#overproduced

Hello again everyone. I’m back again this month to talk about great games for your Halloween parties or just for any creepy game night. These games can really drive home the theme of your event and leave you and your friends still thinking about it 28 days later.

I have a confession to make. Halloween is not a day for me- it's a whole season. I love the smells and the feels of Fall, as well as the mischief and intrigue of Halloween. So in this, my Halloween season, there are a couple of traditions that I compulsively follow.  I’ll save you from the boring details of watching Nightmare Before Christmas, drinking an Imperial Pumking, and nibbling on candy corn to get straight to the telltale heart of what I’m talking about today.  

"...and I want this pun, and this pun, and this pun..." -Eli

The first game that sprung to my mind when I decided to make this list was Gloom.  Gloom is a fantastic game by Keith Baker and Atlas Games that puts you in control of an “eccentric family of misfits”.  The main goal of Gloom is to have all of your family members die when they are the most depressed. Gloomy? Exactly. This game is cooperative-yet-competitive storytelling experience with a fantastic dark comedy feel. If you want to know more about Gloom, I strongly suggest watching the Tabletop Episode that Geek and Sundry put out on the Youtubes.

This next game is easily the game that I’ve played the most year round; Halloween is just another great excuse to break this one out. Sometimes there is nothing better than banding together with your best friends and taking on the Old Ones head on.  The game I’m referring to is Eldritch Horror by Corey Konieczka and Fantasy Flight Games.  Eldritch Horror takes the ideas, themes, world and characters of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth that Arkham Horror focused on and expands them to a global scale. The mechanics are tight and he game play is wonderfully cooperative with a deeply immersive theme. There is nothing like fighting Cthulhu on an eerie Halloween night.

...shutup.

I’m going to cut to the chase here. If you want to play out a Horror movie, then Mansions of Madness, also from Konieczka and FFG, is the game for you.  In Mansions, one player acts as the villain, controlling zombies, cultists, and monsters, setting traps and driving the story for the heroes of the movie, while the remaining players try to figure out what is going on in an old mysterious house.  I’m too much of a Fantasy Flight fanboy to not suggest that if you haven’t played this game, then you are missing out.  

A Touch of Evil is another fantastic game for the season. The best way for me to explain this game is to imagine Eldritch Horror light.  It is set in not-so-Sleepy Hollow, and you as players again band together to fight villains, this time classics like the Headless Horseman.  This game has an unique, "costume party" art style that is known to turn some people off to the game, but I think the fact that it comes with a soundtrack more than makes up for the art choices.

If you have to fight Orson Welles, the only way to defeat him is by offering him a big enough paycheck to voice Unicron in the Transformers movie. Or offering him literally anything to eat. Are Orson Welles jokes still funny?

I have two more Halloween games to speak on, so bear with me. Betrayal at House on the Hill is a cult favorite in the board gaming community that's achieved more mainstream success after it was featured in a two-part episode of Tabletop. If you search for Halloween board game lists, (which I totally didn't do for this article) you'll see that Betrayal tops most of the lists. In this game everyone starts together trying to solve a mystery in a mansion, a la Mansions of Madness. Roughly half-way through, one player will be named the traitor and attempt to murder the rest!  (Full disclosure... I haven't played this yet, but I hear only good things about it and can't wait to give it a try.)

Listen, I have one last word of caution for Halloween gaming. Be wary of Zombies!!!. If you are looking for a good, cheap, and shallow game, then this certainly achieves that goal, but I would recommend checking out any (and all) of the games I previously mentioned before this one. But you don't have to take my word for it.

Us too, Josh.

One last note before I wrap this up, Fantasy Flight Games is about to release a new line of roleplaying games called "The End of the World," based on horror movie tropes like Zombie Apocalypse, Alien Invasion and Machine Uprising. I believe they are using a system that is similar to the one they used for their Star Wars Roleplaying line, and I couldn't be more excited. So as this Halloween season comes to a close, look for those games to scratch that itch all year long.

These games are great on their own, but one way to avoid the silence of the lambs is to use tabletopaudio.com. It is a great resource to really make the atmosphere even more thematic. I’ve started incorporating this resource whenever possible, and I really think that it pays off.

This is the part where I wrap up my tumblrbook and wish everyone a Happy Halloween!

May your trick-or-treat bags be ever full of king size bars, oyster crackers and packets of hot sauce.

Well, thanks everyone for reading this and really genuinely thank you for listening to our show. It really is the emotional high that we crave and chase. Well, have a spooky and safe Halloween everyone, and we can't wait to show you all the things we've been working on.

-Eli

Night Moves by zombiegod on Boardgamegeek; Touch of Evil via Pamela Geller; Brad Whitford Likes Mermen via NotTheGuyYouKill on NeoGaf; Full Bars via reddit; gifs by Pat