured. N2, consisting of players 1, 2, and 3, proposed by player 1, is secured. Player 1's optimal play is now to propose players 2 and 3.

Why? With the knowledge that N2 is hacked in a 5 man game almost every time, I encourage you to try to figure it out yourself.

Answer:
There are three possible reasons why N2 was secured:

• There are 0 hackers in N2. This is very likely, since N2 is almost always hacked in 5 mans.
  
• There is 1 hacker in N2. Someone must've bluffed. However, bluffing N2 by yourself when N1 is secured is suicide for hackers as they're forced to hack on n3, which could easily just not have a hacker in it in the first place. The only reason to single bluff is to specifically counter this strategy, which is not common enough to be worth specifically countering. Therefore, one hacker in N2 is very unlikely.
  
• There are 2 hackers in N2. Either they both secured and messed up protocol, or someone bluffed on purpose. While both cases are worth consideration, distinguishing between the two is irrelevant in this scenario when we consider the play we are about to make.

If we propose players 2 and 3, what happens?

• If hackers are 4 and 5, agents win.
  
• If hackers are 2 and 3 and they messed up protocol, they have a realistic chance of messing it up a second time, which would result in an agent win.
  
• If hackers are 2 and 3 and N2 was intentionally bluffed, only the hacker that bluffed is aware that the secure was intentional, while the other is left in the dark. There is a realistic chance that the other hacker might think that the bluffer does not know protocol, which presents a realistic chance that they could mess up protocol N3. If they do, agents win.
  
• In a double scenario where hackers get away with the N3 single hack, agents will still be considering if the hackers messed up protocol N2 and got lucky N3, so agents still have a chance if the strategy goes south. Additionally, player 1 (us) is usually the most trusted player in this scenario.

If you are player 4 or 5 in this situation, proposing 2 and 3 is still a good play. However, you must consider if player 1 intentionally bluffed N2 with player 2 or 3 as his buddy, which would HARD counter this play. I personally make this play in position 4 and 5 since I've never seen player 1 do the counter play before, but as long as the threat exists I can't recommend the play as objectively correct.

Accepting a proposal you are not in
Do not accept nodes that you are not in. Accepting a node you are not in will make you suspicious because the hackers will look like you and someone within the node you just accepted. This is especially true if it is a critical node. If you are an agent that it is not in a critical node, it is literally impossible for the node to contain all agents, so you must refuse it. Only consider accepting a proposal if you are in it, or if it is hammer.

Accepting EVERY node you are in
By refusing votes and going to hammer, players are able to use the extra information to make a more informed proposal for the node. Accepting everything makes it seem like you are trying to rush the game in order to deny agents information, which is suspicious. Additionally, imagine a game where either player A or player B is a hacker. You accept a node that has yourself and player A in it, and then immediately go and accept a node with yourself and player B in it. Since either player A or B is a hacker, you just accepted at least one node that was guaranteed to be hacked, which is suspicious.

Telling people who are outside the node to accept the proposal
Simply put, don't do this unless you know what you are doing. The scenarios where this is acceptable are oddly specific, so just don't worry about it.

N1 voting is a special case and is covered in the next section.

The N1 meta is often misunderstood since most people only learn what to do, rather than why they should do it. While there are several reasons to follow the N1 meta, the most important point of the N1 meta is to determine if any player is a bad hacker, and if someone is, to then find their buddy. The optimal strategy can change in oddly specific scenarios (if someone messes it up you can sometimes salvage it with weird plays), but I'll only be covering the general strategy that you can use in 100% of your games in order to keep it simple.

How should you propose?
Note: For reasons that are WAY too tedious to explain, the proposal strategy is only effective in 5 and 6 man games. However, the strategy should still be used in 7 man games to avoid the suspicion that one often receives when they break the proposal meta. When it comes to an 8 man game, feel free to propose whatever you want.

Propose yourself and the person counter-clockwise to you. The most important thing is that everyone follows the same pattern, whether it's clockwise, counter-clockwise, or whatever. This means that if the first proposer decides that they don't want to go counter-clockwise, you can still do a scuffed version of the N1 meta by mimicking the first person's pattern. Maintaining a specific order allows us to easily identify people who are voting abnormally.

How should you vote?
Note: Unlike the proposal meta, the voting meta is effective regardless of the amount of people in the game

• Method a) accept everything.

Method a is objectively worse than method b and c for reasoning listed in the method c explanation. However, so many people use this method, and the method is usually only suspicious when N1 is hacked, so I'm listing it here anyways.

• Method b) accept what you're in, refuse what you're not in, accept hammer regardless.

Method b is fairly self-explanatory; it's a simple and perfectly acceptable strategy.

• Method c) refuse everything except hammer.

Method c is what I use and is IMO the objectively best method. It's hard to explain, so I'll just provide an example game. Newer players usually find people who use method c suspicious for reasoning along the lines of "why would you refuse your own proposal," so I suggest using method b until you are capable of defending yourself against such accusations.

Imagine a 5 man game where players 1 and 2 are proposed for node one. Players 1-4 vote according to method b, and then player 5 accepts. The proposal is accepted and the node is hacked. Players 1-4 now must consider some of the following questions:

• Did player 5 accept because they are a hacker and their buddy is in the node?
  
• Did someone in N1 hack to frame player 5, and they're actually an agent using method a?
  
• Did someone in N1 hack to make us think that they hacked to frame player 5, and player 5 is actually a hacker?
  
• Is there just an alpha in N1 and we're severely overthinking this?

If players 1 or 2 used method c, the proposal would be rejected. This will allow for more proposals, which gives the players a chance to analyze whether player 5 uses method a, or is a bad hacker that only accepts their buddy before N2 even starts. For example, if player 5 accepts when players 1 and 2 are proposed, but also accepts when players 3 and 4 are proposed, it proves that they are ok with anyone being in the node, and is probably using method a. However, if player 5 accepts when players 1 and 2 are proposed, but then refuses when players 2 and 3 are proposed, the hackers are probably players 1 and 5.

Do not comment on someone's votes until you have enough evidence for an accusation.
By doing this, you may influence the target's future votes. If player 5 accepts a proposal with players 1 and 2 in it, and then someone tells them that the accept was suspicious, they will probably refuse the next proposal, regardless of what they were intending to do beforehand. This denies the team the information on whether the hackers are players 1 or 2 and 5, or if player 5 is a method a user that started refusing after somebody commented on their accept.

For 7 and 8 player games, the fourth node needs two hacks for it to be hacked. A single hack will secure the node, and the game will inform everyone that there was someone who tried to hack the node. If you are the only hacker in a node that takes two hackers to hack, secure the node to make yourself look more trustworthy.

In MINDNIGHT, we have this great thing called protocol. Protocol is what hackers use to avoid double hack (if both hackers hack a node, the game will reveal that two hackers were in the node) and double secure situations when multiple hackers are in the node. If a protocol rule does not apply to your situation, refer to the next prioritized rule of protocol. However, "protocol is community-made and therefore could change at any time," so I will provide every popular variant of protocol I encounter in this guide. The devs asked me to not talk about rule three, so I wont.

Rules of protocol, in order of their priorities:

Rule 1:
Whoever proposed the node hacks the node. I can personally guarantee you that this rule will never change.

Rule 2:
Rule two involves the hacker who was in the most recent node. While method A is that the hacker who hacked the most recent hacked node will hack again, method B is that the hacker in the most recent node (hacked or secured) will repeat their action, while the other player does the other action.

A more rare method is a variant of method B where it only applies to the node directly before the current one. I don't recommend this one.

Method B seems to be widely accepted by the leaderboard players, and as such I personally recommend method B. However, the best strategy is always going to be whatever everyone else is using at the time.

If this is confusing, I gave specific examples in the comments.

Signals were an old tactic (we're talking like 2017, early 2018) that involved hackers giving verbal hints in order to tell their buddy to secure/hack a node. This allowed hackers to avoid double hack and double secure scenarios. This part of the guide used to cover what makes a signal good/bad, but there is no such thing as a good signal these days. It doesn't matter how sneaky we think we are, a signal that actually goes undetected by a veteran player will also go undetected by your hacker buddy, thus rendering the signal useless. Do NOT use signals.

That said, you can metagame this a little. If you're feeling frisky you can do a signal and then go for a "bro who actually uses signals these days that wasn't a signal" kind of thing. Not recommended.

When someone accuses you when you're an agent, please don't be the guy that counter-accuses them back with no info other than their accusation of you. I honestly consider this throwing the game. Stay calm about it, and point out a different possibility or a reason why it is unlikely for you to be a hacker.

HOWEVER, if someone accuses you with their only evidence being "bro trust me", feel free to no u them.

This is the "some of these probably need their own section but not all of them and the explanations are all fairly short so I'll just dump them all at the end of the guide" section.

"Why refuse?"
Refusing a node is almost never suspicious. Just because a node is guaranteed to secure from your PoV, it doesn't mean it is for everyone else.

"X isn't talking, must be hacker"
Not talking unless you are accused is a valid strategy. The people who do this are either paying close attention to everything, or not paying attention at all. For all you know, they're taking notes of everything anyone does the entire game, so they're too busy to talk; I actually used to do this, and it worked quite well. However, I understand the other side of the argument for this one. If it's node 5 and someone still hasn't contributed anything yet, they're probably a hacker.

Reproposing a hacked node
I feel like I don't need to explain why this is a bad idea. This normally happens because you aren't paying attention, so watch out.

Securing as a hacker when your team has already hacked two nodes
Just hack... You'll win the game. The only exception for this is if you are the lone hacker in a node that needs two hacks to be hacked.
If you're just trying to troll, don't be surprised when someone reports you.

Accusing when someone keeps disconnecting
I felt like I should put this in here because I had my internet provider switched recently when I wrote this and I had a lot of disconnects, and people kept accusing me even after I explained my situation. Sure, it's annoying if someone disconnects but just take note that I lost 3-5 games as an agent that day because I got accused of "convenient/tactical disconnects."

Here's a YouTube video of me playing a game and talking about what I'm thinking about as I play. I might decide to upload more videos in the future, but for now it's just this. Note that despite being a hacker, I put myself in an agent's shoes. I HIGHLY recommend this strategy. Note: noticed some small errors in the video, check the vid's comment section.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sc_DPrnCJE
Here's a guide that was made by the game developers. Skip the third section, but the rest of the guide is solid.
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1222617601

I reread/update the content of this guide every now and then to make sure it stays relevant. Game is beyond dead. Might check back every few years.

Most recent reread: April 2025
Most recent update (more than just typos): April 2025

• A few minor changes. Nothing worth mentioning.

I consulted the following people, who are all current or former top 50, for the protocol section (so don't try to argue it in the comments).
-joshua.cunningham
-Dee221987 / Abyssal Knight
-Kain42link42
-Azi
-Little Dog
-G18 / Febreze
-Chain
-Lexamus
-Plimpton