By Jo Sabin and Roman Po, a DesignCrowd web designer and tablet gaming enthusiast.
It's Halloween and Day of the Dead (if you live in Mexico) and the App Store is packed with Halloween-inspired games. Our in-house web designer and gaming pro, Roman Po, took on the challenge to road-test the top 15 Halloween iPad games.
Some noticeable trends in our research incldued the cross-over of film and TV show branded Halloween-themed games. The Walking Dead TV show has its own game and so do the Despicables (read our review).
Zombie-inspired games were very popular with at least 50% of the top 15 iPad games featuring zombies and the rest feature haunted houses! (And the Zombie theme is not just in gaming,
Zombie logo contests on DesignCrowd are popular too. Check out the
Zompocalyse logo contest).
Get another Halloween-inspired design fix here: 22 Spooky Halloween Graphic Designs From DesignCrowd
Top 15 Zombie/Haunted House/ Halloween iPad App Games
This is the new sequel to the popular / award-winning game Dead Trigger by
Madfinger Games. If you love warring against killer zombies this is your go-to first person zombie shooter. With a Facebook follower base of 760K Mad Finger Games knows their audience and keeps delivering the goods. Beautifully rendered realistic(and truly creepy) graphics. Enjoy!
Love your puzzles and mental floss? Then Fright Heights is for you. The makers of the game -
Chillingo - claim Fright House is the "most haunted hotel on the App store". Fright Heights, is "an addictive concoction of puzzle and strategy". Cute (spooky) cartoon-style characters lend this game a little charm and a whole dose of horror that tests your mental acumen.
Officially the freakiest bad dudes in this round up. Combining game mechanics like missions and clearing levels undetected your mission is to get to the last surviving settlement of humans on the planet. The console-quality of the graphics and scripting is unusual in this format but it show there is an appetite for high level tablet gaming and the iPad's high definition display works a treat. Boo!
The premise of this game is to help the armored up Jack character escape the haunted castle (a popular place it seems) and take his revenge on the so-called 'sneaky ravens'. The pumpkins are psycho and the ghosts are creepy. No sigh of Casper the friendly ghost in this haunted house.
So it's the Zombie apocalypse and you are humanity's only hope to save them from being infected. In your pimping gun ship you get to bomb the crap out of the zombie masses. Awesome 3D graphics, effects and loads of realism makes this game highly addictive.
This game is another high energy (literally) Zombie game where you need to out-run the zombies. Along the way you complete missions and game goals to move up the global point’s ladder. The makers of this game have gone all out on characterization - zombie footballers, zombie dogs and zombie world war two soldiers make this game a gory visual delight. Play alone or with a friend and out-run those zombies!
Great functionality passionate gamers will appreciate, this game is highly addictive and big on the little details - controls, speed and hidden levels and challenges abound. Your objective is to collect gem stones, gold nuggets and other items while you high-tail it at high speeds on "insanely fast rails". The game is very popular. 35 million downloads and you can see why.
How could you not love a game character called Barry Steakfries who is devoted to killing monsters. That's your objective, along the way you could find yourself in snowy mountains or on the Great Wall of China. Time travel into new features is a highlight of this game.
The town is Zombiewood and your duty, as a gun-slinging trucker dude is to kill as many zombies as you can. We love this game for its sense of humor. Zombiehood is really Los Angeles and all the celebrities and actors have turned into crazy killer zombies. Cute characters and a high attention to detail make this one of the top zombie games in the app store. Adopt an alpha male disguise and go shoot up some zombies!
MTV Geek describes Walking Dead: The Game as "one hell of a game". If you're a fan of the TV series than you'll love this game as it returns to season one to a truck stop in Georgia with Deputy Sherriff Rick Grimes fighting to survive the zompocalyse. Based on Robert Kirkman's comic this game puts your survival in your own hands. Like the TV show it's not just the zombies you need to look out for. Bad guys lurk everywhere. Stunning visuals and 5 great episodes to survive and conquer.
Festerville was a cute country town now it's over-run by zombies. While avoiding the regular zombie attacks take a tour of the town’s attractions and restaurants. You’ll meet and rescue stranded locals on the way. We love it because you can customize characters and it has a real comic-strip style with a heavy emphasis on graphic illustrations.
This game simulates biological warfare. You have the power to infect the world's population with an assortment of viruses. Your goal is to try and kill the planet with an arsenal of parasites and viruses at your disposal. All strategy - you'll need to manage and release diseases, identifying the most effective transmission method. Freaky!
Being a Zynga Game there's plenty to love. Social sharing is built in so you can brag about how good you have been at killing respawnables. This game has been updated for Halloween and features plenty of cool themed weaponry including Halloween grenades and explosive candy including a Vampire Hunt. Fast-paced and addictive.
You know the wildly successful film. Now Gru and his minions are back. Your job is to suit up your minion in Halloween costume and try and defeat Gru at his own game. There's lots to do in this action game including pick up power-boosting items and plenty of laughs of be had. This game is super-fun!
App review site AppSafari.com describes Pudding Panic as having a "spectacular look and feel with unique game play." Pudding is stuck in a haunted house and over 48 levels you need to get pudding out of the haunted house to safety. The goal is to scare the monsters that confront you before the pudding quivers and melts. Along the way you can collect coins, crazy knights and weapons to escape the labyrinth. This game takes the horror puzzle genre up a notch.
If you've got a great idea for a game and need help with developing the graphics for the game, consider crowdsourcing app design for your project. Our designers can help you create appealing mascots and characters and amazing graphic story boards to get you on your way to launching in the app store.
Which is your favorite Halloween game? Do you agree or disagree with out top 15 Halloween Game App list? Let us know in the comments!
Written by DesignCrowd on Friday, November 1, 2013
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