Vintage Board Games for Halloween 2025
by Alex J. Coyne © Gifts for Card Players
Halloween is the perfect time of year to light up the Jack-o-Lanterns and dress up for a traditional night of trick-or-treating … But when it comes to making a Halloween board game night memorable you might want to think further than the usual choices of Scrabble or Cluedo.
Board games like Green Ghost and Which Witch? were some of the most popular Halloween-themed games in the 1960s and 1970s. They’re still great fun, and you might be able to find complete copies of these vintage board games through ads and yard sales …
Some of these games might even still be hiding in the attic somewhere behind the skeletons in the closet!
Here’s a look at some of the best vintage board games for Halloween that are still great to play in 2025.
Mystic Skull: The Game of Voodoo: 1964
The year 1964 brought horror fans The Masque of the Red Death – a cinema classic based on the famous tale by Edgar Allan Poe.
Mystic Skull: The Game of Voodoo was also released in 1964.
The premise of the game is filling your opponent’s token – you guessed it: a voodoo doll – with pins. Players take turns spinning a wheel, and the finishing goal is to hex your opponent.
Mystic Skull is meant for 2 to 4 players and came along with tokens that included spiders and shrunken heads. If you’re lucky, complete copies still exist on websites like Amazon and eBay!
It took full advantage of the time’s horror tropes, which makes it a perfect throwback Halloween classic!
Green Ghost (1965)
Green Ghost was released in 1965, and made by Transogram – a Manhattan-based toy and games company.
According to their 1961 Spring-Summer toy catalogue, their toys also included butterfly nets and the Lance-a-Lot “play-safe action lance.”
Green Ghost stood out because it was advertised as the first glow-in-the-dark board game. Gameplay is also based around a spinner (rather than using a dice), and players have to “collect” 12 ghosts while making their way around the board … In the dark!
Here’s a review of the game from Board Game Archaeology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yThhC8adz2M
Séance (1972)
Séance is an interesting 1972 board game from the Milton Bradley Company, and it could certainly be called one of the strangest tabletop games you may ever hear about.
According to BoardGameGeek: “Players bid on dead Uncle Everett’s possessions and the high bidder listens to instructions from their dead Uncle via a record.”
Players spend the game making their way around the séance table, and they’re guided by an accompanying voice record. (Yes, from the fictional and deceased Uncle Everett.)
It’s like Monopoly… But you’re playing for someone’s last will and testament to gain the biggest inheritance.
The original record that came with the game can be found on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du240i6PSSQ
Which Witch? (1970)
The 1970 board game Which Witch? is often mentioned amongst vintage board game favourites. This was another one of the Milton Bradley Company’s products – though it was designed by Joseph M. Burck who also invented the games Masterpiece and Gnip Gnop.
The game follows a race-around-the-board format, and the goal is to be the first player to escape a haunted house by making it to the middle of the board.
One of the most popular Halloween-themed games of its time, it still triggers a hint of nostalgia for many players that can remember playing it. (That’s not just our opinion, but all over /r/nostalgia on Reddit!)
Them Bones (1975)
Them Bones (1975) was released in the same year as the classic horror movies The Ghoul and The Stepford Wives. The goal is to collect bones “without setting off the skull alarm” to progress around the board.
It’s somewhat similar to Operation, but with a Halloween-theme. Milton Bradley’s Operation was already popular since 1965
Today, Them Bones is part of the Mego Museum collection!
Goosebumps: Terror in the Graveyard (1996)
Goosebumps is enough to set the theme for Halloween – it’s still one of the most popular media franchises, and almost everyone has a favourite book or movie from the series.
R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead is an exciting Halloween-themed movie release set for 2025, but before this, there was Terror in the Graveyard!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqmrfVrPJlY
This particular Halloween board game was released in 1996 – coinciding with the Goosebumps books How to Kill a Monster and Bad Hare Day just in case you were wondering!
Terror in the Graveyard is all about players chasing around the changeable board for collectables to face the game’s ghosts. It might even be called similar to the Egyptian game of Hounds and Jackals – except, well, with ghosts.
Here’s a How-to-Play guide from Nerds of the West:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr2TCPUZ2o0
What’s your favourite vintage board game for Halloween game night? Also check out Board Games for Dark Nights and Trading-Card-Games for Halloween for even more board game suggestions!
