Halloween Party Games: 100+ Fun Games to Play at a Halloween Party

Halloween Party Games for Adults

Spooky games for grown-ups, from murder mysteries and escape rooms to séances and costume contests.

• Murder Mystery. Guests become characters and try to work out who the murderer is. Use a ready-made kit that comes with all the materials, or write your own story. Tell guests weeks ahead that a murder will happen at the party and send each person a character with a backstory along with the invitation (for example, a butler who holds a grudge or a billionaire with a secret), so they can plan a costume. Hand out cryptic clue letters as guests arrive. Everyone gathers clues by talking to the other characters, makes accusations and, at the end, the murderer is revealed and the group talks it through. It works best with 8 to 10 people.
• Interview With a Vampire. A detective game inspired by the film. One guest is secretly the vampire. Guests interview each other and vote on who should be staked. Every wrong vote earns the vampire a point, and the vampire can “kill” anyone who wanders off between rooms looking for clues.
• Spooky Escape Room. Teams solve puzzles, riddles and clues against the clock to “escape” a room. Use locked boxes covered in fake cobwebs or red dye, clues tucked in hidden spots and custom puzzle sheets. Dim or eerie lighting, a fog machine, sound effects and creepy music set the mood. Pick a theme such as a haunted house, a witch’s lair, a laboratory or a ghost or monster mystery. For extra pressure, the story can say the murderer returns when time runs out.
• Fear Factor. Blindfolded guests touch or taste mystery foods with unsettling textures and guess what they are: peeled grapes as “eyeballs,” cooked spaghetti as “brains” or isomalt as “glass.” Everything is edible. For a harder version, players answer a question from a spooky quiz while their hands are in the bowl. List the challenges on a scorecard or poster.
• Halloween Touch Box. Fill a box with cooked noodles, peeled grapes or tiny sausages and have blindfolded guests identify each item by touch alone.
• Costume Contest With a Scream-Meter. Guests vote by screaming for each costume. Measure the noise with a sound meter or a homemade meter with an arrow that runs from “graveyard squeaks” to “cold-blooded massacre.” Or let people vote anonymously throughout the night, which gives more guests a chance to win. Categories can include Best Zombie, Demon or Vampire; Cute Yet Creepy; Glory to the Goriest; Most Worthy of an Exorcism; Best Couple Costume; Most Terrifying Costume; or simply scariest, funniest and most creative. Prizes can be a gift card or a themed gift basket.
• Pumpkin Carving Contest. Ask guests to bring their own pumpkins and tools, or set up a carving station with pumpkins, tools and stencils, plus a table with candles for light. Add a rule to make it harder: a required theme or element, a time limit, or unusual tools such as power tools or kitchen utensils. Display the finished pumpkins and vote in categories like cutest or scariest. They double as decorations afterward. For less mess, paint the pumpkins instead.
• Halloween Makeup Competition. Set a timer and have guests create spooky makeup looks. When time is up, everyone votes for the best one.
• Halloween Photo Booth. Decorate a corner with fake murder weapons, funny wigs and creepy masks, and have guests recreate famous horror movie scenes. The photos work as party favors.
• Throwback Halloween. Ask guests to bring photos of their childhood Halloween costumes and pin them on a board. The challenge is matching each photo to the right adult.
• Summoning Séance Silliness. Play with an Ouija board by candlelight with eerie audio in the background. Before it starts, secretly give each guest a silly word or phrase (the classic example is “spicy tacos”) to slip into the conversation without being obvious. The others try to guess each hidden phrase before the séance ends.
• Sleepover Games 2.0. Grown-up versions of the games you played at childhood sleepovers, like Light As a Feather, Stiff As a Board (the one from The Craft) and Bloody Mary. Follow the last one with an actual Bloody Mary.
• Ghost Storytelling. Dim the lights and take turns telling spooky stories, either your own or ones you found online. A flashlight under the chin helps.
• Guess the Ghost Story. Each guest tells two made-up ghost stories and one true experience, and the others guess which one really happened. Pair it with s’mores.
• Virtual Reality Horror. Set up a VR headset with a horror game, such as a haunted house or zombie game. For extra scares, add a vibrating harness that reacts to in-game attacks, or have someone jump out at the player at a set moment.
• Haunted House Exploration. If there is a haunted house or a spooky spot nearby, explore it on a guided tour or on your own. Bring flashlights and friends.
• Forbidden Word. Pick one word nobody is allowed to say, such as “candy,” and give every guest three orange or black tickets. If you hear someone say the word, you take one of their tickets. The person with the most tickets at the end wins.
• Kiddie Puzzle Contest. Race to put together mini Halloween puzzles meant for kids. They get surprisingly hard after a few drinks.
• Halloween Would You Rather. A light game that works with any group size. Spooky editions of the card game exist, including an adults-only one, and so does Pick Your Poison, a card game where players pick which of two hypothetical challenges they would rather face without actually doing them. You can also read out dilemmas from our Would You Rather game.

Halloween Drinking Games for Grown-Ups

Halloween versions of pong, movie drinking games and shots for the grown-up guests.

• Trick-or-Treat Shots. Pour identical-looking shots, half with apple juice and half with pickle juice. Guests pick one at random and hope for the sweet one. Best for 4 to 6 players.
• Halloween Beer Pong. Use a glow-in-the-dark set, or orange ping-pong balls with Halloween cups. For the glow version, fill glow cups with water, dim the lights and have players sip whatever they are drinking after each miss. For a family party, fill the cups with soda or juice.
• Cemetery Pong. A haunted take on beer pong. Use black cups and paper tombstones with the guests’ names on them, and give bonus points when someone lands a ball in their own “grave.” Gold-painted mini pumpkins make good prizes.
• Halloween Punch Pong. Swap the beer for orange punch. You can also play quarters with the punch, or use pumpkin beer.
• Horror Movie Drinking Game. Pick a classic or cult horror film and agree on the triggers: a phrase, an object or an action. Take a sip whenever a character screams (perfect for Scream), at every jump scare, after each character dies or every time a potential weapon shows up. In Child’s Play, take a sip every time Chucky runs. Keep nonalcoholic drinks on hand for anyone who wants them.
• Apple Bobbing With Wine. Fill the bucket with wine instead of water. Players grab an apple with their mouths and then drink. It gets messy.
• Pick Your Poison. Wrap mini bottles in tissue paper to look like ghosts and put them in a bucket. Mark one bottle with a sticker or orange paint: whoever draws it wins a prize.
• Truth or Dare Drink Tags. Write truth questions and dares on tags and attach them to the drinks. Before you can drink, you have to answer the question or do the dare.
• Witchy Potion-Mixing Contest. Set out mixers, garnishes and colorful liquids. Each guest mixes a potion, names it and presents it, then everyone tastes and votes. Offer mocktail options. For a twist, add strange ingredients like pickle juice, ketchup or hot sauce.
• Halloween Limbo. Limbo gets a lot harder after a few cocktails. Make a DIY set or buy an inflatable Halloween limbo set.

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Indoor Halloween Party Games for Adults

These games need no alcohol and almost no space: all of them except Pumpkin Landing can be played sitting down. A good plan for an indoor party is one seated icebreaker, one team game and one optional game with a little movement.

• Costume Character Detective. For 4 to 12 players, 8 to 12 minutes. Make a list of familiar costume characters, such as a vampire, pirate, robot, detective, astronaut or friendly ghost. Guests don’t need to be in costume. The clue-giver gets a character in secret and starts with a broad clue, like “might wear a cape.” Each guesser may ask one yes-or-no question before guessing. After three clues, reveal the character and pass the role to the next person. For teams, award 3 points for a correct written answer after the first clue, 2 after the second and 1 after the third. Accept close answers, like “a ghost” for “a friendly ghost,” and have teams write their answers so nobody shouts. Quieter guests can give clues in pairs.
• Who Wrote This? Halloween Edition. For 4 to 10 players per circle, 10 to 15 minutes. Everyone writes an anonymous answer to a prompt on identical slips of paper, for example one of the Halloween questions below, and drops it in a bowl. The host reads the slips aloud one at a time, the group guesses who wrote each one, and the writer can reveal themselves and explain. There are no points. Guests can also tell their answer to the host instead of writing it. Stick to made-up prompts rather than private stories, and add fresh slips for a second round.
• Build a Haunted Story. For 4 to 10 players, 5 to 10 minutes. Start with one sentence, such as “A doorbell rings at midnight, but the only thing on the porch is a pumpkin wearing sunglasses.” Going around the circle, each player adds one sentence. Play at least one full lap, and the last player wraps up the story. Anyone can pass. Before you start, decide whether the story should be funny, mildly spooky or ridiculous. Small groups can do two laps, a big party can split into several circles and share their endings, and a written version passes one sheet around. There’s no scoring and no wrong ending.
• Spooky Category Sprint. For 2 to 6 teams of 2 to 4 players, 10 to 15 minutes. Each team gets a sheet and a pen. Name a category, such as costume accessories, pumpkin patch items, Halloween decorations or things a witch might keep in a cupboard, and give teams 45 seconds to list as many answers as they can. Read the lists aloud and cross out any answer another team also wrote. Each remaining answer scores one point. Variations of the same item count once, and decide before the round whether answers like “hat” and “witch hat” count as the same. If two teams wrote “broom,” neither scores it. If only one team wrote “paper bats,” that team gets a point. Add up the totals after four categories. For a relaxed version, skip the crossing out. Break ties with a new category, and the host has the final say on what counts.
• Partner Pumpkin Sketch. For pairs (or a trio), 8 to 12 minutes. The host prepares three simple pumpkin pictures, each with five features to check, for example a curved stem, two triangle eyes, a square nose, a smiling mouth and three round dots on the body. Partners sit back to back. One describes the picture while the other draws for 60 seconds. Score one point for each recognizable feature, up to five, then switch roles with a new picture. The pair’s score is the total of both rounds, up to ten. Score the features, not the art. In a trio, two describe and one draws, and quieter groups can write the descriptions or drop the timer.
• Pumpkin Landing. For 2 to 8 players per station, 8 to 12 minutes. Tape three large paper pumpkins flat on the floor, worth 1, 3 and 5 points, with the 1-point target closest to the throwing spot and the 5-point target farthest away. Space them so the beanbag rarely touches two at once. Each player makes three gentle underarm throws with a soft beanbag from the same spot. A throw counts where the beanbag comes to rest. If it touches two targets, the lower value counts, and a miss scores zero, so the best possible total is 15. Break ties with one extra throw or share the win. Seated players can throw from a chair. Skip this game if you don’t have clear floor space.
• Halloween Memory Challenge. For individuals or teams, 8 to 12 minutes. Put ten objects on a tray, for example a small pumpkin decoration, a purple ribbon, a pencil, a key, an orange paper cup, a leaf, a spoon, a black envelope, a wrapped candy and a toy or paper spider. Write five questions with clear answers, such as what color the ribbon is, which item opens a door, how many cups there are, what is next to the spoon and whether the envelope is open or closed. Show the tray for 45 seconds, with no photos or notes, then cover it with a cloth, read the questions and have guests write their answers. Uncover the tray and check together, one point per correct answer. Partners can discuss before writing, and larger objects are easier to see. In a tactile version, everyone gets to handle the items first. For a replay, change the objects and write a new answer key.

Here is a simple 45-minute plan for an indoor Halloween game night:

• First 5 minutes: welcome everyone, explain the plan and form teams.
• Next 10 minutes: Costume Character Detective.
• Next 12 minutes: Spooky Category Sprint, including checking the answers.
• Next 10 minutes: Partner Pumpkin Sketch and comparing the pictures.
• Final 8 minutes: share the scores, then play a short story round or just talk.

With only 4 to 6 guests, the story, memory and partner games can fill a whole evening. For a party with kids and adults, use familiar characters and pair each child with an adult.

Halloween Charades, Pictionary and Charade Words

Word and acting games work with any group size and take only a few slips of paper.

• Halloween Charades. Write Halloween words, phrases and movie titles on slips of paper. Players act them out without speaking, and the others have one minute to guess. Teams can compete.
• Halloween Pictionary. Write spooky words on index cards ahead of time. Teams take turns drawing a card and sketching it while their teammates guess.
• Who Am I? Tape a card to each guest’s back, or stick a note on their forehead, with the name of a scary or Halloween character. Guests ask the others questions to work out who they are.
• Monster Match Up. An icebreaker for teams. Pick categories such as vampires or animals as team names and write words from each category on index cards. Every guest draws a card and has to find the rest of their team.

Halloween charade words to get you started:

• Monsters and characters: zombie, vampire, witch, ghost, monster, skeleton, mummy, Dracula, friendly ghost.
• Halloween things: trick or treat, haunted house, jack-o’-lantern, broom, candy corn, spider web, tombstone, cauldron.
• Halloween actions: carving a pumpkin, bobbing for apples, wrapping a mummy, doing the Monster Mash.
• Movies and TV: Scream, IT, Halloweentown, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Hocus Pocus, Clue, The Thing.

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Halloween Trivia and Fun Questions for Halloween

Trivia suits larger groups that want to test their Halloween knowledge. Ask a horror buff among your friends to write the questions, play in teams or solo, and keep a small prize ready, like a horror DVD, a bat-covered mug or a boo basket.

• Scary Movie Trivia. Prepare questions about classic and current horror films, such as The Birds, Psycho, The Exorcist and Paranormal Activity, or focus on one subgenre, such as slashers or supernatural horror. Guests write down their answers and you tally the scores at the end. For teams, use one answer sheet per team and give one point per correct answer. Agree on phone rules before you start, and let tied teams share the win.
• Do You Really Know Halloween? Team trivia about Halloween history, ghost legends, traditions and horror movies. Mix easy, tricky and surprising questions, read them in a dramatic voice (think Christopher Lee or Vincent Price) and reveal each answer with a little suspense.
• Halloween Movie and TV Trivia. Quiz friends on Halloween films and TV shows, including the Halloween episodes of their favorite series.
• Trivia Slam twists. Liven up a standard quiz with spooky rounds: guess the movie monster from its dating profile, identify a DIY costume, or name famous haunted places.
• Horror Movie Clip Marathon. Play short clips from horror films, and players guess which movie each one is from. The most correct guesses wins.

A few Halloween trivia questions to start with:

1. What year was John Carpenter’s The Thing released?

   Reveal1982.

2. What does the name “Dracula” mean in Romanian?

   Reveal“Son of the Dragon.”

3. True or false: accused witches were burned at the stake in Salem.

   RevealFalse. The people convicted in Salem were hanged.

4. Which Mexican holiday falls right around Halloween?

   RevealDía de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead).

5. What is the last name of the three witch sisters in Hocus Pocus (1993)?

   RevealSanderson.

Halloween questions for conversation games like Who Wrote This?, or just for the snack table:

• What would a haunted house have a whole room full of?
• What is the least frightening costume you can think of?
• Why would a ghost make a terrible roommate?
• What would your dream Halloween party include?
• What is your favorite scary movie?

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Adult Halloween Party Games for Large Groups

Tag, races, dance-offs, hunts and games for a big crowd.

• Zombie Tag. One player starts as the zombie, moving slowly and groaning. Anyone they tag becomes a zombie too, and the game goes on until everyone is a zombie (or the last survivor wins). Add costumes and obstacles like fake tombstones or spider webs, and put an undead dress code on the invitations.
• Mummy Wrap Race. Split into teams. Each team picks one member to be the mummy and wraps them in toilet paper or white crepe paper while you time them with a stopwatch. The first team to fully cover its mummy, or the best-wrapped mummy, wins, and teams can decorate their mummies before a vote. As a prize, the winners can put a curse on the losers, for example making them do a goofy dance every time someone says a chosen buzzword.
• Monster Dance Off. Play Halloween songs and have everyone dance, ideally in monster costumes. After each round, the worst dancers are out, until one remains. For a contest version, let guests vote on the playlist beforehand and have two judges score solo, partner or group dances. Prizes can be anything from a paper certificate to a fake plaque or a mirror-ball trophy.
• Candy Corn Toss. Players toss candy corn into baskets or buckets, each worth a different number of points. Decorate the baskets with spooky designs. Other Halloween candy works too.
• Halloween Scavenger Hunt. Hide spiders, bats and mini pumpkins around the party area and hand out a checklist or a clue sheet.
• Grown-Up Scavenger Hunt. Hide Halloween swag or tiny bottles around the house. Teams or individuals have a set time to find everything on the list, and creative interpretations earn bonus points.
• Halloween Bingo. Use printable cards, buy a set or make your own, and have prizes ready for several rounds.
• Pin the Hat on the Witch. A classic for a mixed-age crowd. Blindfolded players try to stick a hat on a witch poster, or the witch on her broomstick.
• Pumpkin Bowling. Knock down bowling pins with pumpkins. It works best outdoors and gets sillier as the night goes on.
• Light-Up Halloween Corn Hole. Play on a light-up cornhole set, and add a keg and costumes.
• Scary Board Games. Try One Night Ultimate Werewolf, where players find the werewolf among the villagers, or Mysterium, where a ghost and psychic mediums solve a murder. Clue fits the mood too, and several Clue boards let more people play at once.
• Spooky Card Games. Play poker or rummy with a spooky deck, such as the Lil’ Reaper playing cards.

Other easy picks for a crowd: hide-and-seek, telephone, Heads Up, fright night bingo or a wreath-making party.

Halloween Party Games for Teenagers and Tweens

A Halloween party is a good plan for middle schoolers who have outgrown trick-or-treating. The list starts with challenging gross-out games and moves on to party classics.

• Go Fishing. Fill a small kiddie pool with water and a few goldfish, drop several marbles on the bottom and set chairs around it. Players take off their shoes and socks and fish for the marbles with their feet. Blindfold them or turn off the lights for extra suspense.
• Pumpkin Face. Players coat their faces with Vaseline. Spread orange puffed cheese balls on a long table, and on “go” everyone tries to cover their face with cheese balls without using their hands. After one minute, the player with the most cheese balls wins. Have a camera ready.
• Plastic Wrap Mummy Race. Each team wraps one member in plastic wrap from the neck down, lowers the mummy to the ground and rolls them down the course. At the finish line, the team stands the mummy up and unwraps them. For a longer race, wrap the next teammate and race back to the start.
• Mummy Wrap. In pairs, players wrap each other in toilet paper. The best mummy wins.
• Coins and Crickets. Put several coins in the bottom of a large jar, like a sun tea jar, and add 20 crickets from a pet store. Each player tries to pick up five coins. Variations: pick up only dimes, or the winner is the player who ends up with the least money.
• Create a Crime Scene. Split into groups of 4 or 5 and give each group a bag of ordinary items with no obvious weapon, such as an apple, a wooden spoon, a stuffed animal, a children’s book and a magnet. Each group builds a crime scene and presents it to the others. It keeps everyone busy while you get dinner ready.
• Halloween Egg Hunt. Fill plastic eggs or plastic pumpkins with candy and hide them indoors or outside. Since it gets dark early, players search with flashlights. Put “tricks” like worms or crickets in a few eggs, and open those outside.
• Bubble Gum Pie. Bury a couple of pieces of bubble gum in a pie plate of whipped cream. Using only their faces, players dig for the gum. The first to find it, chew it and blow a bubble wins.
• Egg Roulette. Hard-boil 12 eggs, let them cool in the fridge and set them on a table in front of your guests. Tell everyone there is one raw egg among the hard-boiled ones and challenge them to find it: each player picks an egg and smashes it on their forehead. Have cameras ready for the reactions.
• Donut Do-It. Hang doughnuts on strings at mouth height. Players try to eat one without using their hands, and the first to finish wins. Play “Monster Mash” in the background.
• Food Games. Label five paper bags “Worms,” “Teeth,” “Eyes,” “Spider Eyes” and “Brain,” and fill them with foods that feel the part, such as cooked linguine for worms, candy corn for teeth and grapes for eyes. Players identify what is inside by touch alone.
• Scavenger Hunt. Hide Halloween-themed clues around the house or yard. Whoever solves the most clues or finds the most items wins a prize. Add a time limit if you like.
• Guess the Number. Fill a big jar with gumball eyes or candy corn and have guests guess how many are inside. The winner takes the jar plus an extra prize, like a gift card.
• Halloween Charades. Players act out Halloween references without speaking (a “Scream” face, for example), and the others have a minute to guess. Teams can compete.
• Costume Contest. Give awards, such as trophies or medals, for categories like funniest, scariest and cutest.
• Campfire Stories. Take turns telling spooky ghost stories, and the group votes on the scariest one.
• Horror Movie Marathon. Show clips from horror films and have players guess each movie. The most correct guesses wins.
• Pumpkin Carving Contest. Provide pumpkins of different sizes and carving tools, and let teens carve on their own or in teams.
• Escape Room Challenge. Set up a Halloween-themed room with puzzles and clues to solve within a time limit. Balloons, Nerf guns and spooky music add to it.
• Play Clue. Set up several Clue boards for two or more players or teams, then end the night with the cult-classic Clue movie.
• Candy Corn Relay Race. Teams balance candy corn on spoons, walk a course and pass the spoon to a teammate. The team that doesn’t drop any candy wins.
• Potion Making. Set up a station with colored drinks like soda and juice, plus gummy worms or spiders, and let teens mix and taste-test their own witch’s brews.
• Face Painting. Teens paint each other’s faces with nontoxic theatrical makeup. Add wigs and hats.
• Pom-Pom Prize. Freeze water balloons with black pom-pom “eyeballs” inside, plus one with an orange pom-pom. Whoever gets the orange one wins a prize. The frozen balloons also keep drinks cold in a cooler.
• LCR With Candy. Play Left Center Right with LCR dice (or regular dice with assigned L, C and R faces) and candy instead of chips. Everyone starts with three candies, and each roll sends candy left, right or into the center bowl. The player holding the last candy wins. It works for any group size and is a good way to end the night.

Tired of serving pizza to a teen crowd? Try hot dogs roasted on sticks over a fire pit, a taco bar, spaghetti and meatballs, fried or baked chicken with mac and cheese and baked beans, soup with salad and breadsticks, pizza fondue (warm pizza sauce with pepperoni sticks, mozzarella cubes and bread for dipping), sliders (pulled pork, chicken or mini burgers) with coleslaw or fruit salad, sub sandwiches and chips, a baked potato bar with sour cream, cheese, bacon, broccoli or chili, or breakfast for dinner with breakfast casserole, bacon or silver dollar pancakes.

Halloween Party Games for Kids

Games and crafts for little ones, from toddlers to elementary-age kids.

• Monster Freeze Dance. Play spooky music while kids dance like monsters. When the music stops, everyone freezes in a spooky pose, and anyone who moves is out. Hand the winner a Halloween certificate.
• Pumpkin Bowling. Set up empty cans, toilet paper rolls decorated as ghosts or toy pins with ghost faces, and knock them down with a mini pumpkin. Keep a scoreboard of how many ghosts each kid knocks down. A candy corn bowling set works too.
• Ghost Sack Race. Kids hop to the finish line inside pillowcases or fabric bags decorated with ghost faces.
• Witch Hat Ring Toss. Place witch hats (store-bought or made from construction paper) at different distances and have kids toss rings onto them. Use glow-in-the-dark rings. Whoever lands the most rings wins.
• Pin the Spider on the Web. Draw a web with a bullseye on poster board. Blindfold each kid, spin them around and have them try to stick a spider on the center with tape or sticky tack, or use spider stickers.
• Bobbing for Apples. Float apples in a tub of water. Kids try to grab one using only their mouths, and the most apples or the fastest grab wins. Keep paper towels nearby.
• Slimy Bat and Spider Counting. Make slime from cornstarch and water and hide plastic spiders and bats in it. Blindfolded kids find as many as they can in one minute. Add plastic pumpkins or skeletons as extra finds.
• Cauldron Sensory Surprise. Fill cauldrons with flour, Jell-O, rice, applesauce and other textures, and hide small items inside for kids to find.
• Halloween Bingo. Use a premade set with markers and caller chips, or print boards and cover the squares with mini erasers or bits of construction paper. It also practices listening, spelling, counting and following directions.
• Halloween Tic-Tac-Toe. Felt boards with skeleton, ghost, bat and pumpkin pieces. They double as party favors.
• Broomstick Races. Kids race on brooms of all kinds, from yard brooms to sweeping brooms. Add an obstacle course and a timer for a challenge. Making a broomstick together from sticks in your yard is a fun parent-and-kid project before the party.
• Pumpkin Piñata. Fill a papier-mâché pumpkin piñata with candy and toys, hang it from the ceiling, a tree or a pole and let kids take turns hitting it with a bat or stick.
• Halloween Pancakes. Kids get one minute to decorate a ghost-face pancake with candy. Pumpkin pancake mix and a mold make jack-o’-lantern shapes.
• Pumpkin Decorating. Hand out mini pumpkins with paint or Sharpies, plus glitter, feathers and googly eyes.
• Funny Faces. Kids decorate printed or store-bought pumpkins, ghosts and witches with markers, crayons, paint or stickers.
• Halloween Puppet Show. Kids make monster puppets from popsicle sticks and put on a show by flashlight, with spooky music playing from a phone.
• “Web-Tastic” Pictures. Drizzle glue on black paper and decorate it with glitter, or stretch cotton balls over it to make a web. Add a googly-eyed spider.

Halloween Games for Office Parties and Virtual Teams

Ideas for a Halloween party at work, in the office or on a video call.

• Costume Contest. Keep it simple or go all out: full costumes, goofy hats, or a theme like Disney characters or superheroes. Colleagues vote, and small prizes go to categories like spookiest, silliest and most artistic. It works on a video call too.
• Carve or Paint Pumpkins. Provide carving kits or paint markers, set a time limit and let everyone vote on their favorites. Scoop out the pumpkins beforehand to save time and mess.
• Hidden Objects. A low-key game for a smaller office. Hide numbered paper ghosts or pumpkin pictures around the workplace, for example behind the water cooler, on the back of the printer or under a cabinet drawer, and let people find them over the workday, or over several days.
• Halloween Scavenger Hunt. In person, teams crack a mysterious message, complete a spooky challenge and take themed photos. Online, a virtual ghost hunt sends teams through websites and virtual tours of famously haunted places like the Winchester Mystery House, the Queen Mary and the Tower of London. There is also a family edition for kids.
• DIY Trivia. Use horror movie trivia you find online, with teams or individuals competing for a prize. Run it as a full event, or spread it out in short segments across meetings throughout October.
• Mummies in the Making. Teams wrap a teammate in toilet paper, decorate their mummy and vote on the winner. Candy makes a good prize.
• Halloween Bingo. Print free bingo cards, order a set or make your own, and have prizes ready for several rounds.
• Murder Mystery Dinner. Host a dinner game with a murder mystery kit.
• Halloween Happy Hour. Pair it with any of the other activities. Send cocktail kits or share homemade Halloween cocktail recipes, add a spooky background and a silly hat, and talk about everyone’s favorite scary movies.
• Zoom in Spooky Style. Use haunted video call backgrounds in the days before Halloween or during the other activities.
• Halloween Potluck. Split the menu into appetizers, entrees and desserts, and point people to Halloween recipes.

Tips for Hosting Halloween Party Games

• Plan ahead. List the games and the materials each one needs, and make sure you have enough space. Halloween 2026 falls on a Saturday.
• Pick games for your guests. Think about their ages and interests, and choose games that are easy to understand. Keep the rules short and put them on instruction cards or a checklist.
• Mix the types. Combine games that get people moving, games that get them talking and games that let them get creative.
• Make a schedule. Plan the order of the games in advance and hand out an itinerary when guests arrive.
• Separate the ages. At a family party, set up separate spaces for adult and kid games with signs for each.
• Send the theme early. Put the theme or dress code on the invitations, especially for a murder mystery or zombie tag.
• Set the spooky scene. Use dim lighting, candles, creepy sound effects, eerie posters, spider webs, pumpkins and skeletons.
• Serve themed food and drinks. Pumpkin pie, apple cider, candy corn, a DIY candy bar and a themed cocktail station all fit, and playful names like “mummy hot dogs” or “witches’ brew punch” add to the fun.
• Offer small prizes. Candy, trinkets and homemade treats are enough.
• Run a practice round. Play one demonstration round before the real game, and say how each round ends before it starts.
• Fit the games to the room. In a small apartment, start with the drawing, category and storytelling games. At a large party, run separate circles or stations. To shorten a game, give each player one turn instead of two.
• Set up supplies by game. Keep each game’s supplies in its own pile with the scoring rules next to them.
• Drop games when you don’t need them. If the conversation is flowing, skip the optional games.
• Keep team games fair. Explain the scoring before you start, give every team the same time and materials, rotate roles and let tied teams share the win.

For more games to play with friends, browse all RoomPlay games.