You can spend Halloween racing through a graveyard or selling potion ingredients to witches. NewVenture's Halloween games bring family fun and make-believe to the table, with puzzles, combat, and familiar card games.
Their spooky characters have a long history. That story starts with the holiday's name and its older seasonal traditions.
How All Hallows' Eve became Halloween
November 1 is All Saints' Day, also called All Hallows' Day. The preceding night became All Hallows' Eve, and the shortened name eventually became Halloween.
Like Mardi Gras, the evening before a religious observance became more popular than the observance itself.
Samhain, ancestors, and autumn bonfires
The Celtic festival of Samhain is a major influence on Halloween. This seasonal turning point separated harvest abundance from winter hardship.
People believed the boundary between the living and dead grew thin. They welcomed ancestors with food and stories, while disguises and food offerings helped ward off harmful spirits.
Communal bonfires supplied fresh hearth fires for winter. Druidic rituals and animal sacrifices also belonged to these older traditions, but generally don't appear in modern celebrations.
Fairy tales made Halloween more playful
Victorian fairy tales grew less grim. Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe offered adult reading, while children had Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman, and Red Riding Hood's wolf.
Early commercial board games often used morality tales and popular stories. Publishers including McLoughlin Brothers, Jaques, Spears, Milton Bradley, and Parker Brothers recognized the appeal of familiar holiday themes.
Meanwhile, witches, black cats, harmless ghosts, and pumpkin heads filled whimsical greeting-card artwork. Trick-or-treating carried older food-sharing customs into neighborhood fun.
Horror films, cartoons, and costumes
Bram Stoker and H.P. Lovecraft supplied darker fiction, while early horror films gave audiences new nightmares. Cartoons offered a lighter version: Mickey Mouse encountered ghosts, Betty Boop carved pumpkins, and Cab Calloway voiced dancing spirits.
Campy monster movies mixed jump scares with fun. Their classic creatures eventually reached game tables.
In the 1950s and '60s, costumes gave children and adults more alter egos. Zombie stories also expanded beyond reanimated dead and Haitian voodoo tales to modern flesh-eaters.
The Lychgates
In The Lychgates Graveyard Race, two to four players seek escape through one of four gates. Cards control movement and modify rules. Roaming spirits block paths and multiply as play continues.
Escape from Horrorwood
Escape from Horrorwood's competitive puzzle challenges players to rearrange cards and find a route to a portal. Werewolves, vampires, mummies, spiders, and a dragon complicate the escape, while opponents can disrupt each other's plans.
Die!
Die! is an arena combat game that gives two to four players fighter teams and one six-sided die apiece. Faction cards break the rules for gladiators, ninjas, Vikings, sorcerers, mummies, killbots, and zombies. The objective is simple: don't die.
Witch's Wares
Two to four Medieval Merchants acquire ingredients and sell them to village witches. Eye of newt, wing of bat, wolfsbane, and mandrake root make this economics game Halloween-appropriate without gore.
Zombie Bingo, Old Bones, and Go Bats
Mark Gonyea's Zombie Bingo is a two-player, dice-driven five-in-a-row game. Zombies interfere, and players risk becoming zombies themselves.
His Old Bones gives Old Maid a Halloween theme, while Go Bats reworks Go Fish. These three games and Witch's Wares are listed as coming soon.
Victor or Victim
Victor or Victim card game accommodates three to five players who can spell its two title words and recognize red, blue, and yellow.
Each turn involves drawing, playing, and passing a card. Spell Victor in one color to win; Victim eliminates a player. Skip, steal, and reverse cards add interference.
(The NewVenture how-to-play video collection provides detailed game demonstrations.)
Spirit boards sit outside the game lineup
The Kennard Novelty Company in Baltimore commercialized Ouija boards in 1890. Elijah Bond received patent 446054 on February 10, 1891. The origin of the name combines French oui and German ja, both meaning "yes” - but the pronunciation “Wee-Gee” is strictly English.
Even spiritualists who consider these boards genuine communication devices distinguish them from games.
My Halloween preference is whimsy and pretending rather than gore and horror. These games offer spooky company for a late night at the table, but no nightmares afterward!
Hope you have more treats than tricks!