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It’s almost spooky season again and, if you haven’t already, it’s time to start thinking about what you want to dress up as. Personally, I’ve had an ample amount of time during the pandemic to sit around and try to come up with the perfect Halloween costume, and it’s currently a neck-and-neck race between Tinker Bell and Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls. This one’s going to come down to the wire.
But since that pandemic seems to be (hopefully) coming to an end and lots of us are vaccinated, we can once again enjoy our Halloween festivities. It’s time to put those bowls of candy out, suit up in our costumes, mix up some spooky pumpkin spice cocktails, and plan our Halloween parties.
For many people, it’s been quite a while since we’ve been to a proper house party. So, after such a long hiatus, it’s time to go all-out. I’d recommend having a best costume contest (with prizes, of course), maybe thinking about which scary movie you’re going to watch, and maybe cheffing up a huge batch of lobster salad (it looks like brains).
Next, think about who you want to invite. Curating the right guest list is just as important as any other aspect of the party, and inviting exes or weird uncles could turn your party from silly and spooky to actually scary.
Regardless of who shows up to your Halloween bash, one of the best things to liven up the party is having a list of games that your guests can play together. Nothing’s worse than having people sitting around idly and being unable to find anyone to have a conversation with.
Having a roster of games to play makes it so no one will ever feel bored, everyone will be forced to interact with each other, and your party will be guaranteed to have a festive atmosphere. If you’re the creative type, feel free to come up with your own Halloween-themed games. However, if you’re not so good at coming up with things on the spot, here are six Halloween game ideas to get you started:
1. Toilet Paper Mummy
This one is an absolute classic and probably every single one of you reading this has played this game as a child. With that being said, this game is still a blast no matter what your age is. First, you split everyone up at the party into teams of three. Each team will elect a mummy and two rollers. The rollers will each then be given a brand new roll of toilet paper.
Once the rollers have their toilet paper, the purpose of the game is to use up your entire roll of toilet paper before any other team. Both rollers wrap your elected mummy with the rolls of toilet paper (trying to cover up as much of their body as possible so as to create a convincing mummy) until the rolls are completely used up. The fastest team to do this wins. Like all other games, this game gets more competitive and more fun when you offer prizes to the winners.
2. Poke-A-Pumpkin
Here’s a fun game that can be adapted for children or adults, depending on what your guest list looks like. Basically, you create the game by gluing a bunch of plastic cups (orange cups are the best for making the pumpkin more realistic) to a piece of poster board in the shape of a pumpkin. Inside each of the cups, you can hide special prizes or write further instructions. Then, you cover the cups with orange construction paper tied on with rubber bands.
Each player takes a turn poking through one of the pieces of construction paper and seeing what lies inside their cup. If you’re playing with children, you can fill the cups with prizes like small toys, lollipops, washable tattoos, or whatever. If you’re playing with adults, you can put challenges inside of each cup. The more risque the challenges are, the more laughs this game is going to get.
By the way!
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3. Halloween Bowling
This is both a game and a great way to get everyone’s creative juices flowing. The process begins with some arts-and-crafts time; everyone gets an empty bottle (they can be big bottles or small bottles, depending on the amount of space you have to play) and paints a spooky character on it. You’ll probably need at least 10 bottles to play properly. Then, you get a tennis ball or a small soccer ball and roll it into your newly painted bottles. Score it like a real bowling match or just have fun seeing how many bottles you can knock down.
If you need some inspiration for what to paint on your bottles, watch some Halloween movies or just look around you. Your friend is wearing an awesome vampire costume? Well, then paint a vampire! You just finished up the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London? Paint that bottle up like a werewolf.
4. Spooky Scavenger Hunt
Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt? And, as everyone knows, every good scavenger hunt has a good theme. Lucky for you, during the Halloween party season, your theme is already made up for you!
Hide a bunch of spooky items around your house, your yard, or your entire town, and then write a list of clues to help your guests locate the hidden items. Some items could include a skull, a pumpkin, a giant spiderweb, a coffin, or anything else that fits in with the Halloween theme.
To bring your spooky scavenger hunt into the 21st century, require that all teams must take pictures of the items with their smartphones and show photo evidence. I’m not saying your friends are cheaters, but it’s always better to have accountability. And, as always, the team with the most photos of items should receive some kind of reward.
5. Ghost, Witch, Zombie
The purpose of this game is basically to drink; however, you might be able to use it to entertain children for all of about 5 minutes. The way the game works is that you count to three and then everyone chooses ghost, witch, or zombie in their mind.
If you choose zombie, then you stick your arms out in front of you in classic zombie fashion. If you choose witch, you put your hands above your head and form a triangle like a witch’s hat. If you want to be a ghost, then you put your arms out to the sides and wiggle them in the spookiest manner possible.
Once everyone has chosen their role, you count up the number of ghosts, witches, and zombies in the room. You can either take a drink in celebration if you are the team with the most members or you can force the team with the least members to take a drink in shame. If you’re playing with children or just don’t want to drink, well, then you can just get excited about being the winning team.
6. Halloween Movie Trivia
In my professional opinion, no good party is complete without at least a few rounds of trivia. Find out which of your friends are the true movie buffs by setting up a Halloween movie trivia game. You can either come up with your own trivia questions or easily find an already-made set of questions online.
If you want to brush up on your Halloween movie knowledge before the holiday, there are tons of great Halloween movies out there to watch. Of course, you have Halloween, but you should also add Scream, Hocus Pocus, the Disney Channel classic Halloweentown, and Beetlejuice to your watch list.
