It’s spooky season and you know what that means? The neighbourhoods start putting up their Halloween decorations, coffee shops are serving their pumpkin spice latte’s, the air is cool and crisp, the world has turned a golden brown and people are starting to dig out their winter boots and woolly jumpers. October is a great time to host a Murder Mystery Parties and at Masters of Mystery, we have a variety of spooky murder mystery games for you and your guests to play, but why not add some other party games to your Halloween Party?
Below is a list of 10 Halloween Party games that both adults and children can really sink their teeth into and have a lot of ghoulish fun with.
Pin the hat on the witch
A Halloween version of the classic game of pin the tail on the donkey. The goal is in the title ‘pin the hat on the witch’ On a large piece of card draw a witch, paint her and put her on a wall. Cut out witch hats (you could even have your guests decorate their own witch hat first) and then attach a strip of double-sided sticky tape to the back of each hat. Players will take it in turns to be blind folded and will try to get their witches hat as close to the witch’s head as possible.
Resources: Card, double sided sticky tape, colouring pens and pencils, scissors and a long piece of orange or green fabric for the blind fold.
Halloween Treasure Hunt
This operates the same way normal treasure hunts would work but will have a Halloween theme. You can purchase plastic bats, pumpkins or ghosts from most discount stores and then hide them around the house or around the garden.
For younger guests that might be all that’s needed, they will need to hunt them all out and collect as many as possible. Give them buckets to collect them in and if you’ve hidden things outside then a flashlight to help them in their hunt.
For older guests you can have less objects around but put riddles on them, clues as to where another object is located. Guests will have to solve the riddle and find the location of the next clue.
For both these types of treasure hunt you can have a prize for the winner.
Resources: Plastic pumpkins, ghosts, bats or some other Halloween creature, buckets, notepads and pencils, flashlight and a prize for the winner.
The Spider Web
Using rope, string or wool/yarn in a narrow space such as a hallway, wrap the string around various table and chair legs and cross them over creating a spider web obstacle, guests will have to crawl through, step over and move around the ‘web’ to get to the other side.
If played outside you will need a fence post to attach one end and then various helpers to hold the rope at different heights, angles and cross them over each other.
Resources: rope or string, or wool/yard depending on the space you are building in.
Werewolf hunt
This game requires a large open space outdoors or a larger room with minimal clutter. Everyone will be given a flashlight and a home base will be set up. This can be marked on the floor with string or chairs. Everyone starts in the base with their flashlights on. Someone is chosen to be the werewolf; everyone closes their eyes and turns off their flashlight other than the werewolf who will run off and hide somewhere. Guests will then turn on their flashlights and go hunting for the werewolf. When they spot them, they shout “werewolf” and then everyone has to run back to the base. If anyone is tagged by the werewolf before they reach the base, they become a werewolf too.
This game is designed to be played in the dark but if guests are younger, you can leave the lights on and it becomes more like hide and seek, they just have to close their eyes and not cheat.
Resources: flashlights
Marshmallow Tower
This is a game of precision and skill. Split your guests into teams and give them a bag of marshmallows and lollypop sticks (we recommend the plain, undyed ones) the aim of the game is to build a marshmallow tower as high as you possibly can without it falling down. How guests do this is entirely up to them but the only resources they have are the sticks and marshmallows.
Resources: table surface, lollypop sticks and marshmallows.
Eyeball Pong
This works the same way as beer pong and can be played with or without the alcohol depending on the age of your guests. Buy some eye-balls from your local discount store and throw them at a table with cups or bowls on the. The idea is to get as many eyeballs to lands in the cups or bowls as possible.
Resources: a table surface, Ping-Pong balls with eyes painted on them or eye-balls bought from a discount store and bowls or cups.
Murderer Card Game
A version of this called ‘Son of Sam’ was made famous by Disney+ ‘Only Murders in the building’ which was a take on an old game from the 1970s, but there have been various versions of the game, throughout the years.
There are character cards depending on the theme but there will usually be ‘townsfolk’ who are innocent, one person will have a ‘witch’ or ‘murderer’ card. Everyone is given a card that tells them a ‘character’ and then they stand in a circle, puts their hands into the middle and closes their eyes. The murderer or witch will then tap one of them and that person will have to pretend to ‘die’ or be ‘possessed’ very dramatically. The others will then have to guess who they think the murderer, or the witch are and vote. If they’re wrong the game continues, if they’re right the cards are reshuffled, and the game starts again.
Resources: game cards, these can be bought online as boxed games on sites like Amazon.com or from traders or sites such as Etsy.com and printed at home.
‘Feed Me’
For this game you will need to make a monster, this can be done with a cardboard box, foam sheets and felt. Simply cover a box in felt and cut a mouth out of it, you can attach teeth to the hole and add some eyes to the top of it. The aim of the game is to throw things, beanbags, balls, bags of sweets, anything you like into the monster’s mouth.
Resources: a cardboard box, felt and foam sheets, colouring pens, scissors, glue and objects to throw
Mummies
This is a fun challenge for adults or children. In teams someone volunteers to be the mummy, set a timer, the rest of their team has to wrap them in toilet paper within the time limit, the team that does the best job is the winner.
Resources: toilet paper, timer
The Witches Brew
Can be played by adults or children, if you are playing this game with adults then you can include some boozy drinks, if you are playing with children simply include a variety of flavoured soft drinks. (This game could get quite costly for the host so you might want to ask guests to contribute to the pile of ingredients)
Have a variety of drinks on the table, some mixing bowls and some shot glasses or measuring spoons and empty glasses. Guests can choose 3 to 5 different mixtures to add together into a bowl in an attempt to make the best tasting drink or witches brew. You can even add shimmer powder, food colouring or edible glitter if you wish to give them a more magical look. The other guests can then vote on which drink tastes the best.
We recommend having a base ingredient of cream soda, carbonated water or lemonade in each bowl to avoid overusing the other drinks. Remember, if it goes horribly wrong no one will drink it and it could go to waste.
Resources: bowls, measuring spoons, shot glasses, empty glasses and an assortment of alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks.
So there you have it, a few suggestions on fun games that you can add to your Halloween Murder mystery Party in order to make it even more fun and engaging for your guests and introduce team work and some creative activities. There are hundreds of games you could play, we’ve simply given you a few suggestions that we think could be a lot of fun at a party. We hope you enjoy your ghoulish Halloween season and host some spectacularly spooky parties. Later Spooks!
