Cozy Halloween Games

Everyone loves playing games that fit thematically to certain occasions and Halloween is no exception. That being said, not everyone is a fan of horror. So what is out there for those of us who love the spooky season but not necessarily... Scary?

What is out there?

One of the best things about this time of year is the aesthetic that comes with it. The Autumnal (Fall) colour pallete of reds, oranges and browns. The ability to snuggle up into warm wooly jumpers, start lighting those roaring fires, breathing in the crispness of the bitter, fresh air as the weather is turning, and hearing the crunch of leaves under boots as they began to settle on the floor. It is a sense of warmth. Of home and of coziness.

Which brings us onto what is out there this time of year. Why do Halloween themed games have to be scary? Why do they only have to be in the Horror Genre?

They don't!

Let's take a look at some Video games and Boardgames that can fall into the "Cozy Halloween" genre.

Firstly though, what do you consider Cozy Halloween? The Adjective 'Cozy' simply means; giving a feeling of comfort, warmth, and relaxation. So, theoretically cozy can be anything. Cozy can be different feelings for different people, where one may find comfort in solitude and sitting by the fire, another may prefer to be sitting in the dark telling scary stories. For the sake of this blog, I have condensed 'Cozy Halloween' into the ideology of games that incorporate mythological and spooky aspects and beings into them, but in a more user friendly, charming manor, mechanic and story line rather than through the use of fear, tension and jump scares.

There are a lot of game choices out there, but I have narrowed it down to 5 of my favourite games from each category, provided an overview of the game, and why, I think it makes a good Cozy Halloween game.

Lets start with Video Game options, there were a surprising amount of games that could easily fall into this category, games that had slight elements of horror and dark unknowns to them, but ultimatley could easily fall into the 'Cozy' category due to their lighter gameplay, lower age rating and lighterhearted scare factor/ link to horror.

* If you aren't really a video gamer but would like to see what Board games I have recommended for those cozy, spooky vibes then click HERE! *

Video Games

• Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is a cute 2-D, side-scrolling, metroidvania game set in an underground kingdom called Hallownest. You control the Insect like warrior whos mission it is to find and destroy the 3 'Dreamers' who are casuing the Infection that is taking over the kingdom.

The game has beautiful hand drawn visuals, and translates perfectly into a 2D 'soulslike' platformer. It is full of rich and wonderful lore that reveals itself over time through interactions with the NPCs, and explorations of the environment. It is full of challenging yet simplistic combat and surprises throughout the variations of platforms and levels.

Despite being a dark and deserted world, there is plenty of hidden beauty within the otherwordly mystery and wonder. The Kingdom of Hallownest was once a bustling town full of an insect like population but now stands in ruin and forgotten to nothing but memory.

When you first enter the dark depths of the world below, armed with nothing but a Nail for a sword - like weapon to keep you safe, your goal isn't apparent for some time, and you start by fighting off insects who were once citizens of the once majestic kingdom.

Upgrade your weapons, maps and more from the NPCs as they offer up pieces of story and other items for sale, all while working your way through the hand-drawn story that is full of characteristic charm, cozy aesthetic and emotive beauty.

• Cozy Grove

In Cozy Grove you are a Spirit Scout camping on a haunted island, trying to help the ghost bears find peace.

Cozy Grove is a life-sim game with hand-drawn graphics that takes you on a unique adventure within this genre of game that involves none of the traditional grind, With a mix of puzzles, crafting, and mystery-solving elements, there's something here for all kinds of players.

The aim of the game is to help the ghosts residing on the island to pass on, and inturn earn yourself some spirit badges for your hard work. While there are lots of similarities to other life - sim games like Animal crossing, there are plenty to make it stand out.

Straight away, the graphics make this game different from others. Its beautiful hand-drawn aesthetic makes the island come alive and adorns the game with its titular cozy vibes. The game starts with the island in muted colours and looking barren and isolated, making you feel alone and stranded. But as you get to know the spirits on the island and gradually unlock their memories, grow friendships with them and complete their daily requests, colour starts to reappear and you can bring light and happiness again, making it feel like a warmer, cozier place to be as you do your job as a Spirit Scout.

You can harvest resources like money, fruit, nuts, twigs, and mushrooms. As you find more spirits, you can even craft items, make food, fish, cut down shrubbery, mine for ore, and even decorate the island. But being a life-sim game, these take time, and as you get deeper into the game new twists start to emerge.

What is great about this game though, is that it is intentionally a slow burner game. Things change daily and you only need to spend around 40 minutes of play on it each day and work through it gradually. It physically isn't possible to complete in one day no matter how many hours you put into the game in one turn.

• Beacon Pines

Beacon Pines is a semi choice driven adventure game set in a mysterious book. You go about exploring the town, Beacon Pines, which seems to be down on its luck, all whilst collecting 'Charms'. You play as a young boy, Luka who has lost his father and his mother has recently gone missing. He and his 2 friends decide to start investigating strange goings ons within the town and old warehouse at the start of the summer holidays.

Charms are specific words that can be used at set turning points in the story allowing it to branch out in different ways. What's important about this is, there is only one set path that wins the game. Throughout the story as you select charms and branches are formed, you will end up chosing the wrong ones multiple times in order to gain the correct Charms needed for previous turning points, aswell as to find out information. At any point you can choose to go back and forth between the pivotal moments and deploy new words, or play them out to their end to see what heppens.

The game posses an excellent story, characters you can easily grow attached to and is well written. The main characters remain relatible no matter which arc their stories took and their emotions and conflicts stayed down to earth, making them seem move believable and real.

In short, you are basically playing through a PG 'Who Done It?' kind of Novel. Despite the ability to chose Charms, they are never overly clear as to how they will impact the story, nor do they really cause any real consequences, due to the fact you can redo each scenario. For instance, each turning point will give you specific Charms to choose from, despite how many of the limited options you have found, and each Charm can only be used once in their allocated place. Some are as open ended as making 'Tickling' the bully or acting 'weird', They arent always Charms that instantly scream to you with an obvious choice.

• Deaths Door

Deaths door is a 3D, top down, action game where you take on the role of a small crow, who is also a reaper collecting souls. Whilst reaping your first soul you find it stolen away from you by a larger crow. This sets you on a new story full of conspiracys, secrets, twists and turns, in order to reach 'Deaths door' and find out the truth behind the bureaucratic afterlife you work for.

The seemingly cozy game expertly blends puzzle solving and dungeon exploring with fast-paced combat encounters, making the adventure memorable and the world a beautifully melancholy place to explore.

Deaths Door plays in a similar style to Zelda titles. Full of exploration through the world, fighting the enemies, before diving into puzzles to solve in order to progress.

While in the dungeons there is the potential to unlock and upgrade weapons and spells, unlock new areas and secrets and even create new shortcuts. The game has a seemingly endless world of opportuntity to explore.

It is kind of like playing a more generous 'hard' game however, despite its cozy and cute artwork, Deaths Door has souls like vibes embued within the way it operates.

the Bosses get harder and harder, and you don't progress until you defeat the boss of the current area. Health can only be obtained via seeds you plant in pots throughout the levels, there are no potions or health to be carried around with you, so reaching the Boss with a substatial amount of health can be tricky. That being said, it is very much a die, learn, repeat, kind of game. Once you die, you restart at the closest door, which acts like a portal, and you keep all souls you have already collected, so it is not all doom and gloom.

If 'Souls like' are that step too far for you, but you like a bit of a challenge, with a safety net, then this may be more of the game for you.

If you are a Zelda fan, and like the idea of games with puzzles in them along side something more then, again, this game would be the one for you.

If you prefer a more relaxed game, with simple combat or no combat just the puzzle elements than I woudn't recommend this one. (But do keep an eye out for my upcoming post on Puzzle games).

• Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares follows a young girl in a yellow rain coat. Not much is ever explained to you in the game; from beginning to end you are tensely discovering everything for yourself.

The game starts with you waking up in an opened suitcase, but doesnt provide any text, voice over or information of any kind. You have to figure out what to do, how to proceed and what you are capable of doing by exploring and pressing the buttons. for example, one button flicks open a lighter, providing a small glowing light. While another allows Six to crouch and keep a lower profile. Throughout the game you are never fully sure where you are, or where you are trying to get to, the only thing consistently apparent is the imminent danger you are in, and the need to escape!

Little Nightmares isn't a traditonally blatent Horror game, but is full of horrifying imagery and reflections of imaginations. Creativity runs through most of the creepy adventure. A lot of the locations are based on familiar places, just in unexpected and peculiar ways. The world is overly large in comaprison to Six, but full of everyday objects: chests of draws that reach to the ceiling and you use their handles as ladders. A whole room full of abandoned shoes, creating imagery of a neverending sea to wade and struggle through. Mixed in with things like that, are large humanoid figures who are a constant danger in various ways, such as trying to stuff her into their mouths.

This is a great game to play for those who are after something spooky, but without the jump scares and more of a imaginative horror. However, if you are someone who likes a solid conclusion to the end of your game, this may not be the one for you. With no explicit answers by the end, some may come away feeling let down by the end of the game. Personally, I found it a reason to play again becasue i wanted to go back through and see what other clues were laying around I could see and went unnoticed the first time.

It’s an amazing work in its own right, and a must-play for anyone who enjoys tightly crafted platformers.

I hope you have liked reading about some of my favourite 'Cozy' Halloween Video games, if you have please dont forget to drop a like and a follow; here, on Instagram, Twitch and on Youtube - You can find the Links at the end of this blog post and on my home page.

If you would like to know what my favourite 'Cozy' Halloween boardgames are then continue reading.

Lets move onto the Board Game options, there are plenty of games that could be placed into this category, and can even skim the barrier of 'Horror' or 'Cozy halloween'. I elected for some of the games that I physically own, but also ones that can be played by families.

Board Games

• Oh My Brain

  • By 25th Century Games

Oh My Brain is a really simple card and hand management game where players start with 6 cards in their hand and 3 in their cemetery (stand in front of them), and a set number of brain tokens. The concept is really simple - you can only place a number down on the 'campfire' that is higher than the previous one.

If at any point you cannot, or decided not to place a card down, you must clear the pile, loose a brain token and draw 2 new cards (one of which goes in your hand and the other into your cemetery) and whenever you have less than 3 cards in your hand, you must take one from your cemetery.

The fact you can play multiple copies of the same number is a nice touch, it helps you dispose of your cards in an efficient way, but the true beauty of this ability is that you add one to the 'campfire' pile, but the remaining go to other players cemeteries, adding extra cards they need to dispose of to win. There are a few special cards that allow you to reset the pile, play lower numbers or take another turn. Certain cards also let you roll the 'marshmallow' die for a potential reward. A round ends when one player has played all their cards and fended off the zombie animals with some brains still intact. The other players remove brains equal to the amount of cards they have left and play continues until someone has lost all their brains. The player with the most brains left WINS!

Overall, this game was quick, silly fun with a bit more strategy to it than we initially anticipated but ultimately it was nothing strenuous and makes for a good little game in the spooky season. The artwork is lovely and the colour pallet is perfect. Each number pictures a different zombified animal along with some cubed shaped brains ready to be eaten. The art work is depicted in a way that portrays the lighthearted, fun side of the spooky season and while the theme isnt actually relevent to the game, only pasted onto it, it makes this a great little family or easy game for some Halloween fun.

• Cryptid Cafe

  • By 25th Century Games and Squatchy Games

There couldnt be a better 'cozy' halloween game choice than Cryptid Cafe. Become the head server in a cafe full of legendary creatures from all over the world, such as Nessie and Wendigos. Gather food from the Kraken chef to get the guests orders filled in time so you can be the one to earn the most tips and crowned 'best server'.

Each player has 3 meeple servers, and takes turns placing them at different food statins to gether the items needed to complete the customers orders. BUT, beware, because players at the back of the line can bribe the kraken in the next stage to let them skip to the front of the queue.

As Customers orders are fulfilled, they will give players tips based on their satisfaction level. Each customer starts off in one of the green slots, but with each passing round, they get more and more frustrated waiting for their food and their tips get smaller until they eventually walk out, which can cause an end of game penalty.

The components are beautiful, the art work is lovely and the repeptiveness of the gameplay makes it simple, but fun due to the differences in the orders and not knowing where you will be able to place your workers each round.

Every player has a deck of the same monsters but will draw randomised ones which, again, makes it more interesting instead of all trying to work towards exactly the same objective.

I love the inclusivity in this game with monsters from around the worls and various cultures being brought into the cafe rather than focusing on the popular, well known ones or even standardised ones that everyone associates with the word monster and/or halloween, such as Witches, Vampires, Frankenstien ETC.

Although this is a simple game, rules wise, it is one that can take a while to play, especially at a higher player count so if this has taken your interest for a cozy halloween game, then be sure to keep that in mind.

• Night of Frights! (Five nights at Freddy's)

  • By Funko Games

Turn a classic spooky video game into a fun, cozy board game and we end up with a luck based game with cute mini figures of the animatronic characters to move around Freddy Fazbears Pizzeria.

Play as either Chica, Freddy, Foxy or Bonnie, using your unique player power to try and gain the upper hand in being the one to capture the guard. Taking turns, use the action coins available to you to move, play cards, pick up food, or try to capture the guard. Spend your collected food in the correct rooms to advance around the scare tracker, increasing your probability of catching the guard.

The fact you can choose not to try and capture the security guard until you have a higher scare level if you don't want to makes this a more intersting game, but ultimately the capturing is all based on luck as you draw tokens from a bag equal to the number on your current scare level. It's made more fun because each character has its own special ability so you can do slightly different things to each other on your turns.

Overall this is a nice light game to pick up and play with the family, easy to teach and learn, with some light strategy to it involving the security camera placements. It hasn't really got much replayability to it as there isn't any change in the gameplay, but it remains a fun game to take out in 'spooky' season to give us that little cozy Halloween kick.

• Hellton Palace

  • By Iello

In this 2 player game, take on the role of Hotel managers for the Spooky, mythological beings from across the world. You are playing a game to try and outlast your opponent, and 'lose' last. No matter how many Bellhops you hire to attend your guests needs, they will never all remain satisfied and in the end you know the place is going to collapse at some point.

On your turn you; 1) Welcome a new guest into an available room from their matching row.

2) Dismiss any Bellhops by flipping them to their 'break' side.

3) Hire new Bellhops by paying the cost.

4) Move your Bellhop Pawn from room to room in ascending order. When they reach an occupied room, choose to serve the guest or not.

Serving the guest removes any irritation tokens they have on them, but in satisfying them you apply any effects hanging on their door hangers - these tend to be negative effects like breaking pillars, placing irritation tokens on guests in the same row or colum as them if they don't already hav one, etc.

Choosing not to serve the guest mean you place an irritation token on them, except if they already hav one. In that case you remove it and loose a bell token.

5) Choose to be paid by all satisfied guest or regain a bell token.

The game ends when a player has no bell tokens left OR a column with no pillars left.

The game play was simple, but the strategy was tricky. It's hard to adjust to playing a game where every move you make, will always result in negative effects. After you have a few guest in, you can really start to see the effect each one truely has on the others and figuring out not only the best strategy for where to place each one, but which ones to serve and keep happy or not was a real brain burner. The sheer puzzly element in this game was not something I had been expecting to be as prominent as it was and it left us stumped a couple of times. It was good fun trying to work out the best solutions when all it could take was one badly placed guest to crumble your whole hotel.

• Stuffed Fables

  • By Plaid Hat Games

Stuffed Fables is a coopertaive, storytelling, adventure game where players take on the roles of a childs stuffies trying to save them from an evil mastermind.

The game is told through an enthralling narrative driven by the players choices as they explore a wonderful, yet dangerous world and unlocl new discoveries as they progress.

The fact each chapter of the story is the milestones of the childs life, creates an engaging and memorable adventure for the whole family and groups of adults alike.

The beautiful book is not only where the game takes place, but is also the rules, reference and story guide all in one, making this adventure game a unique experince, like nothing played before.

Open the latest chapter (adventure) of the immersive storybook, where it lays flat on the table for everyone to see. It takes place over several pages and shows either a colourful map or various other spectacular illustrations that the game centres around. All the other important information is provided on the opposite page, ready for players to dive straight into the new chapter of each game.

On their turn, a player draws five dice from the bag. The colours of the dice drawn determine the types of actions and options available to the player; White dice can 're-stuff' stuffies injured in battle. Red dice perform melee attacks while green dice perform ranged attacks. Yellow dice search, blue are used for special actions and purple can be used as any color. Dice can used in various ways, and help with simple actions too such as moving and using items. They can also be stored for later, combined for stronger actions, or used one-at-a-time for multiple actions. Later in the game, black dice are added and also drawn, and after enough appear, minions start to emerge or attack.

The game is cooperative, so you are working together to defeat the minions and bosses and protect your child, becausew of this cooperative element, players can help each other by sharing dice or their precious stuffing.

What I love about this game so much, is that it can be easily picked back up at a later date and continued on from the next chapter. It is like acting out a storybook, but making pivitol decisions that change the direction in which the paths will lead you. Despite the 'spooky' theme of stuffies coming to life and protecting you from the big, bad, monster under the bed, it is still very much a game that can be played with families and gives the lighthearted 'cozy' vibes along with the spooky ones. It has horror implications but can easily be downplayed and made more family friendly depending on the story teller and makes victory sweeter, knowing you can beat the shadows lurking in the night.

And there we have it. My top 5 recommendations for 'Cozy' Halloween games to play, both Video games and Boardgames. All recommendations I have made, are game I have played myself and enjoyed. The video games I have either fully or partially completed at least once and the Boardgames are all games that have been played with my family (ages ranging from 5-adult).

If you have any questions regarding the games and age recommendations, please do not hesitate to ask.

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