So I was thinking about putting together a list of horror-themed games that you can play, and while I was doing that, I realized that we have played two of my favorites on Tabletop: Betrayal at House on the Hill and Dread.
I also realized that I’d made an episode of Not The Flog that was about Halloween-themed games. So instead of sitting down and writing up something long and exhaustive and interesting that would seriously cut into my Blizzcon preparation time which is really actually preparing and not just playing lots of Diablo III and Warcraft and Hearthstone I swear.
So, presented here for your amusement and education are a series of videos with a gaming and Halloween theme.
Hey, since I have your attention: what’s a horror-themed game that you like to play around Halloween? Maybe we’ll end up with a neat list, after all.
Videos after the jump!
Your Flog options are truly still valid. I’d like to add Frictional Games’ follow-up to Amnesia… SOMA. Strikes a great balance of compelling story and leaving you in a quivering puddle of terror.
I loved the newer one Transylvania: Curses and Traitors! It was a kick started game and is super similar to betrayal but its really fun to play. Plus I love the elements of changing the board every game to make new maps and games each time you play.
Arkham/Eldritch Horror, Dead of Winter, Last Night on Earth (not super great, but it’s fun), and when it’s released (soon!) I plan to pick up Mysterium.
Halloween is a major holiday in my family. My 1o year old nephew loves Zombie Fluxx.
It’s super simple but I love pulling out Ghosts this time of year. It’s quick and fun and makes a great warmup game for early arrivals to our game night. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Arkham Horror, which is ridiculously complicated just to set up and takes for bloody ever to play but it’s totally worth it.
Fury of Dracula and Mysterium are on the wish list; I’ve heard good things about both.
Hey. I just noticed your subscribey wibey thing at the bottom of the webpage! Sweetey weetey!
Best horror movie: Alien.
I just got a copy of Mysterium over the weekend, and my group loved it. I played as the ghost, and would only communicate with the psychics by knocking on the table (once for yes, twice for no). It was great. The looks on their faces as they waited to see if that second knock was going to come were priceless.
I also have love most of the old standards. Betrayal at House on the Hill, Fury of Dracula, Dead of Winter, City of Horror.
Amoeba Wars was terrific fun when I was younger. Fury of Dracula is really great too.
Wil, here’s some of the worst halloween music ever recorded:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/10/365-days-303—.html
Well, there’s always Zombies. Or you could play through the original Ravenloft module. (I don’t have a copy anymore, but I’m sure you can ask around for it.) As for video games, how about Alien: Isolation?
Like John chimed in earlier, we also picked up Mysterium. It’s a Clue + Dixit hybrid. Fun, cooperative, and potentially challenging. The theme is spooky and some of the artwork has a macabre feel. But it’s a beauty of a game.
Can I throw in an old school shout out for CHILL?
Have to give old shout out too Atmosphere but also for pen and paper rpg I love Unhallowed Metropolis because I run a short run campaign every Halloween and when else can you play a game that is post zombie Apocalyptic Tesla punk Victorian.
To your list of Halloween-appropriate games played on Table Top, I would add “Gloom.” In a kind of Addams Family way…
Our Halloween games include Mansions of Madness, Ghost Stories, and Castle Ravenloft. Then there’s Zombicide, Last Night on Earth, and Zombie Dice. And my son loves the card game, Ghooost. Now to make the time to play them all!
Lots of quick games like Munchkin Zombies, Zombie Dice, maybe a bit of pandemic if we’re feeling masochistic. I was thinking about introducing the Arcadia Quest Beyond the Grave expansion, but unfortunately my group doesn’t seem keen on longer games.
As a kid, I remember being enthralled by Scary Stories for Kids. In particular a story about evil cats in an abandoned house. For years I thought the name of the story was Wait til Morning comes. I just realized 35 years later that it was always Wait til Martin comes. Perhaps a newer audio recording edition could be done with a certain Table Top aficionado doing the reading? Anyone remember these stories?
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/h__/images/9/9d/Scary_stories_1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121128000251&path-prefix=halloween
Psycho Raiders & Cave Evil.
We play Elder Sign, and if you want to play the app, it has fantastic creepy music, and the illustrations are equally creepy.
Ghost stories
I like to run, for usual newbies to Call of Cthulhu, the starter/example adventure in the back of the 1st edition rule book. “The Corbet House”. Lots of fun.
Nice of you to bobble the horse head in the first vid Wil…
I haven’t had access to or played alot of horror video games, but a game that ive had fun being scared of is Quake for N64. Considering the fact that i don’t often play first-person shooters, i’m not greatly skilled at Quake. However, this just adds to the anxiety factor (which is fun. but only in games. haha)
Elder Sign! A highly enjoyable Hallowe’en-esque game.
We don’t go to Ravenholm….
Anything Cthuloid is good, though I like a dose of humor now and then to break up the despair of (setting up) Arkham Horror – Miskatonic School for Girls or Cults Across America. Survive – Escape from Atlantis has some good survival feel to it.
We have a soft spot for Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Horror. It is a bit unwieldy to play and not really tightly designed, but once a fire vampire has been killed by a blessed nun, driving by on her motorbike throwing a holy handgrenade, you are hesitant to switch to its successor Eldritch Horror.
A long time ago, back when I was at University, there were the (now legendary) “Specials”, where several GMs got together and ran up-to-midnighter(or later) RPGs with (usually) three groups of around 5-6 players, which periodically crossed paths in massive set-pieces and split off again in different groups, before one caffeine-and-junk-food-fueled finale…
Xmas specials, end of semester specials etc, but the scariest was usually the Halloween Special. The one where we fought off hell-hounds with our Uni-issued rape alarms, and re-enacted several characters past lives, and dodged a mad Victorian surgeon in the basement of the LGI… (among loads of other things that were weird and scary). One GM eating the raw onion like an apple didn’t help…
Lets just say the PvP body-count over the spiritual old roots of the “original oak”/Skyrack in Headingley, Leeds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyrack), thoroughly watered it to stave off the horror for another hundred years (yup we did it before Cabin…)
Does Crows count? We also get out A Touch Of Evil although we’ve played it so much it’s more for nostalgia than because it’s challenging anymore.
Oh holy gods of the 90s. NIGHTMARE. A tragic classic we love to reminisce about – mainly the parts where some tryna-be-tough douchebag gets startled by the video (or downloaded .mov) and squeaks like a little girl. This is usually me, I think that’s why the reminiscing won’t die. But damn was that the coolest thing in the world the first time you played, and easily the shittiest thing to re-play without waiting a year to forget the sequence of events on the one-track VHS… as such, a true Halloween game, for its group bonding, ridiculous gimmickyness and lack of replayability.
Check Silent Hill and Slender