Author Archives: gmdirect

A Mysterious Halloween Music Mashup!

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This month, I’m trying to do one Halloween-themed post every week.

Last week was the 31 Games of October countdown, offering a different scary, eerie, or horror-fueled board game or tabletop roleplaying game to try out.

And for this week’s festive endeavor, I’m resurrecting a spooky musical trivia challenge from almost a decade ago!

This video is the brainchild of musician, artist, and comedian Ali Spagnola. Ali created a masterful mashup of 20 tunes loaded with Halloween spirit! Can you name all 20 songs?

I confess, I’m a little disappointed that Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” didn’t make the cut, but otherwise, this is awesome.

And while we’re enjoying Halloween tunes, here’s another delightful musical offering. This one comes from D&D player, DM, singer, and content creator Ginny Di:

Did any of your Halloween favorites appear among the unnamed 20 songs in Ali’s mashup? Let us know in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you.

A Horror Game For Every Day of October!

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It’s officially time for all things spooky, scary, terror-inducing, and horror-fueled to take over for a whole month, and that should include your games! So I’ve assembled a list of 31 games fit for the season. Some are silly, some are tense, but all fit the Halloween vibe nicely.

So, without further ado, let’s get to the list!

OCTOBER 1: Betrayal at the House on the Hill

Let’s get a classic out of the way first. This game is loaded with various storylines to keep you spooked for hours on end, and its ever-shifting game board makes every play great fun. Controversial take: The Scooby Doo edition is the superior edition.

OCTOBER 2: Cult Following

Looking for a party game with a sinister twist? Look no further than Cult Following, the card game where you try to build the best cult and pitch it to your fellow players in the hopes of winning their hearts, minds, and unending loyalty. This is definitely on the sillier side, but the cult gimmick makes it perfectly Halloween-appropriate.

OCTOBER 3: Dead of Winter

If you’re looking for tension, high stakes, cooperative gaming, and the potential for self-serving surprises, it’s hard to beat Dead of Winter. The players are trying to survive the zombie apocalypse, but each player also has their own agenda (which might not always align with the group’s interests). This is an awesome game with plenty of replay value.

OCTOBER 4: Horrified

More family friendly than some other spooky games, Horrified is a good way to balance scares and good times. In this cooperative game, your group of heroes is pitted against some of the classic Universal movie monsters like The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolfman, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. You must work together to complete specific tasks in order to defeat the monsters. (There are loads of different versions. My current favorite is the American Monsters edition!)

OCTOBER 5: There’s Been a Murder

In this card game that’s quick to learn but harder to master, there’s a murder to be solved, and every card can help or hinder the investigation, depending on your motives. Will you help the Detective solve the crime, or will the Murderer dispatch the Witness and get away scot-free? This is a murder mystery condensed into a card game, and it’s brilliantly done.

OCTOBER 6: Werewolf

With the full moon, how could I not put this here? This is a classic social deduction game where a group of townsfolk are trying to find the werewolf in their midst. A great party game with very little prep, it’s always a winner. (For similar gameplay but different story trappings, check out Salem 1692 and Are You the Robot?)

OCTOBER 7: So You’ve Been Eaten

This is more sci-fi than horror, but I think the concept still fits the bill. You’re a miner inside the body of a giant space beast, and you’re trying to get your crystals before the beast’s bacteria turn you into so much bodily detritus. This game can be played with 1 player (as the beast or the miner) or with 2 players (the beast versus the miner), and it’s a peculiar mix of sci-fi horror and strategy.

OCTOBER 8: Dread

Ever play a scary game with your friends involving nothing but imagination and a Jenga tower? That’s the brilliant concept behind Dread, a horror roleplaying game where your choices lead you to pulling blocks from the tower, and if it falls, you die! With all sorts of scenarios to play, Dread is a new game every time you play. A perfect introduction to roleplaying games for anyone.

OCTOBER 9: Ghost Stories

The players take on the roles of Taoist priests protecting village from ghosts. This feels like a Halloween-fueled variation on Castle Panic!, given both the difficulty of the game and the relentless waves of spirits to defeat. But it’s a great time and one of the best cooperative horror games out there.

October 10: Ten Candles

Easily the bleakest game on the list, Ten Candles is a game about the secrets we keep until the end. This collaborative storytelling game after trying to endure as long as the candlelight lasts. It’s fantastically dark and makes you appreciate every single moment.

OCTOBER 11: Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to Ghost Town

What if 20 Questions, but about psychics delivering pizza while battling ghosts? That’s the insanely creative idea behind Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go to Ghost Town. One player (the Mayor) builds the town and challenges the other players (the aforementioned Psychic Pizza Deliverers) to find a pizza and deliver it to the proper house in 20 turns or fewer. It’s bonkers, but with the right group, it’s so so fun.

OCTOBER 12: Welcome to Night Vale RPG

If you’re not paranoid or horrified enough yet, this is the perfect game to put you over the top. A roleplaying game set in the town from the wonderful titular podcast, Welcome to Night Vale RPG gives you eldritch horrors, governmental conspiracies, and all the weird your brain can handle. Fun and scary in equal parts, this is great stuff.

OCTOBER 13: Call of Cthulhu RPG

If you’re looking for mind-shredding scares and sanity-challenging evils, Call of Cthulhu has been the champion of the genre for decades. Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s legendary mythos, Call of Cthulhu has very human, very mortal characters dealing with unknowable cosmic horrors. Tension runs rampant in this game, so be warned.

OCTOBER 14: Terror Below

Ever wanted to test your mettle in a Tremors-style scenario? Terror Below is where it’s at. Featuring tense gameplay, beautiful design (especially the minis), and all the giant worms you’ll ever need, Terror Below is an underappreciated gem.

OCTOBER 15: Nyctophobia

There’s perhaps no fear more primal than the fear of the dark, and Nyctophobia uses that to its advantage, plunging all but one player into darkness. (Blackout glasses are provided for the players.) The now-blind players must try to escape a dark forest, while the one player who can see stalks them, removing them from the game one by one. When properly executed, there’s no board game more immersive and scary than this one.

OCTOBER 16: Float from the Deep

You’re lost at sea, with untrustworthy people on the raft with you, and strange terrors lurking in the deep below. Can you make it to the island in the distance before your fellow players betray you, you drown in the unforgiving waters, or something drags you into the briny deep? This survival game (that could be cooperative, depending on the cards) might start a fight at the table, but it’s gonna be one heck of a game night.

OCTOBER 17: Don’t Go In There

You know how kids are with haunted houses? They wander in, they get haunted by ghosts, and they desperately try to get out alive. This is definitely on the less-spooky end of the selections in today’s list (and one of the shortest to play), but it is still a good time and worthy of a spin at your table, especially with newer players.

OCTOBER 18: The Faceless

In this game that feels like Stranger Things but with magnets instead of powers, you must navigate your group around the board, following a compass’s directions, manipulating it with cards and the magnetic figures around the board. Part-strategy game, part-scary hunt for your friend’s lost memories, The Faceless is a unique experience.

OCTOBER 19: Nemesis

This is, hands down, the best way to play the movie Alien with your friends. Aboard a deteriorating ship, overrun with alien monsters, you can only trust your skills and your fellow crewmates… despite their own agendas. Oh, and the longer the game takes, the stronger the monsters become.

OCTOBER 20: The Night Cage

The light is fading. The tunnel behind you looks different than it did before. There’s something in the dark, and it’s getting closer. The Night Cage is brilliantly anxiety-inducing, so challenging and scary and atmospheric. I cannot say enough good things about this game.

OCTOBER 21: Arkham Horror

During the Roaring Twenties, you and your fellow investigators must hunt monsters and prevent one of the Old Ones, a great cosmic evil, from being released and dooming the world to insanity and darkness. This cooperative game puts a little bit more of an action-y spin on the Lovecraftian horror genre, but it’s still an engaging horrorshow of an experience.

OCTOBER 22: Mysterium

Nothing makes a game atmospheric like a murder to solve, and Mysterium goes way beyond Clue by having players work together to find the murderer. But there’s a twist, as one of the players is a ghost, and cannot speak. Instead, they offer visual clues to all of the other players, who are psychic mediums. The mix of clever communication and immersive storytelling makes this an excellent choice for a macabre night of gameplay and murder-solving.

OCTOBER 23: The Thing

It’s hard to make a board game capture the tension and paranoia of an all-time classic horror movie, but man, The Thing does one hell of a job translating the creeping terror of that isolated polar station at your table. Can you figure out which player is the creature before it’s too late?

OCTOBER 24: Grave Robbers from Outer Space

I love movie-based games that break the fourth wall, and this game hits all the high notes for that genre of gameplay. You are the producer of a B-grade monster or slasher movie, sending monsters or villains to attack the movies behind made by your fellow players. It’s meta in the best way, and a really good time.

OCTOBER 25: Sub Terra

Some horror scenarios are very simple and terribly effective, and this is one of them. In this cooperative game, you’re a group of cavers exploring a network of subterranean tunnels, and you’re trying to find your way out with diminishing light and resources. This tile-laying game is brilliantly claustrophobic and will get your heart pumping!

OCTOBER 26: Dead Man’s Cabal

Sometimes it’s hard to gather friends and loved ones for a party. Well, in Dead Man’s Cabal, that’s not a problem, since you can simply raise the dead and make them attend your party! As players compete to gather the most undead partygoers for their event, they can affect not only which guests arrive for their party, but the queue for other players’ resurrected guests as well. The dark tongue-in-cheek humor of the game only enhances the experience, making for a raucous and ridiculous time for all involved.

OCTOBER 27: Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG

If you want scares and monster-slaying, wrapped in a story-fueled package, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG is the perfect way to get it. Told like a season of the show, you get to build your character’s strengths and flaws, battle the forces of evil, and maybe trigger a plot twist or two along the way. This is a top-5 roleplaying game for me. Do yourself a favor, grab some friends, and try it out.

OCTOBER 28: Mansions of Madness

Can you survive a Lovecraftian horror in a mansion? That’s the question posed by this app-assisted game that will have you in knots for hours. With numerous scenarios and game pieces to choose from, this hits a lot of the same checkmarks as Betrayal, but with a decidedly more sinister vibe. Plan your whole night around this one.

OCTOBER 29: Gloom (or Gloomier)

If you’re looking for a darkly fun game with shades of The Addams Family or Edward Gorey, then Gloom is the game for you. In Gloom, each player is the head of a spooky family, and it’s your job to make them miserable in hilariously ghastly ways before they croak. And as you do so, you regale your fellow players with the ongoing tragic tale of their fates. The gameplay is accentuated by the beautiful clear playing cards, which allow you to stack different events and effects on your family characters and still be able to see what’s going on!

OCTOBER 30: The Doom That Came to Atlantic City

Have you ever wanted to play Monopoly but steeped in APOCALYPTIC MALICE instead of greed? Good! In this game, you crush houses to claim properties, play Chants (instead of Chance) cards, and basically try to be the best doomsday cultist at the table, summoning your monstrous god to end the world before the other players can. It’s tongue-in-cheek and great fun.

OCTOBER 31: Endangered Orphans of Condyle Cove

Here is my all-time favorite spooky game. Everyone plays orphans visiting all the creepiest places in town, hoping to be the last one standing before the boogeyman gets you. It’s so gloriously dark and creepy and an incredibly good time. This one might be hard to find, but it’s so worth it.

Will any of these games be haunting your Halloween game tables, fellow players? Or is there a spooky favorite of yours that I missed? Let me know in the comments below!

Donate to a Worthy Cause with Power Word Meal!

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There are always worthwhile charitable efforts going on in the world of puzzles and games, and that’s true in the roleplaying game community as well.

Will of DnD Shorts is partnering with the United Nations’ Share the Meal program for a charity promotion called Power Word Meal, a charity venture with a simple, yet very important edict: no child should go hungry.

Every 85 cents donated means 1 meal given to someone in need. A $40 donation is FIFTY meals.

Tabletop game designers from all over the world are helping amplify the reach of this project, spreading the word across social media and contributing to a special gift for donors.

And there is a bonus for any RPG enthusiasts who donate:

Everyone who donates to this campaign can receive a free PDF bundle including an epic one-shot adventure and a new playable species for Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons, letting you and those you love play the heroes in your games that you are in real life. You are saving real lives while forging bonds and memories across the game table.

Please click this link for more information, and if you’re an RPG fan, just use your email to sign up for alerts, follow the instructions, and share the PDF receipt of your donation to receive your free PDF bundle.

And for those unfamiliar with the world of tabletop RPGs, you might be wondering about the origins of the name Power Word Meal.

There are a series of spells in Dungeons & Dragons based on the idea that you’ve learned a word of power, and that by speaking that single word, you can cause a magical effect. Power Word Stun, Power Word Blind, and most famously, Power Word Kill, are terribly dangerous, terribly effective spells.

Which makes it genuinely lovely to see that idea turned on its head with Power Word Meal, spreading the idea that we DO have the power to help others. Not with a magic word of eldritch might, but with a few clicks, a few screen taps, a few dollars, a few moments of our time.

So please cast Power Word Meal with us and make the lives of some deserving strangers better.

Thank you, and happy spellcasting, everyone!

PuzzCulture Book Review: Words Apart by Aimee Lucido

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Welcome to PuzzCulture Book Reviews!

All of the books discussed and/or reviewed in PCBR articles are either directly or indirectly related to the world of puzzling, and hopefully you’ll find something to tickle your literary fancy in this entry or the entries to come.

Let’s get started!

The subject of today’s book review is Words Apart by Aimee Lucido, illustrated by Phillippa Corcutt and Rachael Corcutt, intended for ages 8-12.

Olive and Mattie are sisters, two years apart, but in the same grade. While Olive expresses herself with an impressive vocabulary and a love of wordplay, Mattie struggles with reading but finds comfort expressing herself through cartoons, sketches, and comic strips.

But this once-inseparable duo soon find themselves at a crossroads, as family dynamics, crushes, the pressures of schoolwork, and Mattie’s distrust after years of bullying drive a wedge between them. Is this sisterly friendship broken, or can they find a way to bridge their differences again?

Words Apart manages to encompass so much of the school experience without feeling like Lucido is working her way down a checklist. Each conflict feels natural, each misunderstanding and misstep feels realistic, and the snowballing effect of all these changes adds real drama to the story.

And yet, despite heavy topics and sad moments, this book is so fun.

Using the twin narrative styles of comic book art for Mattie and poetic layouts dappled with linguistic playfulness for Olive tells the reader so much about each character so quickly, they feel like long-time acquaintances, not brand-new characters.

As a dyed-in-the-wool word nerd myself, Olive’s penchant for wild vocabulary and linguistic invention was a delight.

The inclusion of three of Olive’s crosswords revealed her preoccupations and state of mind in a unique way, making them an integral part of the ongoing story and not just a puzzly gimmick. (Sadly, mere gimmickry is often the case with novels that involve puzzle elements, so this was a welcome change of pace.)

I also found Mattie’s desire to express herself in other ways really compelling, and her distrust of the world and outcast outlook resonated with me. Who can’t empathize with feeling alone and misunderstood at that age?

The sisters manage to be so very similar in their passions and desire for expression, and so wonderfully different in believable, meaningful ways. Their fights — both small and big — felt so REAL, it captured the sibling experience, that energy where you can be at odds one minute, but then united the next.

Even when I was younger, I rarely felt seen by literature, YA or otherwise. I could enjoy the stories, and sympathize or empathize with protagonists my age, but I never felt represented. So for Words Apart to come barreling out of nowhere and knock me over was both a treat and something to be savored. It would have been a joy to read this when I was young.

This is a family drama, a coming-of-age story, a wordplay lover’s delight, and a young artist’s inspiration all in one. Words Apart is something quite special.

The book will be released on October 7th, but you are welcome to preorder it now through Aimee’s website or various online booksellers.

But that’s not all!

To coincide with the book’s release date, Aimee will be hosting two launch events, one on each coast!

If you’re on the East Coast, you’re welcome to join Aimee on Sunday, October 5th at 5 PM at Books of Wonder, 42 West 17th Street in New York, New York to commemorate the book’s release.

And if you’re on the West Coast, be sure to visit Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore in Berkeley, California on Saturday, October 11th from 4 PM to 5:30 PM!

I wish Aimee, Phillippa, and Rachael great success with this story. It was a pleasure to experience it early.

Happy reading AND puzzling, everybody!

The National Toy Hall of Fame Finalists Are Here! Still Time to Vote!

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This year’s contenders for the National Toy Hall of Fame Class of 2025 have been whittled down to 12 finalists, and the competition is fierce.

You’ve got classic toys from across the decades (Furby, spirograph, Star Wars lightsaber, Tickle Me Elmo), representatives from more physical activities (scooter, cornhole), board games (Battleship, Catan, Connect Four, and Trivial Pursuit), and even materials kids play with (slime, snow).

The idea of “play” is represented in so many different ways across these 12 finalists, and it really encompasses just how vast and varied play is, how much imagination and expression and creativity are reflected in all sorts of different childhood experiences.

Personally, I’m rooting for the lightsaber, Trivial Pursuit, and snow to make the cut. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was 2. Trivial Pursuit was the first trivia game I can remember playing (even if it was an edition intended for players way older than I was at the time). And snow is so fundamental to winter play — sledding, snowmen, snowball fights, DAYS OFF FROM SCHOOL TO PLAY — that it’s surprising it hasn’t already been inducted.

(Though I suspect Catan, Connect Four, and Tickle Me Elmo will make the cut instead of some of my faves.)

And voting is still open for another day.

Yes, while the final determinations are made by the National Toy Hall of Fame’s National Selection Advisory Committee — ooh, so formal! — the three toys that receive the most public votes will be submitted for consideration alongside the top three submissions from the Selection Committee.

Which of these twelve contenders would you like to see join such playtime luminaries as Lite-Brite, My Little Pony, the stick, the Atari 2600, and the Rubik’s Cube? Let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to hear from you.

And while you’re at it, tell me what toys you think should be in the National Toy Hall of Fame!

The 2025 Conference on BIPOC Game Studies

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The 2025 Conference on BIPOC Game Studies convened this past weekend, bringing together students, game designers, college professors, and influential names in the games industry. It was organized in part by the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

The goal? To share research, showcase games, and discuss the future of game studies through the lens of BIPOC experiences (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color).

Here is a bullet point list of themes the conference was designed to explore:

  • Representation and Identity in Video Games
  • Digital & Analog Games as Cultural Artifact
  • Games By & About Black and Indigenous Communities
  • Decolonizing Game Development & Design
  • Integration of Indigenous & Black Knowledge Systems
  • Afrofuturism in Gaming
  • Cultural Preservation & Digital Heritage
  • Social Impact & Activism Through Games
  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Playful Technologies

Both board games and video games were topics of discussion across the three-day event, with panels and presentations covering properties as varied as Yu-Gi-Oh!, collegiate Esports, The Last of Us, murder mystery games, Dragon Age, virtual reality, the cultural value of arcades, and more.

Lindsay Grace, co-chair of the Conference and Knight chair in Interactive Media at the University of Miami, eloquently explained to WXXI News why this conference was not just necessary, but invaluable:

“I think one of the most important things to recognize about games is that they are kind of a cultural artifact. And being a cultural artifact, it’s important to ask questions about what these things mean in society, or what these things mean to the people who make them.”

“… One of the things I think is really interesting in game studies is we have the opportunity to think critically about the kinds of problems we’re solving and then also the kinds of solutions we’re offering. So a lot of what people talk about in, say, decolonizing games is about reinvestigating those two questions, what’s the real problem here? What’s the source of that problem? Similarly, how are we solving the problem?”

For years, I have discussed in this blog how the world of puzzles and games not only reflects our culture and choices, but why that’s important. But I can only examine those things through one particular lens, that of a white cishet male. There are blindspots I’m unaware of and experiences I simply don’t have, despite my best efforts.

That’s why it’s so important to have other voices included in the discussion, and events like this are crucial to the health of the games industry and our understanding of why we play games at all.

While I wasn’t in attendance, I have read through the various studies and papers associated with the conference, trying to better educate myself on these topics.

And the topics presented are fascinating.

How the experiences of Black users suffer in virtual reality due to whiteness as a default in so many games.

How the roles of Black and Latinx characters in games like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals contribute to not just representation, but reinforce perceptions of particular ethnic groups only in violent situations, not those of support or providing nonviolent solutions.

How video games are being used to preserve Latinx culture and the artistic legacy of the Hmong.

I learned about topics like Quare Theory and Misogynoir (how racist and anti-Black depictions affect the public perception of Black women), explained through the medium of video games.

But the article I found myself returning to several times over the last few days was “Decolonizing Play: Exploring Frameworks for Game Design Free of Colonial Values.”

It was startling to realize just how many video games are foundationally built on the values of Colonialism, and how easy it would be to NOT reinforce those harmful cyclical patterns.

From the paper by Elaine Gomez: When the topic of colonization arises, many game developers often hesitate to get involved in meaningful and constructive design conversations around how to mitigate values that are heavily ingrained in game theory and player expectations.

Some of the conversations broached by these panels and papers are uncomfortable, but difficult conversations are worth having. Challenging the biases and preconceived notions that games are often built upon is worthwhile. (I’m hoping to reach out to some of the Conference’s participants for more details in the coming weeks to follow up on these enlightening discussions.)

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to read the proceedings from the event and take some time to really ponder the topics presented.

The world of puzzles and games is big enough for everyone, and only gets better when everyone feels included. The 2025 Conference on BIPOC Game Studies is proof of that.

Happy gaming, everyone.