31 Fun Halloween Games Game Ideas for Both Kids and Adults

Halloween ABC is an excellent game for kids and adults to play together. It’s also very easy to prepare. All you have to do is write down all letters of the alphabet on paper and hand one out to each participant or team (you decide if you play individually or team up).

The goal is to write a Halloween-related word for each alphabet letter. To make it a bit harder, choose a more narrow theme, such as horror movies, villains, or Halloween costumes.

If you want to make it even harder, set a timer for 3 minutes. 🎃

The player or team that finds words for the most letters wins the game!

The goal of this game is to find small items hidden inside something creepy or nasty that you are only allowed to feel, but not see.

Setting this up is pretty easy because normal foods can feel quite creepy if you don’t see them as you touch them. Overcooked spaghetti, oats, and berries are great examples. This is a perfect Halloween game for brave kids and adults alike.

Setup

Fill 3-5 bowls with some creepy contents. Hide the bowls inside a cardboard box and cut out holes people can stick their hands through to reach the bowls. Alternatively, you can hide the bowls behind a curtain or play in a dark room.

Hide the small items in the bowls. Spread them out. Put one in one bowl, two in another, none in the third bowl, and one in the last bowl, for example.

Playing

Let the party guests play one at a time.

The goal of this game is to count the hidden items without seeing them and without removing them from their bowls. So start a timer and let the player feel through all the bowls and count. When they think they’ve found everything and finished counting, you stop the time.

The fastest player with a correct count wins. Incorrect counts are disqualified.

For a team competition, you can let the team members search one bowl each.

Make sure you have a towel ready after each bowl so that the players can clean their hands. It’s nice to clean up after the messy bowls but also equally important that no one gets a hint of what’s in the bowls by looking at other players' hands. That can ruin the surprise and fun of the game!

For this Halloween candy game, you put a lot of candy in a jar. You should pretty much fill it up and put a lid on to make sure nothing falls out. Halloween-themed candy is most fun!

Count the candy as you put it in.

The guests have to guess how many candies are in the jar. Let them write their answer on slips of paper. The closest guess wins the whole jar of candy. The winner must share and let everyone have a piece, though!

We suggest you use just one kind of candy and don’t mix. Guessing the number of candies when they’re all of different sizes is just too hard.

This is a fast-paced and competitive scavenger hunt!

Hide scary or funny Halloween themed eyes indoors or outside in the backyard. For example in the stairs, on the trunk of a tree or by sticking one to a mirror. Make sure to hide loads of them. Think 20-30 eyes at least.

Don’t want people to rummage around your stuff? Tell them things are only hidden in the open and not in drawers etc.

This Halloween game is played by everyone at the same time.

When a player finds an eye they collect it.

Start the game by setting a timer for 3 minutes (or longer if the area is large). Tell everyone to start looking. The one with the most eyes when the timer runs out wins!

This is a nice Halloween party game to serve as an icebreaker for your guests.

Divide your guests into teams of 2-3 people. Hand out the papers with a list of some horror movies that have some words missing in their titles.

Let your guests try to figure out as many correct titles as possible in 3-5 minutes. Then, read all the correct answers out loud and let the teams correct their answers. You can have the teams switch papers and correct each others answers too if you’d like.

A perfect game to get the Halloween party going and create an opportunity for discussion on the theme of horror movies.

10 Suggestions with correct answers

• _____ the 13th       (Friday the 13th)
• When a Stranger _____       (When a Stranger Calls)
• What Lies _____       (What Lies Beneath)
• The _____ of the Lambs       (The Silence of the Lambs)
• The _____ Sense       (The Sixth Sense)
• Jeepers _____       (Jeepers Creepers)
• The _____ Witch _____       (The Blair Witch Project)
• A _____ on _____ Street       (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
• _____ from the Black Lagoon       (Creature from the Black Lagoon)
• The _____ of La Llorona       (The Curse of La Llorona)

Here is another Halloween game that both children and adults can play.

There are two game versions (Version 2 is my personal favorite!)

To prepare for the game, write lists of Halloween-related words on paper and hand out copies to each player or team. You’re free to use my list of Halloween-related words below!

Start the game by setting a timer for 5 minutes. When the time is up, the game is over. Let the players correct their answers themselves. The player or team with the highest score wins.

Version 1 - Play in Pairs

In this version, both players of the pair fill out their own papers. The goal is for both to finish each phrase the same without talking! So, for example, if both players of a pair wrote the phrase “spider web” for the word “spider”, they get 1 point.

The goal is to end the phrase similarly to your team member. So, if both in a team finished the word “spider” with “web,” they get 1 point.

Version 2 - Teams or Individually

For this version, you can play individually or in teams of 2-3 players each.

The goal here is to try and finish each phrase the same as everyone else, regardless of whether they’re on your team, and whenever another team writes the same phrase as you, you get 1 point each. For example, if four teams wrote “broomstick” for the word “broom”, they all get 3 points.

25 Halloween Themed Words

This Halloween game is of the kind that plays well in the background of the party. The rules are simple. Have the guests guess how much the pumpkin weighs.

You can let the guests lift and feel the pumpkin if you want to. That or make it part of the Halloween decoration on a plate in the middle of the room. This game plays itself if you place a pen, a bowl and slips of paper next to the pumpkin.

Don’t forget to remind your guests to also write their names along with their guesses.

Have them guess while mingling, after dinner or during the whole party. Just make sure to leave a set time for when you correct the answers and declare a winner.

The prize can be the pumpkin itself.

A Fun Twist to the Game

Carve a hole at the bottom or behind the pumpkin. The important thing is to hide this from the guests. Then play the version of “Guess the Pumpkin’s Weight” where you don’t allow them to touch the pumpkin.

In secret you have been sneaky and filled the pumpkin with lots of heavy candy. The pumpkin thus weighs more than it seems to.

The winner wins the pumpkin and all the secret candy. Happy Halloween surprise!

Candy Version

Carve a scary face in the front of the pumpkin. Then fill the pumpkin with lots of candy. Let the candy stick out from the eyes and show through the mouth.

Put the pumpkin in a suitable spot for every guest to make a guess of the pumpkin’s weight including the candy. The winner will of course win the whole candy filled pumpkin.

A fun Halloween game for both kids and adults!

This low-key Halloween game can be fun to play with people you know well and new acquaintances at Halloween parties or work.

Come up with 3-5 questions or statements that, in some way, can be related to Halloween.

Then, print and hand out them to all the guests and tell them not to reveal their answers to anybody.

Examples You Can Use

• A word I find unsettling is…
• This movie has really frightened me…
• I am afraid of…
• I would never eat…
• A place I would avoid at night is…

Now, collect the answers and gather the players. Then you read one person’s answers aloud, and the players must point at the person they believe wrote it. Everyone that made a correct guess gets 1 point each.

The player with the most points, in the end, wins the game.

This Halloween game idea is about forbidding your guests to use certain words during the first hour of the party. It’s best to set a time limit like this instead of tensing everybody for the whole party.

Prepare a list of Halloween-related words that are not allowed during the game. You might use the words:

• scared
• Halloween
• decoration
• ghost
• pumpkin
• costume

Pick 3-5 Halloween-themed words to forbid. Give 1 point every time someone says a forbidden word. The guests with the fewest points at the end of the game win.

For a children’s party, you can skip the points and just have fun.

You could include some of the words in your decorations! If one of the forbidden words is “pumpkin” you make sure to decorate with pumpkins. This makes it a bit harder for your guests to not think of or mention pumpkins.

A Halloween Match Game is a nice low-key activity for your Halloween Party. It is easy to adjust to suit your guests and plays great in teams of mixed ages.

Write down two columns of Halloween-themed phrases to match up. The suggestions below are based on villains and scary movies. Hand these out on paper to the guests.

Divide your guests into teams, or play individually.

Set a timer for 2 minutes. The goal is to match the pairs of phrases between the two columns. Participants can, for example, draw lines between the phrases. The most successful player/team wins.

The suggestions below have the pairs written on the same rows to clarify the correct answer. Shuffle one column before you give this to the players.

10 Match-suggestions with correct answers

1. The Addams Family   Wednesday
2. Friday the 13th   Jason Voorhees
3. Hotel Transylvania   Mavis
4. The Shining   Jack Torrance
5. Gremlins   Gizmo
6. 101 Dalmatians   Cruella de Vil
7. The Ring   Samara
8. Corpse Bride   Victor Van Dort
9. Coraline   The Other Mother
10. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit   Wallace & Gromit

Everyone played hide and seek as a kid. It is a fun game where one person searches for the other players who are hiding.

This is a fun thing to do at Halloween, but here we play in the dark! Maybe you have a backyard or a basement. Maybe you can set aside a floor or room as the playing area. The most important thing, though, is that the area is dark.

It is up to you if you play in pitch-darkness or if you use some dim lighting.

The seeker counts to 60 outside the dark area while everyone else tries to hide as best they can. It is not allowed to change hiding places once the seeker has started searching.

The seeker is allowed to use a flashlight for help. The last one to be found gets to be the next seeker.

Adult Version

Tell your guests to hide in the area you have planned for the game. Announce that you will count to 60 inside your bathroom and then start the search. In the bathroom, you have hidden a super scary costume, which you now put on. Then head out and perform your most scary self. Make spooky sounds, breath heavily, move slowly and noisily, and use a flashlight (sparingly). This will make it all much scarier and your guests will feel like they have ended up in a horror movie.

If you really like to decorate your home around Halloween this is the game for you!

You will happy welcome your guests when they arrive at the party. There will maybe be some mingle and maybe some guests even compliment on all your decorations and arrangement you have made.

After a while it’s play time! You hand out papers and pens to all guests (or let them use their cell phones). On the paper you have written questions regarding some of your decorations.

The guests must now run around and try to be the first to get all the correct answers.

The questions can for example be “How many spider webs can be found in the living room?”, “How many candle lights are lit on the porch?”, “What color has the flowers in the kitchen window” and “What kind of animal is placed in front of the garage?”.

Have around 8-10 questions. The first player to get all correct answers wins.

A very fun Halloween activity for adults and teenagers is playing Kids' or Horror Movie.

All you need to do is write a list with movie titles from kids-friendly movies or series and horror movies. The goal for the players is to figure out which belongs to which category.

Suggestions for Movie Titles

1. Children of the Corn   (Horror)
2. Ponyo   (Kids)
3. Over the Hedge   (Kids)
4. Poltergeist   (Horror)
5. Blinky Bill   (Kids)

The most successful player wins the game!

In this Halloween kids game, you compete in pairs or as a relay with more than one pair in each team. Play the game outside if you can. Inside works too if you have a lot of space.

All you have to do is buy one pumpkin per team. Real pumpkins are the most fun but plastic pumpkins work too.

To play the pairs stand face to face and put the pumpkin between their bellies. They must carry the pumpkin together like this with their hands at their backs.

The game’s goal is to move from the starting point to the finish line without dropping the pumpkin. A pair that drops the pumpkin must pick it up and move three steps backward before they continue.

This is a great Halloween relay game! When a pair makes it to the finish line they hand their pumpkin over to the next pair in their team. The first team to have all their pairs finish wins!

Prepare this Halloween activity by creating a list of scary movies. 8-12 titles will be enough. Write the list of movie titles on slips of paper. Hand out one list to each team.

Tell the teams to guess in which order the scary movies premiered.

The teams don’t have to know the exact years (bonus points though if you want to). They just have to order them by date with the oldest first.

Give them 3-5 minutes. Adjust according to how stressful you want the Halloween game to be. Give 1 point for each correctly placed movie.

The low-key version is to let the teams finish in their own time. No time limit, nice and calm.

Movie Suggestions

• The Black Cat (1934)
• The Tingler (1959)
• Jaws (1975)
• Alien (1979)
• The Shining (1980)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• Scream (1996)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• 28 Days Later (2002)
• Paranormal Activity (2007)
• The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
• A Quiet Place (2018)

This Halloween game is fun for both kids and adults. Mixed ages can compete at the same time.

All you need is to buy some toilet paper rolls and set up a start and finish line. Throw in some tape to make it easier to work with the toilet paper.

Before the start signal, you wrap up the contestants' legs in toilet paper. All the way from the ankles to the hip. Make sure not to make it too tight.

Have everyone stand ready on a line. When the game starts the players must jump forward as fast as they can. Without ripping their toiler paper. The first one to cross the finish line wins!

Name 3 is a fun activity for kids, teenagers, adults, and older people. This game always spawns amusing discussions and laughter. You can play in teams or individually (I prefer to team up!)

Prepare the game by writing down some Halloween-themed categories/statements (6-8 will do.) Here are some examples:

• Famous Fictional Villains
• Popular Halloween Costumes
• Spooky Places
• Horror Movies

The participants should now write three answers to each category that they think will be the most common answers in the group. Why? Because you only get points if others have answered the same as you (see below.)

When everyone is ready with their answers, you go through each category as a group. Then, every team/participant reads their answers aloud while the others listen. When a team/participant hears an answer they had written themselves, they get 1 point (the order of answers within a category doesn’t matter.)

For example, if three teams have written “The Ring” in the category of Horror Movies, all three teams get two points each.

The team/participant with the highest score wins the game!

In this fun and messy party game, participants can only use their mouths - no hands allowed!

The challenge is to search through bowls filled with overcooked macaroni to find and pick up small hidden objects using only their mouths while keeping their hands behind their backs.

Turn it into a competition by setting a time limit - say, 30 seconds - and counting how many items each player can collect.

For a children’s party, fill the bowls with silly toys or colorful trinkets. At an adult party, add some unexpected or quirky items for laughs. And for a Halloween party, amp up the spooky factor by hiding plastic spiders, fake fingers, or other creepy crawlies in the macaroni.

The game’s rules are straightforward. Match the phobias.

This low-key Halloween game works well to play with adults or teenagers. All you have to do is to write a list of some phobias and let the participants try to match them with the correct answer.

Here are some examples you can use.

• Myrmecophobia - fear of ants
• Globophobia - fear of balloons
• Coulrophobia - fear of clowns
• Hemophobia - fear of blood
• Gephyrophobia - fear of bridges
• Cherophobia - fear of happiness

This is a very fun and scary Halloween Party Game. Especially if you use the Scary Twists for adults and teenagers below.

Prepare the game by taking some photos with your phone. 6-10 photos will do. Print or share these photos in a group chat with all he guests or send them to everyone individually.

Divide the guests into teams of 2-3 people. Tell them they have to find all the places in your photos. As proof they must snap a photo of the place with at least one team member in the picture. Then send this picture to you or the group chat.

The team that first sends you pictures of all the correct places wins! Another way of playing is using a timer set for 15-30 minutes depending on the size of the playing area. The team with most correct photos when the time runs out wins the game. A chat / group chat makes both of these easier. You can keep track of how far along each team is, which sent a picture first and easily tell everyone when the time is up.

Make the game area as big as you wish. Inform your guests of the size of the playing area before the game starts.

You can take photos of interesting places in your town. Preferably on the theme of Halloween. For example a nicely decorated store front, a dead tree or a pumpkin farm.

If you’re snapping around your neighborhood you might find a traffic sign, a certain bush, fence or some spooky decoration.

You can also play this Halloween game in your own garden or inside the house (a good choice for younger children).

The photos will become great memories of the Halloween party.

All kinds of transportation is allowed. Bus, car, on foot, bike or an electric scooter for example.

Scary Twist 1

Take a photo of a disguised person in a scary costume. Let this person hide in your garden and scare your guest as they try to find the correct places to take photos of.

The disguised person is of course one of the things they have to snap a picture of.

Scary Twist 2

Take a photo of a bush or similar as one of the places your guests have to find. Have someone in a scary costume hide in the bush prepared to scare the players.

Trying to time the scare with the snapping of the photo can lead to some hilarious Halloween photos.

This is a fun and popular Halloween game for kids!

Draw a large spider with only seven legs on paper. Make it very clear where the eighth leg is missing. Attach the spider paper to a wall or door.

The players take turns trying to attach the leg in the right spot while blindfolded. Spin each player around three times and turn them toward the spider paper. Mark where each player put the spider leg.

Closest wins.

This is the perfect game to play at your kids' Halloween party when you want that DIY feeling without spending all day.

Prepare the game by painting a ghost face on each toilet roll with a black marker. Place the 6 rolls in a 1-2-3 formation and let the kids try to knock them down by rolling the pumpkin at them.

Remove the stem from the pumpkin to make it easier to roll.

Since pumpkins come in all shapes and forms this Halloween game won’t always be so easy, but always lots of fun!

This Halloween ring toss game is super easy to set up both indoors and outdoors. All you need is a bunch of pumpkins and some rings for tossing. Both kids and adults can play.

Arrange the pumpkins in a group with their stems pointing up. Make sure the stems are long enough for tossing rings at. Use pumpkins of different sizes and even decorate or carve them if you have the time.

Let the players toss rings at the pumpkin stems to get points. They get one point for each ring that settles around a pumpkin’s stem.

When it gets dark out you can place lights in and around the pumpkins. This makes for a beautiful decoration for the Halloween party and your garden!

Here is a Halloween game for kids that’s really fun to prepare since the kids always love the result.

Buy some orange balloons or balloons with pumpkin faces on them. Fill them with candy or other treats for the kids at your Halloween party. Then blow them up with the candy still inside.

If you have the time you can decorate the balloons to look more like pumpkins.

Put the balloons in a room or outside in your backyard. The important thing is to arrange them like a pumpkin patch. To give the kids the feeling of being at a little pumpkin farm.

Then let the kids stomp the balloons and collect the treats inside.

This game is literally a scary game. Perfect for the Halloween party!

When everyone has arrived tell them that during the Halloween party there’s an ongoing competition to scare the other guests. A guest gets 1 point each time they manage to scare someone to make them jump or twitch. Scaring three other guests would give a total of 3 points, for example. Scaring the same guest more than once is OK.

The guest with the most points when the game ends wins.

Set an end time for the game, say 3 hours later, to give yourself a chance to announce the winner before guests have started to leave. Make the end time clear to all the guests too.

Challenge friends, family, or colleagues at work with the game Scattergories! You can easily make a kids-friendly version of the game too.

In this game, the players have to fill a table with words. The hard part is that the words must match a category on each row, and on each column, they must start with a specific letter.

Below are some Halloween-related categories for the rows. Write these to the left of each row.

• Something orange
• Not good to eat
• At a graveyard
• Can be painful
• Smells bad

Examples of Halloween-related words for the columns are DARK and FEAR. Pick one and write the letters of this word above the columns.

So, for example, with the category In Harry Potter, correct answers for the letters in the word DARK would be Dumbledore, Auror, Ron, and Kids.

Play the games in teams or individually!

The player or team with the most correct words wins. To make it even more challenging, you can set a time limit of 5-10 minutes.

Place some Halloween related items around the house and/or in the garden. Make a list of the items (item names or pictures) and hand out the papers to the players.

You can for example hide a black cat in the bathtub, a pumpkin under the kitchen table, a skeleton in the closet and so on.

When the game starts the players have to run and find all the hidden objects. They must also write down where they found them. No one can move or touch any object since this could ruin the game for the other players.

You decide if there is a time limit or if the first one who finds all objects wins. When someone finishes they return their paper to you.

With a time limit the most found objects wins when the time runs out. 5-10 minutes is probably enough. It depends on the size of the playing area of course. If someone finds them all and hands in their paper before the time runs out they win of course.

Without a time limit you play until someone has found all the items. That player wins when they return their paper.

Don’t worry if you’re not comfortable with people rummaging around your house. You can play the game outside in the garden or in a specific part of the house. You can also make it clear that no items are hidden out of sight. That way everyone knows they don’t have to lift or move anything or open any drawers and so on.

Young Kids Version

Hosting a Halloween party for small children who can’t yet read? You can use pictures!

For each hidden item, take a photo of the hiding place and two other places around the house/garden. Hand out papers to the children with a multiple choice question per hidden item. Have a row per item with a photo of the item and the three hiding places. The kids encircle the photo of the place where they found it.

If you are hiding a pumpkin on the porch you show a picture of the pumpkin itself (not on the porch then) and three more pictures. One picture of the porch (without the pumpkin) and, for example, one of a chair in the kitchen and one of the sink.

This makes the game easier too. There’s no need for the kids to search places that aren’t in the pictures!

Happy scavenger hunt!

This Halloween party game is a loud one.

Organize a screaming contest! This is a lot more fun than it sounds!

The guests will simply compete with their best screams. Prepare 2-3 categories to compete in, see suggestions below. It’s OK to compete in more than one category.

Each player can scream in front of everyone else or the screams can be prerecorded or recorded in another room. You decide. Just make sure to make the rules clear for the guests.

Let the guests be the judges! Once everyone has screamed or all recorded screams have been played you let everyone vote for their favorite in each category. The most votes wins that category.

This one is most fun if there’s a prize for winning each category.

Suggestions of screaming categories

• The scariest scream
• The loudest scream
• The most unexpected scream
• The funniest scream
• The most witch-like scream
• The most interrupted scream

This is a popular indoor Halloween toss game for kids that involves spiders (plastic ones, of course).

When decorating for your kids' Halloween party you also prepare for the game by setting up a spider web. Spread the web in a dedicated area. Maybe a corner of the room, between two chairs, or in a doorway.

When all the kids have arrived you let them toss spiders at the spiderweb.

This game is played one at a time. The goal is to get the spiders to stick to the web. The players get a point for each spider still caught in the web when they’ve finished tossing. Clear the web of spiders between players.

A fun, fast, and simple game for your Halloween party. This game almost needs no preparation at all. You just need two toilet paper rolls ready for each team.

Divide the guests into teams of 2-3 people. In 1 minute the teams must try wrapping a team member from head to toe in toilet paper to create their Halloween toilet paper mummy!

The team that does the best job wins the game.

You can be the judge, or you let all the teams vote for the best mummy. Voting for your own mummy isn’t allowed. Also, mummies can’t vote. They’re dead.

Fun photos are promised!

A fun Halloween activity is to arrange an exciting quiz for your guests! And since it’s Halloween, make sure to use Halloween facts and trivia.

Ask about such things as candy, scary animals, body parts, or horror movies. 8-12 questions will do.

Feel free to use the Halloween quiz questions and answers below.

Example Questions with Answers

Which country is the largest pumpkin producer in the world?

• China
• USA
• Australia

Which one of these movies did Tim Burton not direct?

• Corpse Bride
• Edward Scissorhands
• Coraline

Which of these animals has the best night vision?

• A cat
• An owl
• A zebra

Spiders can have different numbers of eyes. What is the most common?

• 4
• 6
• 8

Who wrote the famous theme for the movie “Jaws”?

• Hans Zimmer
• John Williams
• Max Steiner

The human body consist of 206 bones. How much of our body weight comes from our bones?

• 16%
• 35%
• 46%

What is an underground cemetary called?

• Catacomb
• Sarcophagus
• Mausoleum

Which of the following zombie games was released first?

• Plants vs Zombies
• Left 4 Dead
• Resident Evil

How much blood does an adult contain?

• 0.9 gallons
• 1.3 gallons
• 1.7 gallons

Where would Harry Potter probably go to buy a textbook for a course at Hoqwarts?

• Borgin & Burkes
• The Leaky Cauldron
• Flourish & Blotts

You are probably already familiar with games like Word Scramble. Here is a Halloween version that can be easily adjusted to fit kids or grown-ups by varying the difficulty.

Prepare the game by listing a bunch of Halloween-related words. I have made a list for adults below that you can use if you want to.

Then, scramble the words well. Now, let the participants try to unscramble the words. The first one to succeed wins (or put a timer on for 3-5 minutes).

Words To Unscramble

1. AAMRONRLAP - Paranormal
2. LSULK - Skull
3. NEDDUA - Undead
4. MBTO - Tomb
5. OWWREFEL - Werewolf
6. ESOBN - Bones
7. SRCPOE - Corpse
8. HWTCFAITCR - Witchcraft