Ted Kaczynski Simulator Not Scream Fortress Maps by Kids to Scare Kids
Scariest Thing is the Netcode TF2 has Fallen, Billions Must Votekick Maps Still Spooky for 3 Years Running Don't Hover, Too Spooky: CATAN! BOO!
Sadly Lacking in SCP-2433 Potato-Brand Bots and Skeles Fuck Gargoyles Fuck Gargoyles Fuck Gargoyles Fuck Gargoyles Fuck Gargoyles You Won't Get Enough Players for This wasdasdasdwasdwdwadsasdwasdawdas
Already 40% Vampires, Zombies, etc.
Less Maps Than You'd Think
amogus Different Kind of Hell Maps Sex Already Played by Ancient Skeletons
Mostly Shitty Jumpscare Game #3048 Get It Before Activision Kills It
L O D S OF S H I T E
Golf. Now With Festively-Relevant Screaming Untz Untz Untz Skeletons Untz Untz Spooky For You, Sexy for Redigit
Scariest Final Boss Ever Dying Light but Zombies ...wait Less Scary Than What's on Deviantart Insert Joke about Abominations + Reforged
Undead Game 2 Can of Zombie Whoop-Ass First Three Ingredients: Frank West, OJ, Dress Code Deviance. Halloween Cuz It's Bloated Like a Corpse 4v1 Bullying Simulator Old WoD Co-op Hack n' Slash
Zombies with Guns, Shoot Em More Pumpkin-y Snow Bros Dungeon Crawling Furries Shoot Ghosts Mullet-tastic Zombie Brawler
House of the Dead meets Resident Evil meets Final Fight More Zombies, SHOOT EM Scooby-Doo Antics in Medieval Dead by Daylight Monkey Balls, ROLL EM
The Cat The Cat The Cat The Cat Cosmic Horror Cannibals Now at Loogie's Mansion Wolfman vs Dracula vs Frankenstein Co-op Vidya Edition Black People™ "Game with uh, dark comedy and uh very scary, poopy looking, uh, meat, uh, mimics monsters." - Golden Light Developer, Mr. Pink
One of the original asymmetrical horror games. The premise is simple: one plays as The Hidden™, an experiment hunted by IRIS.
To survive, The Hidden can stick to walls, leap all over the map, and is equipped with a cloak, allowing him to go on the hunt himself.
Rounds are quick, lasting 4 minutes, and The Hidden must kill one IRIS squad member to keep the role. Otherwise, it rotates. The mod has been
ported around a bit, but the intent will be to play the original one for Half-Life 2.
Counter-Strike
32 Players 6+ Recommended
Not much to say. It's Counter-Strike, you already know what it is.
The intent right now is CS 1.6, but a cursory glance online shows only a few maps on gamebanana. Might have to do CS:S instead if there's enough interest for an extended night.
Gmod's got tons of horror maps. It's almost assured that none of them are good, and only few will work right. Something something maybe the real horror was the quality of the maps we played along the way.
This will primarily be dumb, co-op jumpscare maps and so on. No plans currently for any horror-themed gamemodes or anything like Nextbots or whatever the fuck. It's not gonna be THAT low-effort.
4 Jams, 41 Maps. While Quake co-op can be a bitch and a half
for those at a higher ping, there's certainly a good amount of high-quality
Halloween content to play.
Currently, the plan is to run everything through a vkQuake server, but connecting via Quakespasm-Spiked has
also proven to work. Will also do some testing with Ironwail, but from what I've heard, its multiplayer is lacking.
Oh, and last year's Halloween Jam was replaced with a "Twisted Christmas" Halloween x Christmas jam. I'll leave it to others
on whether we'll play that
Left 4 Dead 2
32 Players *8P Recommended
Honestly, the game is befitting of Halloween already. Any zombie game is, but there's a collection of maps that can knock
things up another notch.
The Seal of Asrahmet is oozing with holiday flavor and has a surprising bit of spooks near the end.
Dark Wood is a gauntlet that can last 2 hours and does well to rip directly fro--I mean, it "tributes" horror games and such. Not to mention
campaigns directly based off of titles like Silent Hill and Resident Evil.
The asterisk for recommended is because, after 8 players enter the server, more people trying to join becomes a bit of a hassle. Not
impossible, but 8 just works a lot smoother. That being said, there is a potential workaround that should work if
it's not borked post-Last Stand, but chances of testing it are low (cuz we'd need 9+ people just for testing).
While not gearing to genuinely spook anyone, They Hunger is a classic that channels old "mad scientist takes over the town" B-Movies.
It's included with Sven Co-op 5.0 for a reason. That being said, extra horror maps never hurt anyone, and the Sven community
has delivered at least a few to try out.
It's TTS, so of course this is actually a bunch of different games.
Halloween Minigolf
10 Players
Why not start off with something that isn't a board game at all? In a really clever use of TTS's physics system, someone has released a series of tabletop minigolf courses, and of course there's one for Halloween. Just start flicking your balls into holes and see who's able to get the least strokes in to finish.
Monster Slaughter
2-5 Players
A real piece of shit game that coasted on its minis and surface-level concept, which was brave enough to say: >Hey, remember thing? This is like thing. Please give us money.
Basically, it's your typical kickstarter board game. Actual gameplay isn't much to really mention, it's just a
simple vehicle for its concept, so really only touch it if you're aching for more Evil Dead or Cabin in the Woods.
Mists over Carcassonne
1-5 Players
Mists is actually a 2-in-1 deal. It can be added to normal Carcassonne, but it can also be played on its own as a sort of
cooperative game. In either case, the main gimmick is the titular Mist tiles and their Ghosts, which function as a new loss
condition, along with the Graveyard (drains ghosts faster) and Castles (gain bonus points from Mist).
Mysterium
2-7 Players 4P Recommended
Mysterium is a cooperative game of arguments and gaslighting. Each player is assigned a case file, containing a suspect,
a location, and a weapon, but their only clues to which is theirs come in the form of abstract vision cards handed out
by one, otherwise-silent, player as the Ghost.
Perhaps this very blue vision is pointing you to a fisherman, or that one containing birds is about the bedroom with a
cage. It's up to the players to work together, get their clues, accidentally convince each other off the right choice,
and figure out the Ghost's logic, especially due to the final vision at the end of the game.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor
1-5 Players 5P Recommended
The gimmick with Vast--and so many other Leder games--is that it's asymmetrical. In the mansion, the Paladin seeks to kill the Spider,
the Skeletons seek to kill the Paladin, and the Spider wants to get enough resources from attacking others to escape.
Everyone also has to be concerned with two of the more independent characters. One is the Warlock, who skulks around in
the empty spaces of the House, and the House itself, which manifests via the Wraith. These two are less concerned with
attacking others and more about setting up arrays and ritual lines in the House.
There's some shared mechanics between the bunch, namely that it's somewhat of a tile-crawler no matter who you play as, but
it's a properly multi-faceted game. Learning all the rules also isn't too important when just getting started: many of them are unique
for each character/faction, and you mostly just want to know the other players' goals.
Betrayal at House on the Hill
3-6 Players
An oft-played dungeon crawler with two distinct phases. In the first,
you're mainly exploring the house. By entering rooms, you place new tiles to form the map, and each tile usually has an Event or
Item on it that can potentially strengthen your character.
After enough special items, called Omens, have been found, the second phase of the game starts. Called the Haunt, a semi-random
scenario starts, and one player is pitted against the others. Who wins depends a lot on cooperation, what items/buffs you got
in the first phase, and how you all generated the map.
SCP: Containment Breach
16 Players
One of the more iconic indie horror games of the 2010s, SCP: Containment Breach has been modded to feature full co-op for
its singleplayer. As far as spooky escape games and maps goes, a lot are just derivatives of this one, so might as
well just play this one.
Is what I want to say, but this one might also be a bust. Reviews say it's pretty buggy, and you might need to pay
for a private lobby (or at least, you definitely have to for the PvP, but maybe not Co-op?). Will be looking into it
and doing some testing to find everything out for myself.
TF2 - Mann vs Machine
100 Players *6P Recommended
In addition to the included Wave 666, there's been a variety of Halloween-themed missions added for MvM.
Potato.tf has put out new maps and new missions for old maps the past couple of years for Scream Fortress, so those would be the
main focus.
As far as the player count goes, uncapped MvM has been possible since the patch, but that would rely on
someone hosting a private server themselves. The easiest method would be to pile into a public Potato.tf server, and those
are capped at 6 people.
TF2 - Scream Fortress
6 Players
Not much to say: it's Scream Fortress. Playing in the public queue is what dictates the party limit, but that's what it takes
to be able to play on any newly-added maps.
That being said, playing on community servers is entirely fine in my book, especially if any of them host maps that Valve has yet
to accept for Scream Fortress--approve Hades already, come the FUCK on Volvo. Good luck with finding one, but
if by some miracle we do, I'd love to give it a try
...just as soon as I finish my Contracts.
TF2 - Zombie Infection
100 Players
Following in the footsteps of Saxton Hale, more modders are bringing custom gamemodes to maps without relying on plugins.
Zombie Infection takes the core concept of Zombie Fortress--players surviving against a growing horde of zombies--and adds its own
take on the existing class-based zombie abilities and perks. Combined with its deliciously Halloween-appropriate maps, this
swiftly cuts down the dreams of any goober that was going to seriously suggest playing Halo's Infection Mode for Halloween
That is, if you can actually find players for it. I've got some servers favorited that I'll check on throughout the month and
such, but VSH took a while to get a decent number of players even after Youtube talking heads tried to draw attention to it.
On top of that, while Vscript gives hope of it being accepted into the game as an official map, playable in casual queue and all; VSH has
shown there can be difficulties in doing so, and ones that cannot be tested for on a private server.
Basically, looks really neat, but it might be a pipe dream to play.
Killing Floor
6 Players
Honestly, this one might be a fukken mess to get going. Doing it normal, out of the box? Yeah, that's fine. That's fun. That's tits.
If you haven't played KF1, it's a classic for horde survival. Kill a variety of Zeds while playing as a variety of classes, ending
with a fight against their Patriarch in the final wave.
But ho-ly fuck, if we wanna play without worrying about class levels or potentially have more than 6 players, it's gonna be a
manhunt to find the right mods to do that. It seems like everything's scattered to the five winds, or rather Steam Groups and the
old Tripwire forums.
I'll track down what I can, especially since I might be able to put it on the serverbox, but damn it's gonna suck. Half the results
already are about Killing Floor 2, for no good reason.
Streets of Rogue
4 Players
A crazy fun game that's also just crazy, Streets of Rogue basically already qualifies for Halloween. You've got zombies,
vampires, ghosts, cannibals, and other shit running around as friends and enemies alike.
But things can be kicked up a notch. Through the use of chunk packs, the city can be changed into one that's run down, ravaged by both
crime and monsters--because maybe the real monster wasn't man, but an actual monster like werewolves n' shit. There's also campagins
about zombies, but they mostly seem to be in Korean.
Also I wanna see if I can get players for this, as it might be possible to increase the cap from 4 Players, but I need at least
5 Players to test that shit.
DOOM
64P - Zandronum 255P - Odamex
It'd be too easy to just lump all of DOOM into Halloween. Sure, it's all hell-themed n' shit, but how much of it
is actually spooky? A good chunk actually, but fuck that. I want horror or pumpkins--gimme at least one or the other.
Addendum: More typical mods will be accepted based on being Apoc Hell, Holy Hell, and potentially Eldritch Hell. Gore Hell, Inferno Hell, and Metal Hell will generally be passed over. More typical apocalypses, like DBP10, will be passed over as well. Gothic is to be accepted on a case by case basis.
There's more, but many are without recommendation and will have to be looked into. Some others, like Trick or Tear and the Spooktober
Community Pack, are sadly stuck on GZDoom, and thus will probably have to be limited to local buddies only.
DOOM - Whodunit
64 Players
Another in the long line of Traitor Deduction games/mods/etc., Whodunit might garner some scoffs from those who would otherwise write it off as yet another Amogus title; however, it carries a few distinctions that make it stand out.
1) It predates many others by coming out in 2012, albeit 3 years after TTT.
2) It's significantly more Horror-themed, featuring Asylums, Mansions, Hospitals, and more as locales.
3) It's on Zandronum, so it's super easy to host with low ping for a lot of players.
4) It's a DOOM-mod, it's free and easy to run on any 'pooter.
The best kart racer not on the market, SRB2K stuns with its modding scene. Not only has it seemingly outpaced
SRB2 in general with quantity, but goddamn do people seem to like the spook stuff. SRB2 Halloween maps? Gotta sift through
a ton of shit to find them. SRB2K Halloween maps?
They've got Mansions
They've got Graveyards
They've got Binding of Isaac Chapels for some reason
They've got liminal shit for zoom zooms
They've got literal Hell tracks
They've probably got more hidden in the figurative Hell Tracks (harder/broken challenge maps)
There's a lot to go over, and when I get the time, I'll do my best to try to put together a single .pk3 that only has
tracks befitting of this spooky season.
Vasv is fukken weird. A ton of shit seems like it just happens at random, some shit literally happens at random, half the cast looks like they're on their way back from the Monster Mash, and the other half looks like what would've happened if Fangoria bought Playboy, in the best of ways.
It is also a game that's managed the impossible: making itself accessible to a larger audience while being beloved by genre-heads for its high skill ceiling. This stems from its breakneck speed, simple combo structure, and incredibly simple access to things like High/Low overheads or following up on knockdowns for oki. Fightan fanatics have a lot to work with, midwits have an easier leg up, and for the mashers, the game's simply crazy enough when you go ham to be able to enjoy it.
Oh yeah, and the trailer is just to better showcase the gameplay. Actually trying the game would be on Fightcade.
Unreal Tournament 2004
32 Players
Really, this slot could be filled by any arena shooter. I would even argue many others more fruitful in the spooky-map department, but this aint about that. This is just about playing what peeps already like to play but with pumpkins everywhere, and UT2k4 is what peeps already like to play.
Devour
4 Players
Devour is mostly the same kind of game you've already seen a thousand times. You and your buddies spawn in, you need to collect X things to beat the spooky ghosty, do it while trying to avoid the spooky ghosty because a shitty Unity asset will screech in your face if you get hit.
So then why point it out when it basically does the same as trash that's further down on this list but also free? Well mostly because it's pretty cheap and there's no need for port forwarding, but also because--allegedly--the maps after the first two actually start to try dipping their toes into environmental puzzles and the like. Nothing that reinvents the wheel, but something that's at least a bit more than the usual not-Slender gameplay.
Would I push to actually play this? No. Would I play it if the idea of trash was appealing to others? Absolutely, I love dumpster diving when it costs under 3 McChickens.
Nazi Zombies
4 Players
Another classic survival game, Nazi Zombies is a no brainer for the holiday season, especially with World at War's custom maps. While vanilla ones are more than fitting already, some custom maps add a nice extra layer of horror, and then you have ones like the one showcased in this video, which is about as Halloween as anything in this list of games can get.
Now, there's two addition things to note here.
First off, the main focus is on World at War, BUT one should note Black Ops 2 as well. Most people only play it for Mob of the Dead and Origins, but it deserves mention for two other things: 8 player support AND not requiring port forwarding to play. Just something to consider depending on how WaW pans out.
The second is Black Ops 3. This one entirely depends on how things play out in the near future. On paper, it's a great successor to WaW for custom zombies, and it even has potential for 8 players with its mods. Problem is, it's still a full honking FOURTY DOLLARS to get all the zombie maps. If only doing customs, that cuts down to 20USD, but still. Pretty rough for an 8-year old game.
There is a possibility for deliverance to be found in the form of the BOIII client, but chances are, it'll still be "taken down" by the time Halloween rolls around. You can still technically download it, but holy fuck is downloading "free CoD" from any place that isn't held to a GitHub a fukken terrible idea.
Killing Floor 2
Who The Fuck Cares
Killing Floor 2 dares to axe the question: is it worth sacrificing a ton on the game's core identity and
implementing even more money-gouging bullshit, all so you can sprint and aim down sights a little smoother?
In all honestly, I never touched Killing Floor 2 beyond a couple matches ages ago. It's a co-op game, and everyone wants to play KF1 instead, so why bother? Thing is, I've got it for free, other people got it for free, and a few actually do seem to quite like this game, so the option will remain open for now. Plus again, not having to worry about port forwarding is always a few extra points in my book.
Golf With Your Friends
12 Players
It's Golf.
With Your Friends.
In any case, all it's really got 1, maybe 2, levels that would qualify for being Halloween-appropriate. I thought the workshop would fair better, but it really doesn't. Maybe 2-3 worth playing there. Pretty slim for making this list, but we barely play more than 3 holes per month anyways, so yeah. Golf.
Mario Party
4 Players
Now, there's actually a few options at hand. Mario Part 2, 3, and 4 all had a horror-themed board to play on. All of them are fair game in my eyes, but from what I've seen, the N64 games have mods that make them a lot more conducive to online play. Plus, everyone loves Mario Party 2, its costumes, and ESPECIALLY Horror Land.
This section will be filled out with additional deets later, but I will note briefly: there are custom clients built for these games, and as mentioned prior, there's one for N64 that looked far and away better than any others, so normal concerns over netplay latency may or may not be partially assuaged.
Crypt of the Necrodancer
8 Players
Crypt can be played for the season in two ways. One is obvious: load the game up with Halloween musak and play with the existing legions of skeletons and so on. The other is its versus mode, which was released as "Trick or Treat;" the goal simply being killing monsters for their candy. Whichever way it goes, should be a groovy, wubby Halloween.
In either case, crawling to the beat in Crypt of the Necrodancer is fun enough already, and it's easy to do so with the GOG version. One should take any excuse to play this fun little indie classic.
Barony
4 Players
Barony manages to be a pretty spooky game already. Even when delving the dungeon with your friends in this one-of-a-few multiplayer dungeon crawlers, you really start to get paranoid of all the monsters, ghouls, and traps to face along the way. God help you especially if the minotaur shows up.
So why not ruin that fear by giving everyone festive costumes, let them collect candy to satiate their childlike hunger, and instead of shouting in panic over an oncoming boulder, shout in panic over your run being ended by a giant festive pumpkin instead. Get Charlie Brown'd, bitch.
Dying Light
4 Players
It's zombies, so it counts. That being said, I've played Dying Light so many times that I personally probably can't be coaxed into playing it again without a full party that wants to do a full playthrough. That, or wanting to do something like hitting up Quarantine Zones and the Prison or whatever other side content I've typically skipped over, in sort of an challenge rush.
Just to note: the Steam and GOG versions sadly lack crossplay with each other, so while many people own the version across different storefronts, one might have to use the "GOG" version in order to play. This also requires the use of a LAN Tunneler to work, although I've heard great things about Radmin these days.
Hellraid
4 Players
Salvaged from a canceled standalone mod-game-thing, Hellraid basically just takes Dying Light and
puts it in a big spooky castle. Contrary to the blurb, there is a variety of skeletons thrown into the mix, but as an
expansion of Dying Light, a lot of the mechanics are the same as in the base game, although that's not too much of a problem
as Dying Light is so much fun.
And also because it's an expansion to Dying Light, all said previously about trying to get everyone in-game still applies. Why, then, is this listed separately from Dying Light? Cuz uhhhhhhh skeletons, boo.
Sonic Robo Blast 2
32 Players
As mentioned with the SRB2K rundown, Halloween-appropriate mods are surprisingly slim pickings, despite the fact that there is a Halloween level with spooky assets to be used included in the base game.
That being said, I've gone through most of the Level Design Collabs/Contests to try to find what's available. Frustratingly, even the Autumn one with a graveyard hub world only had 1-2 to offer, but nevertheless, there should be enough to fill a session. There's also a backup additional option of a PvP mode, but it's cringe to say so I won't say it.
Warcraft 3
Varies
Being WC3, it's basically gonna be used as an engine for a variety of sub-games, but if there's interest, I'll keep an eye out for not only minigames and horror experiences, but spooky-themed RTS maps as well.
Through the power of fan servers and being one of the few games that's always kinda worked well on PCSX2, Resident Evil Outbreak 1 & 2 are freely available to play through without worrying about the usual netcode issues of 4-player emulation netplay.
Transcribing the classic RE gameplay into an online evironment, the games feature 5 scenarios each for everyone to bumble through and spam preset voice lines at each other with. Not much to say, considering RE is already one of the giants of the genre, and cooperative play has always proven to be pretty fun in even its worst releases.
Except RE6. We're not playing RE6, neither co-op or mercenaries. It's the worst. It's not "a bad RE game but a good action game." It is the worst. In every regard, something like Resident Evil 5 is just leagues better. Do not ask to play RE6.
Itch.io Garbage
Varies
This section will be filled out more later. Just like TTS, this is a variety of games that fall under one umbrella.
Some of these push the envelope and almost should be considered on standalone merits, but they don't and still tumble back into the trash. Others are just absolute trash, pure and unfiltered.
Me, I'm a trash man. I enjoy a little trash from now and then. It's not ironic, it's not appreciating someting rough. It's hating it, and Halloween would be the season to hate, so why not.
Minecraft Horror Maps
200 Players
This is it. This is the limit. Call of Duty? Jumpscare Itch.io Games? Paid shit like Devour? There's at least some string of dignity left in those, but this? It feels dirty just mentioninig it. It's one step away from organizing a meetup to watch the FNAF movie in cargo shorts and cat ears, and yet I can't help but be somewhat fascinated by what people have made. Minecraft has always felt like it had massive potential for being a pseudo-engine of its own, and I'm curious how people have done with it beyond shit done for eyecatching YT videos or for literal children.
Plenty of mods are available to twist Skyrim into an experience befitting of a multiplayer Halloween. Some are, admittedly, really stretching it as an excuse to call it festive, but whatever. Hell, just a normal playthrough with a Pumpkin Head mod would probably be fine enough in my book.
On that note, it's important to distinguish the way the game will be played and the limitations on what mods work with Skyrim Together. As mentioned previously, I'd be fine with mods that simply add a Halloween flair, but there some that can go a step further. Ones that make the world seem darker, play with the dangers at night, and introduce all manner of new, terrifying beasties. The problem is, Skyrim Together doesn't always sync these spawns the right way, and playing normally is kinda structureless, so I'd prefer option 2.
That being, there's a few different dungeon mods that might be able to work. They're mostly just Dark Fantasy instead of actual Horror Fantasy--if Darkend is in my list, then tecnically that qualifies Dark Souls as a Halloween game, and that's just silly--but as mentioned previously, shut up and wear a pumpkin. That's all you need to tip Dark Fantasy over into being Halloween. If we go this route, it'll be easy to just edit saves and teleport to the dungeons, treating them as self-contained crawls instead of part of an overall experience.
Payday 2
12 Players
It's Payday 2, it's got some Halloween heists, that's pretty much it. A bit excessive to install almost 86GB of vidya for what amounts to 4 Missions, but what's the alternative? Not installing 86GB of vidya for 4 Missions? I don't think so. Not in MY America.
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record
2 Players
The intent is mostly for Sandbox Mode. Yes, it's a flagrant disregard for core pieces of Dead Rising's identity, all for the purpose of running around in what's an admittedly somewhat-dull zombie brawler. The thing is, it doesn't really have to be more than that.
Sometimes, just running around, bopping things and doing the occasional challenge, can be a good time filler, and an advantage Sandbox has is that you aren't as tied down to playing with the same person. Quite valuable, given that it's only 2P while some of the other games in this list need to be 6-8+ to accomodate everyone
Plus I've just played a bit too much of it AND Dead Rising 3. If someone wants to, I wouldn't be against it--maybe even a little enthusiastic as long as they are--but having played both relatively recently in story mode, I wouldn't be pushing for it myself.
Terraria
250 Players
Did you think this was gonna be about playing through the game with Halloween-themed mods and resource packs? Hell, even without that, the seasonal effects for Halloween surely qualify Terraria more than a lot of other games on this list. Might even get a bit crazy, try the Constaint seed, since you'd never think to touch that the rest of the year.
In all seriousness, if the right selection of mods can be found, then I might be down to do a quick Expert playthrough, but holy fuck, it'd have to be fucking SPOOKY as all get out to be anything less than a massive twist of my fukken arm.
Dead by Daylight
4-5 Players
In all these years, I've never truly played Dead by Daylight. I think I might've touched a beta or a free weekend, but certainly enough to actually have played more than 1 match to completion, and certainly without knowing what I was doing.
As such, I definitely have a good bit of interest in playing it, especially having gotten it for free, but it's not something I'd push for in the slightest. This is the only time of year where there'd be any real desire to touch it, after all. If we can get enough people to play a full private match, I'd probably waste a whole weekend on this, but again, it's only here for those that already have it for free or had the misfortune of paying for it. It's merely just a possibility.
Hunter: The Reckoning
4 Player
For the longest time, I was really at odds with myself about whether or not to include Gauntlet: Dark Legacy in this list. I wanted something, ANYTHING that could scratch an itch of cutting through a horde of nasty baddies with up to 3 other buddies, but it always felt like the only truly-appropriate part is the Forsaken Province.
Now, Hunter is no substitute. It looks cheap, it's got a lot of dull downtime, the combat is more braindead than a 2-button crawler, and you can just run past the enemies, but it's there. This is one of those games that more proudly sits in the "we'd only play this shit for the season" category, but if there's ANY genre that embodies playing mediocre games as fodder with friends, it's horror, and especially for Halloween.
Beast Busters
2 Players
Some might scoff at the idea of playing light gun games at home, but a good number have gone on to prove that playing the same game just for the rail shootan holds merit, even without that handheld blaster. Thing is, we uh, we can't actually play those gmaes without dropping dosh, so instead it's back to 1989 with Beast Busters.
Contrary to the name, this thing is just a constant slew of fukken zombies with guns. That's not to say there's any shortage of beasts either, whether it's zombie dogs, zombie owls, zombie fish, or whatever, but the more important takeaway is just appreciate the sheer amount of zombie whatever the fuck that'll fill up the screen. Thankfully, being dead doesn't limit one's ability to pilot a boat or a car and so on, so the explosions aren't gonna be limited in fodder to go boom either.
Nightmare in the Dark
2 Players
NITD is nothing exactly new: it's another in the peculiar arcade genre of "combo bubblers," or however you'd describe the vaguely similar line of gameplay concepts that run between it and titles like Bubble Bobble or (quite blatantly) Snow Bros. That, however, doesn't stop it from being a fun time, with spritework that's not only seasonal, but just fantastic to look at in general.
Ghoul Panic
2 Players
Peculiar doesn't even begin to describe this game. It's a highly frantic light gun game where furries bust a gat on ghouls and ghosts, you're dungeon crawling around a manor for god knows what reason, and blasting the occasional boss. For a lighthearted game that oozes Halloween and an excuse to test Duckstation's rollback, you could do a lot worse than Ghoul Panic.
Night Slashers
2 Players
Horror and Hack n' Slash go together like bread and butter. There's certainly no lack of options to choose from, but then, why Night Slashers? Is it because some, like AvP, are only tangentially horror? Is it because Splatterhouse is regretfully only 1P? Is it because it's one of those games that was well-liked enough to stand out from the crowd, even from the sea of other Beat 'Em Ups, and garner respect and love both in both its day and lingering still nowadays?
It's the mullet. It's beating the shit out of people with cyborg arms with a fukken mullet. That's it. That's the reasoning. Don't pick the mullet man while playing with me or I swear to god I'll start crying and go home. He's mine.
Zombie Revenge
2 Players
Watching videos of this game, I become viscerally mad that I haven't heard of it before. I'm still down for whatever other beat em ups on this list, but holy fuck, this isn't a beat em up: it's a beat em the FUCK up.
Just watch that video: wailing on zombies, blasting the shit out of em, scootin' around the level, and you get that signature House of the Dead presentation and style, because yes this is an official spin-off. If there was a single game I was most excited to try for the first time because of the season, this shit is absolutely it.
Zombie Raid
2 Players
This one, I've not much to say or sell at all. It's incredibly simple, seemingly relying a lot more on its medium to have merit than actually being interestingly designed to begin with. It's got some half-neat bits about it, mainly just how it fulfills the qualifications for this list and what character it has, but otherwise it's the definition of fodder, at least based on what I've seen.
Shatter Keep
4 Players
Out of all the asymmetrical horror games, this is one I feel has the most promise. I don't know too much about it, but it's got an alright enough style, it looks to be polished enough, and compared to most other titles in the subgenre that lived and died on itch.io for their mayfly-length lifespan, this one at least managed to crawl its way to Steam.
That doesn't mean I have exceptional hope for this game, especially due to its lack of playercount despite being free-to-play, but if there were any that I'd pick to play, this is the one I have the least qualms about giving a shot.
Super Monkey Ball: House of Spooks
4 Players
It's Super Monkey Ball, but with a very Halloween-themed level pack. Not much to say beyond that. If there's any netplay concerns, just know that Dolphin has a "Golf Mode" that allows players to switch who currently gets to enjoy a No Latency experience. It comes at the cost of increasing latency for those without it, but that's perfect for games like this where players take turns.
The Desperation of Benjamin Corbit
4 Players
Tricked ya, didn't I.
Well not entirely. The Desperation of Benjamin Corbit (catchy name) is considered a prologue/demo for the game Devil Reef, which is where the banner is lifted from. Of course, Devil's Reef apparently has its own demo on Steam, so that may or may not have replayed TDoBC (hard to tell seeing how it got updated only a month ago), but consider this: shut up.
So what is it? Roguelite. Now for those who haven't closed this overlay, this appears to be a decent little dungeon crawler with an eldritch spin to the usual creepy crawlies you can find within. The genre is dry as a bone in regards to having online co-op, and I myself have been especially wanting multiplayer dungeon crawling as of late, so this has caught my eye. I don't expect it to have depth or staying power, but I do have decent hopes it'll be at least a bit of fun.
Pikmin 2: Haunted Hole
2 Players
Pretty simple: it's just Pikmin 2 with a handful of Halloween-themed levels. Admittedly, it's a bit out of the way to get going, since it's basically just seasonal themeing for those who like playing Pikmin 2 and its hacks already, but Pikmin 2 is already fun to go back to anyways, so that's not too bad of a trip out of the way.
That, and to be entirely honest: if enough people like that idea of this, then maybe we can touch on more Pikmin 2 with its Multiplayer Edition mod. A bit of a funny twist of the average situation, since usually games just played for Halloween stay in Halloween, but whatever. Whatever happens, good idea. Fuck you. Video Games.
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair
6 Players
This is quite the unique little experience. For those who haven't played it, Harmony of Despair takes the designs of individual rooms that you'd find in a typical post-SOTN game, and it stitches them together into a variety of megamaps that allow players to work together or apart to find their route through and vanquish the big bag.
It then fucks this up by introducing a whoooooooooooooooooooooooooole fuckload of grinding.
That being said, it should still be a fun experience despite this. I don't think any other game exists in this style and pacing for a 2D platformer (or very many in general, regardless of the format), and it's one-of-a-kind as far as Castlevania and co-op goes. It takes a hot minute to set up, due to relying on RPCS3 to get going, but it's proven to work perfectly fine for online (aside from the 8FPS menus, EDF players represent), and if the game actually does demand grinded gear, then bing bang boom save editor.
Resident Evil 5
4 Players 2P Without Hassle
I'm 100% confident in saying Resident Evil 5 was the peak of actual moment-to-moment gameplay in the entire Resident Evil franchise. Well, maybe 80% because I've yet to play Revelations 2 and a LOT of people suck that game off, but holy fuck Resident Evil 5 is just so good. It burns my piss down to its pure ammonia to hear people call RE6 a good action game or to imply it succeeds in that regard better than the previous titles, when all of that goes to RE5.
But as far as for multiplayer goes, co-op is mostly off the table. Moment to moment is great, but man that campaign takes a while and I played it twice in too quick succession to want to immediately jump back into it. I can do it, but someone else would have to be the one to want it. That leaves the better option of Mercenaries, and holy hell what a better option it is. RE5 is all about amazing, almost light-gun-esque action in some of the best designed-for-combat levels in the franchise, and Mercenaries puts that on full blast. It's a must-play for the season of zombies.
In regards to the player count, the simple answer is that you used to be able to have 4 Player cooperative Mercs with a mod. Since the game's been updated, what was a boon for vanilla players was a swift kick in the nuts for anyone who wanted to play that. It still works, with the installer downgrading the game's version, but for people who don't trust or don't otherwise want to do that, you're left with either only 2P mercs, swearing to play nice during Versus Mercs, or just accepting that we'll just have to kill each other while killing zombies.
Golden Light
2 Players
The blurb by the dev already explains it much better than what I can, but to try anyways: Golden Light is a surrealist game where everything is meat, and sometimes the things made out of meat is made out of meat that wants to attack you. Each level, you deal with having to find keys while navigating this meat, and all the while sinking further into the insanity of the game.
It's a game I so very much want to like, but there is a huge caveat that must be addressed: co-op might just be bugged. Last time I tried to get this going, we'd always fail to find the last key, and it just seemed to always be absent from the level. It's a game I'd also play solo, but anyone who's looking to get this for co-op, maybe be ready for a refund. There's also CD Keys, but despite that potentially fatal flaw, I'd still say the dev genuinely deserves money if you're grabbing a copy at all.
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