Features

5 best Halloween-themed mobile games (2016)

No trick, all treat

5 best Halloween-themed mobile games (2016)
|

It's that time of the year when children dress up as corpses and axe murders and threaten old people for sweets. Halloween is such a happy, heart-warming time.

Naturally, a whole bunch of mobile games are being temporarily updated to reflect the season. But these are typically cosmetic tweaks that won't last out the year.

There's also a bunch of horror games out on the App Store and Google Play Store, but these don't really reflect the silly, campy, family-friendly spirit of the event.

If you really want to get in the spirit of things, check out these games with a distinct Halloween theme.

Costume Quest

Let's start with the most overt Halloween-referencing game of them all. Costume Quest takes place on the spooky date itself, as you take control of a young trick-or-treater.

Suitable theme aside, it's also a great RPG adventure, with a warm sense of humour and buckets of charm.

Shoot the Zombirds

Shoot the Zombirds sees you playing as a pumpkin-headed hero. How Halloween is that? Very. It's very Halloween.

This sequel to Shoot the Birds has you taking out flying creatures in a graveyard (naturally) with your trusty crossbow. It's the kind of virtual shooting gallery that calls to mind tacky fairground attractions - which somehow fits the season all the more.

Skulduggery

There's always a silly skeleton, isn't there? At least, in our experience there is. Representing the bone-loving massive is Skulduggery - a brilliant physics-based platformer that sees you pinging a skull around a set of dusty levels.

Put your earphones in, boot up Skulduggery, and ignore those irritatingly frequent door-knocks on Halloween.

Plants vs Zombies: Heroes

PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies captures the silly, schlocky and not remotely scary 'horror' theme of modern Halloween celebrations. Best cartoony zombies ever? Maybe.

We'll go with Plants vs Zombies: Heroes over the brilliant lane defence experience of the original because everyone's played the latter to death by now. Plus, the new game is a surprisingly accomplished card battler that lets you actually play as the zombies. Bonus Halloween points for that.

Lamp And Vamp

The Halloween festivities aren't complete without some little tyke (or grown adult who should know better) dressed up as a vampire. Not the scary, feral creatures of folklore of course, but those hammy fops with oversized collars and lacquered hair.

We'll pick out Lamp And Vamp as the vampire representative for this list for its adorable pixel-art graphics and clever turn-based roguelike gameplay. It's like a stealthy Hoplite as you strive to keep your blood sucker out of the light and away from stake-wielding villagers and priests.

Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.