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Posted in tabletop on October 19, 2021

I originally posted this article on A Pawn's Perspective on October 29, 2020

It’s that creepy and kooky time of year where black cats roam, and skeletons reside inside every person walking the planet. It’s a time for witches brew, candy, and BLOOD-CURDLING HORROR. Why not enjoy some of that terror in the tabletop games you play? Here’s a list of five of the most horrifying games to ever roll off a manufacturing line.

#5 – Hungry Hungry Hippos

Hungry Hungry Hippos

DREAD

They hunger. There’s no questioning Hungry Hungry Hippos inclusion on this list. The existential horror of our endless hunger for more is molded perfectly into the repulsive, candy-colored masses of hippo flesh. Just as in life, we hammer away, trying to consume as much as we can while leaving others with nothing but the scraps left over from our eternal gluttony. The terrifying part of all is that even once it’s over, we eagerly set it up to consume once again.

#4 – Perfection

Perfection

Can you feel your blood pressure rising?

Nothing so perfectly portrays suspense and anxiety as Perfection does. From the beginning, the expectations are set just by the title. Absolute conformity is the only option here. Failure to do so quickly will have your faults thrown back into your face, mocking you with the ring of a bell. Even worse, even if you manage perfection, the mocking bell and spring-loaded torture device will still destroy your hard work, sending your brightly colored pieces scattering just like your prospects in life.

#3 – Don’t Break the Ice

Don't Break the Ice

This game comes with mallets. Mallets.

Getting closer to the top of the list brings us to Don’t Break the Ice. Take a mallet in hand and chip away at the ice surrounding an innocent penguin in an abstraction of how life slowly chips away at us all. No matter how careful we are, it’s inevitable that we’ll fall, shattered to pieces. Yet we’re expected to take delight in this, even expected to wield the hammer that causes our suffering. The designer of this one had a sick mind, yet it perfectly fits in our list of the demented and horrible games for All Hallows Eve.

#2 – Cootie

Cootie

Look upon the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Is it any surprise that Cootie ranks among the scariest games on this list in this time of the global pandemic? The game has us creating the very superbug that will wipe us out, reminding us that it’s our own damn fault such things get out of hand. If only we stayed home, wore our masks, and had more compassion and consideration for our fellow human beings. We didn’t. We don’t. Now we race to produce our gruesome end, not to some monster, but a bug.

#1 – Monopoly LONGEST Game Ever Edition

Monopoly: The Longest Game Ever Edition

The board is reminiscent of Talisman, which is terryfing in it’s own right.

When you shut your eyes at night, what haunts your dreams? That feeling of dread, of absolute, visceral horror you feel when you approach your game shelf? That’s Monopoly LONGEST Game Ever. It’s as if Monopoly wasn’t such a bone-chilling game already; they had to go and make sure you could never escape it in this relatively new Halloween game. Circle around the board over and over, never stopping until you own every single property. 66 properties. One die. Even bankruptcy can’t save you. You’re in this for the long run, and it just may be the longest night of your life. Is there any question at all why this would be #1 on this list?

Sweet dreams, and Happy Halloween.