3 Horror Shuffle Card Games for your Halloween Date Night

[Ad- gifted products] If you are a big horror movie fan, you’ll likely already know these three horror-themed Shuffle card games, though each one is completely unique. They are all simple to learn and easy to pick up. Two of these games can even be played on Halloween, as you are waiting for trick-or-treaters to knock at your door. The third game is ideal for a Halloween party or gathering of friends, creating a chaotic and fun thing to play! All of these boxes are a good size to bring to your next Halloween event as well. Anyway, let’s get into the games.

Jaws: No Swimming, Beach Closed Card Game

Jaws: No Swimming, Beach Closed is an ideal two player game, though you can play with up to four players. One person (even if you have the max number of players) is Jaws. The rest of the players are the boat, out on the ocean. In between the boat and the shark, there is a bunch of water cards, creating a playing field. On the shark’s turn, the shark is able to move zero to two spaces around the map, and must mark where they are on their hidden card, with their mini-token. On the main water map, you will then need to put a big shark token adjacent to where you are, so that the boat has a hint at where you might be. You then need to remove a water card before it becomes the other player’s turn. If you did swim under a swimmer on your shark turn, you can then eat that swimmer and move one more tile. The boat player (or players) is able to move the boat up to two spaces, shoot into the water, and remove more water tiles. The whole game feels very mysterious and there is a lot of deduction and faking out if you have moved or not! Dann and I played this as a date night game, and it did not feel too competitive either, but I did eat all of his swimmers. Each side does have four bonus actions, which are really useful too, and add more to what each side can do.

IT Chapter Two Card Game

IT Chapter Two is another great date night game, but again, you can play with up to four players. Much like Jaws, one person gets to be IT while the others get to be building a big tile map. Though Dann got to be IT, he did help me build up the map. You see, this map is of the sewers. You play as a little paper boat, but as you flip over and place cards, you need to link them up in a way that makes sense to the map. Some of these cards have a red balloon on them, which each time you travel through them, you end up taking damage (as shown by tokens). You need to travel through the sewers as your little boat can only build out five tiles in any direction, and cannot see around corners. You can pull some dead ends too, which work as teleports to the other side of the map, and item cards which allow you to collect that specific item. Once you have collected all items, you must make your way to the lair (if you haven’t played the lair, you need to keep placing until you get to that card). Then, IT will pop the balloon if you have hit too many balloons for you to be alive. It’s a fun game, especially as you have no idea if you are dead or not! I died.

Friday the 13th Card Game

Friday the 13th is a game for three to eight players, so more suitable for a spooky party – especially as this card game is the only one on the list that cannot be played on Halloween, while you might have trick-or-treaters, because it cannot be “paused” in anyway. In this game, everyone gets a huge pile of cards as their hand. In the middle of the table, there is a cardboard cutout which states if it’s day or night and how many campers are alive. In the middle of the table, there is the task that needs to be done before the timer runs out. You will then need to all work together to pass cards (left during the day, right during the night) so that one person is able to complete the task. The thing is, nobody can talk to each other, the same person cannot complete a task twice in a row, you must pass around the Jason card so that nobody has them two nights in a row, and there is a timer ticking down! This becomes a really chaotic game, and that’s before we get into the fact that you need to flip your entire hand around and use the back during the night, so remembering what you have just isn’t really possible! If everyone dies, you all lose, so you’ll need to think fast.

With these three horror-themed card games, you can have a really fun (and well themed) date night, watching the movies and then playing the game. They also provide a great activity during Halloween!

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