Halloween is close now, if you’re organising a board game event either at home or in a cafe and want to play something that evokes the season… What’s the best plan?
Here’s a few ways that board games inspire Halloween-like emotions. Maybe we can help you make your game night as terrifying as it should be…
Are you sitting comfortably?
Narrative is one way to make a game night memorable. A good story latches on to us and when you are invested in the characters and their plight then if things go wrong you feel like you should strive to overcome those obstacles. If you do manage then the success is so much sweeter.
A good example of this is Eldritch Horror. This game is the successor of Arkham Horror but takes the scale from the streets of a city to a global struggle against Old Ones. The earlier versions of Arkham Horror were random affairs that you would play through with a specific goal in mind. The third edition and Eldritch Horror changes this into a branching adventure with a stronger plot running through it. How well you do early on will affect how the game ends and each Ancient One you play against has different strengths and weaknesses.
I’m a great believer in weaving a character arc based around their actions taken in the game and letting that story guide my choices… investing in the story makes for an epic session.
Why would you even do that?
The threat and risk of potential betrayal is an emotional rollercoaster. Some of the best deception games use this to get players invested in the world they create.
How could we not mention Blood on the Clocktower for this one? Across our sites we regularly run sessions of this for people and they keep coming back. So what’s it all about?
There has been a brutal death and a Demon is responsible, it is masquerading as one of the townsfolk and may also have minions amongst those innocents too. Kill the Demon, win the game as a villager, Team Evil needs to slaughter the village to win.
Many games have done this before but Blood on the Clocktower has taken this to another level with interesting powers for every player.
You need someone to run this game and a large group of willing players, discussion and accusation is part of the process as people start dropping like flies, one per night, by the whims of the Demon.
If this intrigues you, check out our events page and book yourself a seat at the next session.
‘BOO!’… *ARGH!*
Horror films sometimes rely on jump scares to make an impact, when it’s quiet and you know something bad is about to happen but when it does you still leap from your seat? That’s a good jump scare.
Board games and jump scares? Those that do this well normally rely on increasing stress and tension with some kind of dramatic pay off. Yes, we’re talking about Balance games, one of the subsets of Dexterity.
It surprises us that there is no horror themed balance game, so I’m going to just talk about a wonderful cooperative balance game that touches on curses and can be truly punishing… Menara.
In Menara you are trying to rebuild an ancient temple as a group, if you can’t complete your turn then the temple needs to be built higher, thus ramping up the tension. If the tower collapses at any stage then the game ends with the curse enacting a toll on the group.
As the temple grows, nerves start fraying and you feel the adrenaline building. One poor decision and it’s game over. With moments of calm and moments or great stress this feels like a great take on horror. The jump scare is the potential collapse and is the closest we can find that gives you this feeling in a table top format.
Can’t I just stay here?
The unknown, a mystery… fear creeps into your very being not knowing what could be around that next corner… escape? A monster? There’s only one way to find out. Really, you can’t just stay in one place…
The Night Cage is a disturbing ever changing labyrinth. You have a candle that shows you the surrounding locations but nothing else, as you explore the paths shift in the darkness, find a key and a gate and escape but beware the Wax-Eaters. This game is a beautifully designed horror extravaganza, tense and mysterious and worth playing, it even has a number of built in variants from Advanced mode to the eerie silence variant and even two boss monsters to make a difficult game even more challenging.
He’s over there!
Working against a mastermind who is unseen but you know is out there, a hunt for a killer, people’s lives at stake, a hidden perpetrator.
Whitehall Mystery is a 1 vs many game, the one being a murderer and the many being the police force tracking them down. A reimagining of Letters from Whitechapel and captures the same thrill where smarts on either side can end up winning the day. Hidden movement is the order of the day here with ‘Jack’ controlling their location behind a screen whilst the constables openly discuss their plans on how to corner this fiend.
This works from both sides as a horror themed game, the tension is palpable but one slip up from either side could lead to disaster. Adrenaline flows and stories of near misses and sudden captures will live forever in the minds of those playing.
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Whoever you chose to spend Halloween with, board games can be the centrepiece of your party in one way or another. Well, we like to think so. If it’s all a bit too much, why not just book a session at one of our digs and ask us to show you something terrifying? We’ll be happy to help, as always.