Some Great Halloween-themed Boardgames to Try.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Since many of my friends have children now, there's fewer occasions for us to get together and play any kind of serious pen & paper game like Call of Cthulhu, All Flesh Must Be Eaten (Sorry we didn't finish the game, Snarky and Jen!) and others, and Halloween is a great time for games of this sort.

Therefore, I bring you:

Halloween-themed boardgames that are completely awesome!

Game 1:  Elder Sign

Designed for quick play and casual players, Elder Sign (made by the creators of the more involved boardgame Arkham Horror) combines rpg and card gaming to produce something that my friends and I find quite enjoyable.  As a hybrid, instead of an actual board it uses cards as the playfield in the form of Adventures that any player may engage in, the description and rules regarding said Adventure written right on the card.  Each player may select from 1 of 16 unique player characters, each with a unique and useful ability (one player allows you to reroll two of your game dice each turn, for example).  The goal is to enter and investigate Arkham Museum where 'strange happenings' have been reported, culminating in a frantic search for the fabled Elder Signs, wards that each player may acquire and a certain number of which are needed to banish some Lovecraftian horror before it destroys the world.  Within this pretty basic premise is a fully realized game world, where you move your character between adventures (even other worlds), collect weapons, spells, and artifacts, battle monsters, and suffer the effects of whatever Elder God you're facing.  Each game is pretty different because there are a variety of Elder Gods, each with their own effects on the game and, in some cases, their own minions.  The players need to join forces and use their abilities and items to keep their Sanity and Endurance levels from bottoming out (or they die) while completing adventures to gain more items, artifacts and most importantly Elder Signs.  Each turn ends when a Mythos card is drawn, usually adding a Doom Token to the Elder God.  When all the Doom Token slots are full, the being stirs from its sleep and you are forced to do combat with something beyond your understanding, which usually ends in death or insanity.  Obviously, you want to prevent the God from waking from its slumber, so gathering Elder Signs is your top priority.

We really enjoyed the game in spite of the initially daunting setup, which mainly consists of placing the six initial adventure cards, the clock (which you advance every turn), and other cards down to form something resembling a game board.  Once it's setup it's really fun to play, and in our first game we frequently came close to death.  It can be made more or less challenging depending on your skill level, and combined with the variety of player characters and Elder Gods and adventures it has great replayability.


Game 2:  A Touch of Evil!

In A Touch of Evil you are one of eight Monster Hunters and it is the late 1800's.  You are called to a small village to investigate a series of murders and this is where the game becomes interesting because you can either play it competitively or cooperatively (decided beforehand).  As an investigator you have a unique ability as well as hitpoints (known as wounds), cunning, combat skills and spirit.  Each of these skills is used differently based on the Villain you select, so if you select the Spectral Horseman you will largely be fighting him with your knowledge and strength of Spirit.  The village has 6 town elders that each have a deep, dark secret (randomly selected and unknown to the players) that may help their investigation, impede it, or in some cases, place the elders on the side of evil.  The game board has a variety of locations, from an old windmill to the Mayor's manor, each with its own deck of encounter cards to draw from (rare items, enemies, allies and event cards).  Additionally, the blacksmith in the village has items you can buy outright from him in your quest, and this requires Investigation.  Investigation is the currency of the game, and you gain it for each successful event, for solving mysteries, and defeating monsters on your search for the Villain's Lair.  Investigation can be used to view an Elder's secret, though in a competitive game you would not give away what you've learned.  As you journey around the map learning things and gathering your strength, the Villain is also gaining strength and sway over the town as more people are killed (this is represented by the Darkness Track which counts down from 20 to 0), so it becomes a race to find the Villain before he kills enough of the town elders or the Darkness Track reaches 0.  Each time the Villain gains a victory the darkness track moves down, but interestingly enough, certain hero victories may movie it back up.  Ultimately, the player goal is either to competitively or cooperatively use their guile to track the Villain to its Lair, confront it in a grand battle and destroy it if they can.  To this end, each player can carry a certain number of weapons, artifacts, and allies with them (limit of 1 from each of the map locations) into the battle along with a Town Elder of their choice, who will boost their stats.  The risk here is that, if any of the Town Elders is evil they will join the Villain and instead boost IT, making your fight more dangerous.  The game ends either when the Darkness Track reaches 0, either the Villain or the players are defeated, or the elders are all killed or have converted to evil.

This makes for a fun game in groups of 4-5 because there's so much room on the map to move around, get in fights and solve mysteries.  Many of the encounters are resolved rather cleverly by effect cards that can alter the outcome.  For instance, if you are battling the Werewolf on the old bridge and it's going badly, you can leap into the river to live to fight another day.  Little touches like this make the game really cool in my opinion and the combination of effect and mystery cards can lead to some interesting events.


Game 3:  Nightmare!

This is an old game, but having recently discovered it I have to say it does have a place as a Halloween game because it's short (60 minutes regardless of what you do) and it has the bonus of coming with a VHS (you can find the full recording on the internet as well) that runs along with the game, the Gate Keeper being something of a belligerent Dungeon Master (and an unintentionally hilarious one at that!).  While I cannot say the game has great replay value due to it running essentially from a preset video, one game of this on Halloween is likely to provide a lot of laughs as you collect keys, get sent to Limbo, and otherwise become chastised by the Gate Keeper in your quest to get to the center of the board and unlock the doors to get away from his crazy ass.

Edit:  There was a re-release of this in 2003 that uses a dvd, a new Gate Keeper, and a random mechanic to make the game more interesting, though consensus suggests the new Gate Keeper isn't as fun as the original.

Some runner-up games I'd like to recommend:

Zombicide! I haven't gotten up the guts to shell out the $100 for it, but from the description and details it sounds really cool.  It's a lot like A Touch of Evil except that you are battling zombies, scrounging for resources, and you can actually level up your player and improve their skills (and the zombie threat).  It even comes with 6 pre-made adventures and a full campaign!


Fortune and Glory (by the same team that makes A Touch of Evil) basically puts you in the shoes of an Indiana Jones clone complete with adventures around the globe as you search for treasures of awesome power while battling villains and rivals.  Something really cool about Fortune and Glory is that the treasures are created from 3 stacks of random cards, so it is very rare to get the same thing twice.  While not strictly a Halloween theme, it has the same kind of appeal as A Touch of Evil! and the same type of mechanics, making it a fun game for a group.

Arkham Horror, as I have mentioned previously, is a greatly expanded version of Elder Sign with a multitude of addons that will keep you playing and replaying it for years.  Arkham Horror takes place in and around Arkham, Massachusetts, where portals are opening up at random locations and spewing out things from other realms.  As a unique investigator, it is your job to seal these portals before they create a dimensional crisis and allow an Elder God to cross over.  This involves gathering information, weapons and artifacts and battling minions in your way to closing the portals.  It's recommended for advanced players who don't mind spending 2-4 hours a gaming session.  Mansions of Madness is another game by Fantasy Flight and allows you to explore a differently built mansion each adventure (from tile blocks) but is similar thematically to Elder Sign and Arkham Horror in that your goal is to stop a great evil from appearing.

For those of you that like a bit of tabletop gaming and want to have friends over for Halloween, I hope this list gives you some ideas.

[Vince Twelve]

Dude!  I used to have Nightmare!  It was creepy if played at night or hilarious if played by day.  The Gate Keeper would challenge you to a staring contest and if you blink you'd have to move back a few spaces or something.  I had forgotten about this game.

I've played Arkham Horror with friends once, but had no clue what the hell was going on!

Nice recommendations!  I'd add Betrayal at house on the hill.  I've had much fun with friends on this one.  You build a dynamic haunted mansion as you play and you're all sort of on the same team and then at some point in the game one of the players becomes the betrayer and one of a huge number of scenarios starts.  So each time you play, the game has a different story and objective.

Edit:  Ahaha, I had to go look up Nightmare on YouTube.  Hilarious! But for some reason I had remembered the Gate Keeper as looking more like Death from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

That game sounds cool, Vince.  I've added it to my Amazon wishlist!

[Eggie]

I've heard of Betrayl at the House! I want to play it. And I think I've played Nightmare but it was called Atmosfear.
I'm going to run these by my one pal who is into board games and see if he knows them. It's been too long since we had a game of something.

[EchosofNezhyt]

Never played any of these or any tabletop things... Though I googled some of this stuff.

I found a funny video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5BCB-mvwV8&feature=related

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

That video is what made me decide to buy Nightmare in the first place .

[EchosofNezhyt]

That video is what made me decide to buy Nightmare in the first place .

It seems like it would be a blast drunk lol.

[Eric]

Since many of my friends have children now, there's fewer occasions for us to get together and play any kind of serious pen & paper game like Call of Cthulhu

I've never played a pen & paper RPG to completion. I've sat in for part of a D&D game, and got pretty bored, and for part of a Star Wars RPG (bored again). I think I need to play with people who are better at storytelling and less excited about math.

The best experience I've had with this type of RPG was a Call of Cthulu game played via Google Wave with my brother-in-law and a friend of his. He encouraged us to take time with the characters, and we never actually got to fully investigating the haunted house fully (before Wave was shut down) because we were spending a lot of time setting scenes, creating dialogues together, etc. That was a lot of fun, though I think I would've been disappointed if my little guy had died/been driven mad right away.