So I hosted Halloween-themed gaming night at my place in downtown Toronto on the evening of Saturday 22nd October 2022 called “The Casually-Competitive Halloween Extravaganza”!
It’s the second event of Extravaganza Season Two; I’ve been hosting these every few months since Covid restrictions ended (although the first one was before the pandemic and we even had a couple of virtual Extravaganzas during it). They’re a specific kind of format; more structured than your standard gaming night with planned (and usually themed) games, scoring system and points board. There’s also lots of snacking and drinking in between games; my friends are very chatty so the atmos is very jovial ☺️ There were eleven of us total, including me hosting, so there were ten competitors total.
The theme of this Extravaganza was Halloween! As such I had a lot of fun putting together games, music and house decor that’s all horror-themed. And it was also a costume party! It was a real Halloween!
The Format:
Main Games on the Big Screen:
We played three horror-themed games on the Nintendo Switch. Each game contained one or more challenges. Challenges are an opportunity to win points. Premise is simple: coming First with the most points at the end means first pick of the prize pool, second place gets second choice, etc. The prize pool consisted of items from the [Bowser Lootcrate from Culture Fly](https://culturefly.com/products/super-mario-bowser-collectors-box).
Coming First also guarantees an invitation to the prestigious Extravaganza All-Stars event at the end of Season Two to compete for Season Two Champion!
Everyone’s points were being recorded in my notebook and the winning order was updated on the whiteboard between games. Also, the games were a mystery and remained so until we played them.
Warmup game (no points): Luigi’s Mansion 3
ScreamPark. 8-Player PuckStravaganza and Ghost Hunt.
Streets of Red
4-player survival mode. Points were earned across the whole team. Each Total Wave = 3pts, $100 = 1pt.
House of the Dead: Remake
Each pair played chapter 1, 2 or 3 in Classic on Easy difficulty, Competitive Mode. At the end of each chapter, 1000pts = 1pt.
Slender: The Arrival
Original Eight Pages on Normal difficulty on the “Genesis” level. Pairs took turns between finding pages. Game ended when all pages are found or they are caught by Slenderman. 3pts for each page collected.
Blue Spiny Battles:
Another way to win points: using a Blue Spiny Shell! People in possession of Blue Spiny Shells were listed on the Scoreboard.
Just like in Mario Kart, Blue Spiny Shells target whoever is in first place. In between games, someone can activate their Shell to draw whoever is in First place at that moment into a death match in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with a low-level AI companion for the opportunity to steal 5 points from them. The matches for this Extravaganza were played on the Luigi’s Mansion and Dracula’s Castle stages since it was Halloween.
The way to get a Blue Spiny Shell is to be last in a previous Extravaganza or win a randomized Blue Spiny Lottery. (I do one at the very beginning)
Background Game Bonanza:
There was a secondary TV featuring the game Limbo. Limbo is a creepy side-scrolling puzzle game about a boy who must navigate a strange and dangerous hellscape to reach the Afterlife. The game ran concurrently with the main games.
Everyone collaborated together, taking turns to get as far as possible in the game using the Bluetooth keyboard. And they weren’t playing for points! They were playing for bonus prizes, which were these little gaming fridge magnets I made myself by hand. For every checkpoint they collectively reached by the end they all got to take home an extra magnet.
Costume points:
People also got bonus points for costumes (this was more of an incentive for people to put in some effort 😜)
No costume: 0pts
Good costume (one or two accessories): 5pts
Great costume (full body): 10pts
Awesome cosplay (epic full body and makeup): 15pts
So that was basically it! And it went really well! One idea I wanted to get across was that the night was getting darker as it went on; the games got spookier, I dimmed the lights more and more and made them more blood-red (Bluetooth lightbulbs), moved between three different video game-music playlists from light-hearted Halloween tunes to more sinister songs. I even had some candles in the living room and blew them out progressively leading up to the climax, which was the Slenderman game.
Improvements:
In future, I’d put timers on the background game (Limbo) and on the Slenderman game specifically. This would give more people a chance at trying out Limbo, and for Slenderman to not go so overtime.
[Here’s some photos](https://imgur.com/gallery/O99I2sz) of the living room Halloween decor, Hi-Scores Board, Hall of Fame and some of the bonus prize magnets. The Hall of Fame is an archive of every Extravaganza so far, and the games that were played in each.
by KingJaredoftheLand
2 Comments
Do you have posts about your previous game nights? Love this idea for me and my friends
No projector no gaming night.