265 – Top 5 Family Games for Halloween – The Family Gamers Podcast

Pumpkins

Episode 265
Top Five Family Games for Halloween

It’s almost Halloween, a perfect time for spooky games. Each member of our family picked a favorite game for the spooky season. What’s in your top 5?

These are all family games that we play with our kids – and if you need suggestions for an even younger family, check out earlier episodes of the podcast on this topic: episode 216, episode 166, episode 116, and episode 68.

What We’ve Been Playing

Hero Hockey – a mix of Klask / foosball / air hockey – without the huge size or expense!

Grove – review later in the show; if you like fast, compact solo games, check out the Kickstarter.

The Pumpkin Problem – we haven’t played yet, but looking forward to it since the other Holiday Hijinks have been great. (Check out our reviews of The Kringle Caper and The Independence Incident).

Zombie Kidz Evolution

Land vs. Sea – tile laying with asymmetric roles & goals.

Kingdomino Origins – three modes of play that are increasingly complex. Discovery mode adds just one small twist to regular Kingdomino play.

Horrified – we defeated the Invisible Man and Dracula.

Unmatched: Cobble & Fog – Sherlock Holmes outwitted the Invisible Man. Most characters are, in fact, very well-matched.

Giveaway

Remember to enter for a chance to win your own deluxe copy of Haunt the House. (Or go buy it for 50% off!)

SNAP – Grove

If you like solo games, take a look at the video or transcript of our review of Grove. Place cards to overlap matching types of trees, tracking how much fruit you have with customized dice.

Five Halloween Games from Five Family Gamers

Welcome back The Family Gamers Kids! Let’s talk about our top choices for October “spooky” gaming. Each member of the family explains their pick.

Elliot: Horrified – “I like that there’s a bunch of different monsters” and especially smashing coffins to get rid of Dracula. We like the cooperation required to beat the monsters together.

Asher: Unmatched: Cobble & Fog – Take on the roles of classic heroes (or monsters) and battle each other. Asher likes the Invisible Man to teleport around the board and also sometimes do extra damage. (Our review)

Claire: Shaky Manor – “A lot of the items in Shaky Manor are Halloween related, like spiders and snakes.” Tilt and shake your board to get the correct items (spiders, eyeballs, meeples) into one of eight “rooms”. (Our review) You can watch our family playing Shaky Manor live on Facebook.

Anitra: The Grimm Masquerade – since Anitra doesn’t like the “spooky” Halloween stuff, she picks a game all about masks and deduction. We especially like that the core of this game is logical deduction (use the information you have to eliminate possibilities) while still encouraging social “engineering”.

Andrew: Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters – “light but also difficult cooperative game. I like when … there are legitimate high-fives of joy.” This is perfectly playable by kids who aren’t reading (so is Shaky Manor).

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