Monster March Halloween Game

This hilarious monster march Halloween game is the perfect game for any of your upcoming Halloween parties! It’s a mixture of a risk and reward game and a luck based game, which is what makes it so fun!

Players get assigned a Halloween creature and win prizes as they march forward but watch out because if your creature’s opposite gets rolled too many times because you could lose it all!

Out of all of the Halloween games played this year (including our entire tournament of terror), this was my family’s favorite – they wanted to play it again and again and again!

If you’re looking for the easiest and one of the most fun Halloween games to play, try this monster march game. It’s so easy to setup, so easy to play, and so much fun!

I’m a big fan of press your luck style games. In the past we’ve done games like this Oogie Boogie game where you spin a wheel but never one that incorporates an entire group like in this monster march game!

The basic idea is this – everyone gets assigned a monster and a color. When their monster or color is rolled, they move forward – but if the opposite of their monster is rolled, they get a strike. Two strikes and you’re out of the game and lose what you’ve earned unless you were smart enough to walk away before you struck out!

I’ve included full rules below but that’s the gist of it to give you an idea! People love this game because of the element of luck, the element of pressing your luck, and winning prizes of course!

This game is simple but does require a few things to play. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Blank Dice – I used these large blow-up dry erase dice and they were absolutely perfect for this game! You’ll need two for the game – one with monsters written on the sides and ones with colors written on the sides. You could also just tape the words to large dice like this. Or in a pinch, you could use small dice, it’s just not nearly as fun!
• Monster assignments – You’ll need pieces of paper with the monster assignments written out – more details on this below, but you can print out our list here! Plus, you’ll need a bag or plastic pumpkin or something for people to choose their characters!
• Tape – I used colored painter’s tape but you could use anything that you want really, it’s just to create lines on the ground for people to advance to.
• Prizes – you’ll need prizes for this game, and I’ve explained how the prizes work and my recommendations for prizes in the prize section below!

This game is super simple to setup! I recommend doing it before your party, but it should only take a few minutes!

1 – Set Up Your Playing Area

1. Choose an area to play. I recommend a large area that can fit a good amount of people and a good amount of lines/spaces.
2. Tape lines, spaced 1-2 feet apart (depending on how big your space is) from one side of the area to the other.
3. Add prize buckets or piles at the end of each of the lines, starting with your most basic prize at one end, leading to the best prizes on the other end.

2 – Get Your Characters Ready

1. Print out this list of character assignments or write out your own! Cut them into small strips and put them in a bucket, bowl, or bag for people to draw out of.
2. Write the words Vampire, Witch, Headless Horseman, Pumpkin, Cat, and Bat on one the sides of once of the dice.
3. Write the colors Red, Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow, and Orange on the sides of the other dice.

This game is pretty simple. You’ll hand out character assignments, roll the dice, and watch as people march down the prize path or get knocked out of the game!

Here’s how it works!

1 – Give People Characters

Have everyone choose a random character assignment out of the bag of character names. Everyone will get a character that has a creature and a color such as Blue Cat, Green Vampire, etc.

The characters they get really don’t matter because there is the same probability of rolling any of them!

2 – Roll the Dice

Have everyone stand off to the side or behind the taped out prize path. Choose one person to roll both dice. (You can rotate who rolls the dice as you go through the game but it doesn’t really matter that much who rolls).

Based on the roll, the following happens:

• Anyone whose character matches one of the dice that is rolled moves onto the first line of the board and picks up the prize associated with that line. For example, if the roll is an Orange Witch – anyone who has an orange character or anyone who is a witch moves onto the first line.
• Anyone who character matches both dice exactly, e.g., the orange witch in the example above, moves forward two spaces and picks up prizes for both lines.

3 – Roll the dice Again

Now that you have the basic idea of the game – move forward when your character is rolled – let’s get to the rest of the details!

Before each roll, everyone has to decide whether or not they’re going to stay in the game or walk away with the prizes they’ve won so far. If they walk away, they keep the prizes but they’re out of the game and can’t come back in.

Whoever stays in the game for subsequent rolls is risking their prizes for the chance to win more! For subsequent rolls (after the first one), additional options are added:

• Move one line for a match on one of the dice and pick up prizes (just like above)
• Move two lines for a match on both of the dice and pick up prizes (just like above)
• Get a strike if your “partner character” is rolled. The partners are vampire and bat, witch and cat, and Headless Horseman and pumpkin. So if you’re a green vampire and a bat of any kind is rolled, you would get a strike.

4 – Get Out for Two Strikes

If anyone that is on the board gets a second strike, they’re out of the game and have to put all of the prizes they’ve earned during this round back. They can keep prizes from previous rounds but only if they’ve walked away before striking out.

Anyone who is in play and staying in the game should stand on the board (on the space they’re on). Anyone who is out of the game should go to a separate area so you know who is out versus people who haven’t entered the game yet.

5 – Go for broke

Keep playing each round until everyone either strikes out, chooses to walk away, or gets through the entire board without striking out! It’s doable but difficult – I like to add a bonus prize (in our case it was $10) for anyone who can get through the board completely to add some incentive to make it even more risky!

6 – Play Another Round

You can either play the game once or play multiple rounds where everyone comes back in and you start it over. And if you’re running low on prizes or don’t want to give out so many prizes, you can always say that anyone who won a prize in round one (or any of the rounds) can’t play in later rounds, or they have to skip a round!

We did one biggest loser round where only people who had struck out every game were allowed to play! Pretty sure most of them still ended up as losers, but it was fun regardless!

The prizes you choose for the game will completely depend on the age you are playing with and the budget you have for prizes. People are going to win prizes so just know that any prizes you put out there, you should plan for people to win and have it in your budget for that to happen!

Prizes for Teens and Adults

When I played this with the adults and teens in our family, these are the prizes that we used (similar to our roll a pumpkin game):

• Cash – I did increments of cash throughout the playing area starting with $1 toward the beginning and ending with $20 for the final cash amount.
• Gift cards – I did small $5 gift cards in the middle and a couple of larger $25-$50 ones as the final line of the game. I only had one person win one of these, and he also got the bonus $10 I mentioned earlier.
• Movie tickets – I bought a big pack of movie tickets at Costco to make them like $3-5 each, but these were a fun addition, especially for a movie loving family like mine!
• Halloween party favors – things like bouncy balls, snap bracelets, bracelets, etc. were the first line in the game. You could also do things that are affordable in bulk like fidgets, etc.
• Small pieces of candy – I did these again toward the front of the playing area, just grabbed a Halloween candy bag and poured it in!
• Full candy bars and candy bags – these were toward the middle of the playing area and included things like full-size candy bags, bags of gummies, packs of gum, etc.

Other things I would add for this group if I was doing this again:

• Chapsticks, lip balms, lip glosses – these are pretty reasonable if you buy them at bulk at Costco or Sam’s Club!
• Fancy sodas – my family loves using these as prizes for Christmas bingo, so I thought these could be a fun option too!
• Packs of cards – basketball cards, baseball cards, Pokemon cards, etc.
• Pens, markers, and other art supplies
• Gourment snacks – popcorns, beef jerky, Chex Mix, etc.
• Small games – a lot of our favorite game night board games (a lot of small card games) would work great!
• Practical items – things like flashlights, back scratchers, charging cords, etc.

Prizes for Kids

If you’re doing this for kids, my recommendation is to just use things you’d normally find in a Halloween goodie bag. Just vary up the things you add to each line so it’s still exciting to move forward and get something new!

Some of the kids’ favorites in the past include:

• Halloween bouncy balls
• Halloween wind up toys
• Halloween water bottle stickers (much better quality than the cheap ones)
• Halloween ducks
• Anything glow in the dark – glow sticks, glowing rings, bracelets, etc.

If you want more fun Halloween party games to try after this monster march, try one of these!

• Halloween Jeopardy – this is another great one for a group, written with tons of Halloween trivia questions for teens and for adults!
• Bone to Pick Halloween Game – this is another spin the wheel luck based game that’s so fun to play!
• Spooky story game – see who can make up the spookiest, or silliest, story in this fun game!
• Halloween bingo – use some of those leftover prizes in a fun Halloween inspired bingo game!
• Halloween Family Feud – one of my personal favorites, a head to head competition to see who can figure out what the majority said!