Halloween is coming up soon. All readers of this article probably already know that board games are nothing to be afraid of. Thematically, however, there are often terrifying settings and realistic artwork that cast a spell over the players. Sometimes there is even a suitable soundtrack that provides even more atmosphere.
The preparations for the spookiest night of the year are probably already underway for many. Scary decorations, maybe a costume, delicious snacks with a scary look and board games. We have collected which board games are suitable for a successful Halloween. Whether cooperative, creative, child-friendly or head-breaking – there is something for everyone.
Horrified - Cooperative monster fun
It starts with a game that... Ravensburger has appeared. In this cooperative family game, players take on the roles of heroes who have to defend a village and its residents against invading monsters. From Dracula to the Invisible Man, there are a total of six monsters (seven if you count Frankenstein(s Monster) and Bride of Frankenstein as two monsters) that you have to defend the village against. Depending on the difficulty you choose, you have to deal with two, three or four monsters in a game.
The course of the game is quickly explained. Each turn consists of a hero phase and a monster phase. In the hero phase, a person performs as many actions as their character allows. You can move around the field and bring the villagers to safety, collect and trade items, and meet the monsters' individual conditions in order to defeat them afterwards. In addition, all advantage cards can be played at any time.
In the monster phase, one card is always drawn from the monster deck. It indicates how many new items are placed, whether and which event occurs and which monsters move how far and with how many dice they attack. The monsters only attack if they share a space with a hero or villager.
In this way, the moves are executed in turn. If the players manage to defeat all monsters before the monster stack is empty or the fear marker reaches the last position, they win.
The cooperative game can be played with 1-5 people aged 10 and up and scares the group for about an hour.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Ravensburger Horrified: Universal Monsters Immersive Strategy... * | 43,78 EUR |
Abomination - Dark Human Puzzle
It's a completely different caliber Subscription: The Heir of Frankenstein. The German edition was just successfully financed in the game forge. This is a classic worker placement game set in Paris in 1819. Frankenstein's monster appears as a mysterious patron, sponsoring a scientific contest to unravel the mysteries of life.
The players deploy their scientists and assistants in Paris. In different places they can increase their reputation, increase their knowledge or prove their humanity. The most important task is the gathering of resources. In this game, this refers to bones, blood, animal parts, muscles and organs. You can find this in different degrees of freshness in the cemetery, in the hospital, in the morgue or after an execution in the market place. If you want particularly fresh material, you can also kill people in the dark alley.
When all workers have been placed, the laboratory phase follows. Here you can use the collected materials to complete body parts of the creature. Points are awarded depending on the condition of the material. The fresher the better. Towards the end of the game you can also try to bring the individual monster parts to life. This works via a dice mechanism.
Whoever has collected the most points after 12 rounds or after the first monster has fully come to life wins the game. The German edition differs greatly from the original English edition. It shortens the game noticeably. The English original plays in 90-180 minutes. The German edition should only take 60-120 minutes. She is a modified version of the Prometheus variant of the original. Both editions can be played by 2-4 people aged 14 and over.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Plaid Hat Games PH3200 Accessory * |
Greenville 1989/Paris 1889 - Stories to scare
We stay straight in the 19th century. At least one of the two games is playing during this time. Both share the same game principle. Greenville 1989 is in German Kosmos appeared. The successor Paris 1889 is only available in English and French, but improves some aspects of its predecessor.
The artwork is key to the game and is outstanding in both titles. Some scene is depicted on these, which the players describe and develop their own story based on this. Greenville 1989 is designed a bit more spooky here, while the artwork in Paris 1889 is a bit more urban but always has something at least strange about it. There are frequent references to popular horror franchises throughout the maps.
There are no limits to the imagination in this game. Whether you let a friendly giant ray you name Rochi help you or let a murderous pumpkin-headed scarecrow pursue you is entirely up to the players (and their cards).
When everyone has told their story, new cards are revealed. One person is the game master in each round and must then secretly allocate the new cards to a fellow player based on the stories. The group then has to discuss without the game master which of the new cards goes best with whose story and also assign them.
If both assignments match, the person receives the new card as the basis for the next steps in the story. If there are differences, the characters move in the direction of the abyss or no further in the direction of the goal.
Both games are recommended for 3-6 people aged 16 and over. However, the high age can be attributed more to the visual design than to the complexity. A game lasts between 30-60 minutes.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Sorry We Are French Paris 1889 * | 23,01 EUR |
Ticket to Ride: Scary Ride – Scary fun for the little ones
War Horrified quite well suited to play with younger people, it is Ticket to Ride: Scary Way the ideal title to play something suitable for Halloween with children. Here is the popular and successful Ticket to Ride concept with more compact rules and a nice spooky theme.
The number of your own destination cards is fixed at six. So an option in your own turn is omitted. You only have to decide between using a route and drawing two wagon cards. Unlike the original, there is no open display for these. Matching sets of wagon cards are the key to using routes.
If you fulfill one of your two target cards, you simply draw a new one from the stack. If it happens that none of the two target cards you own can be fulfilled, you can exchange them. There are two other special destination cards that you get when you connect specific locations or regions.
The game ends as soon as one person has completed six objective cards. This is tantamount to victory. If someone is the first to place all the wagons on the game board, the person with the most completed destination cards wins. There are no victory points.
The game is recommended for 2-4 people aged 6+. The duration of scary ride is between 15 and 30 minutes.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Days of Wonder, Ticket to Ride – scary ride, children's game,... * |
The Faceless - "Attractive" game without a Stranger Things theme
The most extraordinary game mechanics on this chilling list can be found in The Faceless. In this cooperative game, the miniatures of Billygoat and his minions, who are the team's opponents, contain magnets. The group's "pawn" is a compass whose orientation dictates where the group is headed.
Ethan was drawn into the shadow world by Billygoat. All that's left of the Elm Street clan, a group of children, is their diary and an old compass. You must go to the shadow world and collect eight memories from Ethan to be able to bring him back to this world.
Each person takes on the role of a child of the group. All have a special ability that can be useful during gameplay. In each turn you can choose between three actions. You can play a card to move the figure of the corresponding color. The compass then moves as many steps as indicated on the map. After each step, the direction of movement may be adjusted depending on the orientation of the compass needle.
Instead of playing a card, you can also draw cards. These are taken from the open display.
The last option is to swap cards between players.
Regardless of the chosen action, at the end of each turn a card is drawn from the face-down stack and placed in the face-up display according to its color. Depending on the color, an effect is triggered that usually has a negative effect on figures, cards in hand or the display.
If the stack is empty, the group runs into an obstacle and cannot prevent it with a memory, or Billygoat finds the group before all memories are collected, the game is lost. When all memories have been collected, everyone wins together.
The Faceless is a game for 2-4 people that can also be played alone. The title is recommended for ages 14 and up. The playing time is about 30-45 minutes. The box contains various mini expansions that ensure a high level of replay appeal. For even more atmosphere there are two soundtracks written especially for the game.
A standalone extension is currently in development. One can only hope so The Faceless: Amusement Park other than the publisher's most recent title (A) back to the quality of The Faceless comes close and is really a finished game.
Aleph Zero - Nocturnal Demon Summoning
To create a good dose of horror alone, you can simply summon Baphomet. At least in this "anti" deck builder. For up to six hours (one hour=one game round) you summon cards with the aim of sacrificing as many cards as possible from the deck and being able to summon Baphomet with the three keys.
The Grimoire Verum is placed on the wooden shelf. If you “leaf” to the first few pages, you can select the difficulty and provide impairments accordingly.
Play through the deck once every hour, summoning cards, spending magic energy, and sacrificing cards for special effects. When the deck is depleted, the discard pile is shuffled and an ailment card is added to the deck on the second, third, and fourth rounds. Depending on the difficulty, an ailment can also enter the deck in each round.
In order to win, the three keys must be summoned. If these three cards are on display, you can summon Baphomet by sacrificing the keys and all other cards on display that have no effect. If there are still cards in hand, in the discard pile or in the draw pile at this point, you lose the game despite the successful summoning.
If not, you might win. For each card sacrificed next to the keys you lose one point. You get one point for the current hour and every remaining hour up to the sixth brings you two points. Each damage token that is still in the supply is worth one additional point.
If the result is negative, you have also lost. With a score of zero or more points you reach a certain rank.
aleph zero is a pure solo game from the age of 12 with a playing time of up to 20 minutes. There is also a soundtrack written especially for the game.
Deep Madness - Epic coop dungeon crawler
One of the biggest challenges on this list comes from the Horror Dungeon Crawler deep madness In this cooperative game, players take on the role of investigators exploring what appears to be an abandoned underwater mine. There, horrors inspired by Lovecraft and the Alien series await.
Depending on the selected scenario, there are different tasks to be completed. The entire underwater complex is being infested more and more by monsters and you won't be able to survive the horror without a bit of luck with the dice.
At the start of each round, rooms sink, making them more dangerous to traverse. In addition, new monsters appear in these and already lost rooms, which go on the hunt for the investigators.
During the action phase, one of the six investigators and one type of monster are activated one after the other. Investigators can move, receive or trade cards, attack monsters and roll for success, lock rooms, and perform other actions such as equipment.
Monsters always move toward the investigator closest to them. If they are within range, they will be attacked. In addition, special actions and effects may be triggered by submerged rooms.
Just as individually as the victory condition belonging to the respective scenario, there is also a defeat condition in each scenario. In addition, the party loses if an investigator dies, time runs out, or no more monsters can be added from the supply.
The horror game, equipped with a lot of material and many miniatures, can be played with 1-6 people aged 14 and over. A scenario plays out in 90 to 120 minutes. The third reprint of the game is currently at Kickstarter in crowdfunding.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Legion Distribution Deep Madness* |
Patchwork Halloween Edition – a classic in a spooky guise
The 2-person classic by Uwe Rosenberg and Lookout Games are available in numerous editions. Of course there is also a Halloween Edition. Except for small adjustments in the cost of individual parts, it is identical to the standard edition. Of course, only the artwork was adjusted.
Eyes are the currency instead of buttons. The characters and special patches now show pumpkins and the neutral character is a tombstone.
As usual, it applies in patchwork fabric to place the tiles as efficiently as possible on your own tableau.
In each turn you can choose one of the next three tiles from the neutral playing piece. Each tile has a cost in eyeballs and in "time". In this way, your own character moves closer and closer to the goal on the neutral schedule. If you don't want any of the three tiles, you move directly in front of the other players on the schedule and receive as many eyeballs as you have jumped over.
If you collect a special patch on the schedule, you can place it immediately on your own board. The first player to fill an uninterrupted 7×7 area receives a bonus tile.
The game ends when both have reached the goal on the schedule. The eyeballs are the victory points. Each free space costs two points. The bonus tile is worth seven points.
The game for two ghosts is recommended for ages 8 and up and lasts about half an hour.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Lookout Games, Patchwork Halloween Edition, Board Game, Ages 12+,... * |
Nemesis: Alien Nightmare
You don't trust your friends that much and want to find out who you can really turn to for help in an emergency? Then Nemesis the perfect game to tell the good guys from the bad guys. The players are on a spaceship and want to bring it back to earth together. There's just one problem: nasty aliens called Xenos have infested the spaceship, making it a life-or-death struggle for everyone.
During the game, the players move over the eponymous spaceship Nemesis, uncover new rooms and search for objects. In addition, they ensure the functionality of the ship, for example by checking the engines or repairing rooms.
In addition, the players must be careful when moving through the corridors. Every movement creates a noise that attracts the Xenos. As soon as the second noise marker has been placed in a corridor, the nasty aliens appear and want to get at the players.
In the end, the players have to survive this horror and fulfill their individual goals that the others don't know about. These can be good or evil, which is why there is a mixed mood throughout the game. Who can you trust and who not? 1-5 players can ask themselves this question for about 90-180 minutes. And meanwhile also on Mars. Because recently, Nemesis: Lockdown, the second part of the successful dungeon crawler, hit the stores.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Awaken Realms, Nemesis, basic game, expert game, dungeon... * | 131,89 EUR |
Betrayal at House on The Hill: Traitors!
Before we get to board game adaptations of horror movies, agree with us Betrayal at House on the Hill ever on classic horror film settings. Because in this classic horror game, 3-6 players, ages 12 and up, slip into the role of fearless explorers who enter a mysterious house on the hill. And with devastating consequences...
Starting in the huge hallway, the players gradually uncover the rooms and secrets of the property during the first phase. Objects and omens are collected and events are dealt with. If you uncover a room with an omen symbol, the active player must also perform a haunt roll. To do this, he rolls 6 dice. If the number of points is less than the total number of all omen cards drawn, the second phase of the game begins: the spook.
Depending on the room in which the spook was triggered and the omen card you drew, one of 50 spook scenarios will be triggered. Depending on the scenario, a player becomes a traitor who wants to get at his fellow players. The others must stop the traitor or escape from him. Each scenario offers completely different stories and thus ways of ending the game. brings Betrayal at House on the Hill great replay value. The game is also set up quite quickly and is pretty short at 60 minutes of playtime.
Since 2004 will Betrayal at House on the Hill diligently played, so it's no wonder that Avalon Hill and Hasbro recently released the third edition of this classic. If you are looking for a short but exciting game for a successful Halloween night, then you should definitely keep an eye on this title.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Avalon Hill F4541 Betrayal at House on The Hill 3rd Edition... * | 53,25 EUR |
The Thing – Tactical Sci-Fi Horror Game
John Carpenter created a horror hit in 1982 with The Thing that is now a classic. The scary sci-fi thriller about researchers in distress in Antarctica is thanks to Pendragon Studios and Asmodee can also be experienced as a board game - even localized.
The good news: The connoisseur's game for one to eight players with distinctive deduction elements is a success. The material fits, the design of the cards and game board is excellent and the process is quite fast enough even in larger groups of players. Exciting: There are different ways to win. The thrill can be felt until the very end.
The bad news: the instructions are pretty scary. Little structure and sometimes crude translations make it difficult to get started. However, it is worth persevering. Because: The Thing is one of the most exciting sci-fi horror board games on the market.
In addition, the atmosphere of the original film is captured well. Fans think back to the old Kurt Russell, Richard Masur and Keith David flick with joy. The parasite horror can be reenacted on the gaming table at home.
The board game based on the horror strip can be played by 1 to 8 people aged 14 and over and lasts between 60 and 90 minutes per game.
Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
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Pendragon Game, The Thing: The Board Game, Basic Game,... * | 38,29 EUR |
The Shining: Shallow board game based on the classic
There is probably no better known horror film than the one about a crazy writer and his family. One image should quickly come to mind for genre fans: the wonderful orange carpet of the Overlook Hotel, on which little Danny is doing his rounds with the tricycle.
Thanks to Prospero Hall, the whole thing can also be experienced as a board game. The round of three to five people plays cooperatively against the hotel and its powerful forces. The title is not particularly peaceful: the board game captures the horror from Stanley Kubrick's 1980s template quite aptly. The pressure on the group of players is great, which makes the process quite exciting. Overall, the board game The Shining is shallow - it is therefore also aimed at casual players. Once you understand the rules of the game, which is available in English in this country, the games go quickly. It depends on teamwork and making the right decisions.
The real star of the board game is the design. This is based on the original film. The locations are recognizable, the footage reflects the scenes from the horror flick. Even if The Shining isn't the big hit in terms of gameplay, the board game is definitely atmospheric - perfect for a spooky game night on Halloween.
The board game based on the film classic can be played with 3 to 5 people aged 15 and over and entertains the round for 45 to 60 minutes.
Friday the 13th – every damn Friday
The template for this horror board game from USAopoly: Friday the 13th is no less classic. Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th slasher film series started in 1980 - and it's no less scary today than it was then. The stories about serial killer Jason Voorhees, who was bullied into the water by other children at the Crystal Lake holiday camp as a child, are real classics. What's more, the film series is one of the most popular horror film series of all time alongside Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. So it's no big surprise that there's a board game for this.
The game still has a niche. Because: The game is not available locally in this country. You should be able to speak English, then there is no problem. The rules are simple, but so is the gameplay.
The film license is not fully exploited, the connection is rather loose. Nevertheless, the theme is recognizable. And at least the Crystal Lake appears. However, you will look in vain for characters from the template. It doesn't matter, because players should write their own scary story. The Jason topic is a bit too short or only in token form. Blindly you draw tiles on the sack - twice Jason means nothing good. So the serial killer acts passively.
This board game is also rather solid, but one of the few examples of classic licensed horror. The idea: You have to survive five nights. At the end, the person with the most collected supplies wins.
The board game can be played with 3 to 6 people aged 18 and over and offers horror for around an hour.
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USAopoly QZ010-716-002000-06 Accessories * |
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