Arcade games for Halloween?

[opt2not]

This year the wifey and I decided to host a hallowed party at our place, with plans to really theme it out with decorations, themed cocktails and eats, and of course candy.

I'm planning on having my mame machines playing "halloween themed games" (horizontal and vertical cabs), and was wondering if there are any suggestions to what I should have running on them for halloween?

The ones I thought of so far are:
- Satan's Hollow
- Splatter House
- Ghost n' Goblins
- Haunted Castle (aka Castlevania)
- Trouble Witches Neo
- Sinistar
- Pacman
- Magician Lord
- Nightmare In The Dark
- Altered Beast
- Wardner
- Gauntlet
- The Real Ghostbusters
- Cotton
- Cotton 2
- Captain Tomaday
- Mystic Riders
- Monster Bash
- Bogey Manor
- Demon
- Night Slashers
- Wizard of Wor
- Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters
- Monster World
- Deathsmiles (with audio now as of MAME .165)
- Devil World

- Chiller (light guns)
- House of the Dead series (light guns)
- CarnEvil (light guns)
- Beast Busters (light guns)
- Golly Ghost (light guns)
- Laser Ghost (light guns)
- Zombie Raid (light guns)



I don't have any light guns, so the House of the Dead games are out, but if anyone has any more suggestions that'd be wicked awesome cool. More vertical games the better, since the cocktail cabinet is probably going to be more popular in a party atmosphere.

 

*edited to add more games to the list [in italics]

[BadMouth]

Altered Beast
Magician Lord
Time Killers
........Pacman (it has ghosts)

[HanoiBoi]

Nightmare In The Dark.

Kids love it and anyone can play it.

[nemcade]

........Pacman (it has ghosts)

Hah that one makes perfect sense but made me chuckle for not thinking of it.  Good call

Not sure if you have a lightgun, but any House of the Dead games might work well

[opt2not]

Altered Beast
Magician Lord
Time Killers
........Pacman (it has ghosts)

Pacman...of course!! duhhhh...  don't know why I didn't think of that.
These are good suggestions, though I'm going to stay away from Fighting games re: Time Killers. That's why I didn't add Dark Stalkers. There will be alcohol involved, and I find that fighting games and alcohol are not a good combination to keep things friendly and civil.

Nightmare In The Dark.

Nightmare in the Dark looks pretty cool. Looks like a Neo Geo clone of Snow Bros but with fire and zombies.  Though there won't be many kids around, there will be a good amount of gamers that would appreciate this game. Good suggestion!

Not sure if you have a lightgun, but any House of the Dead games might work well

I don't have any light guns, so the House of the Dead games are out

[drawfull]

Wardner
Gauntlet

[leapinlew]

If you are running Atari Emulator, you can play Haunted House. Nintendo has Friday the 13th.

[opt2not]

Wardner
Gauntlet

LOL, the Wardner music sounds so similar to Street Fighter 1's music.  Added these to the list.

If you are running Atari Emulator, you can play Haunted House. Nintendo has Friday the 13th.

Thanks bro, but I'm going to stay away from console emulation. I'm only running Mame on these machines, so arcade games are the option right now.

[drawfull]

Wardner
Gauntlet

LOL, the Wardner music sounds so similar to Street Fighter 1's music.  Added these to the list.

Need to go and play a game as don't remember that!

[Jack Burton]

Haunted Castle is waayyyyy too hard for anybody.  Can you get maybe Super Castlevania 4 or Rondo of Blood running?

[nemcade]

I don't have any light guns, so the House of the Dead games are out

Doh!  Sorry for missing that one...I'll continue thinking of games that might work...while I'm at work 

[opt2not]

Haunted Castle is waayyyyy too hard for anybody.  Can you get maybe Super Castlevania 4 or Rondo of Blood running?

Hmm you might be right. But I'll keep it on there for people to try out.
I might just add the Playchoice rom of Castlevania instead, but in any case this list is primarily for Arcade releases rather than console ones.

[nemcade]

How about The Real Ghostbusters?

[BadMouth]

Cotton
Captain Tomaday

EDIT: Cotton 2
        Mystic Riders

[opt2not]

Added to the list!

[deface]

Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Monster Bash
Bogey Manor

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

A shame you don't have lightguns:

[popsicle]

Demon and Night Slashers

[HanoiBoi]

I know you didn't  ask, but of you have Visual Pinball setup too, there are a lot of tables that would fit the theme....

[popsicle]

Oh, and both Demon and Wizard of Wor play great in a vertical cocktail setting.  You'll have to remap the joysticks since the players are looking at the 'ends' of the screen.  Gauntlet too.

[opt2not]

I know you didn't  ask, but of you have Visual Pinball setup too, there are a lot of tables that would fit the theme....

Oh I would love to have a VP setup...but unfortunately I'm done with any new projects as well as the space to put them in.
This is primarily for Arcade games only. I'll let you lucky dogs with Visual Pins start up another thread for pin games.

Thanks for the suggestions all, keep 'em coming!

[Cynicaster]

A shame you don't have lightguns:

You beat me to it.

A lot of light gun games are playable with a track ball.  I think it’d be safe to check any twitch reflex for the use of non-authentic controls at the door because let’s face it, nobody is going to know the difference, and they’re going to last the same 30 seconds per credit regardless of what type of controller they’re using. 

[opt2not]

I don't have a trackball in my cabs. I never cared for trackball games personally, can't stand Golf as a whole, am shite at Centipede, and I couldn't merit installing a trackball for one game I'd play with it (missile command).

My mame'd cocktail has a spinner, joystick and 2 buttons on either side, and the monitor is vertically mounted. My mame'd standup has your standard Street Fighter layout - 2 joys, 6 buttons per side and is horizontally mounted.

This is for a bunch of costumed drunks and sluts playing vids, so i figure the best games to play is using a joystick and buttons. I don't think we'll have the coordination for much more

But I'll add them to the list and denote the controls.

[BadMouth]

This is for a bunch of costumed drunks and sluts

In that case, you can add the adult Fantasia games.  
The naked women turn into zombies/monsters sometimes.
CHANGE!

Since you're adding light gun games to the list now......

CarnEvil
Beast Busters
Golly Ghost
Laser Ghost
Zombie Raid

That's just off the top of my head.
Might want to keep them separate, as they may overrun your list.  

CarnEvil is the best Halloween game IMO.
The attract mode adds to the atmosphere.


Always have to play this song a few times too:

[dfmaverick]

Here's last year's thread with suggestions:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=106736.0

[boardjunkie]

Splatterhouse.

[mrclean]

rolling with my last years suggestion:

 "Monsters World" 1994, It's more or less Buster Bros. / AKA Pang! but with monster theme.. It's pretty neat hack.

Monster World is nothing but a bootleg of Super Pang. TCH had taken Super Pang, decrypted it, reworked the game code a bit (adding various patches), designed their own hardware based on the Super Pang hardware with some modifications, and added their own protection. By redesigning all the graphics and sound it didn’t look like Super Pang anymore, but it was. TCH had successfully created a new game simply by hacking away at an existing popular title from Mitchell. A quick compare of the game code confirmed this.

- David Haywood


What about : Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters

http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7716

[boardjunkie]

I just pulled that one up. I don't really care for it. The sounds are like some cheesy web based flash game. Add the lame sprites they put in and ya got some real cheepnis....

Nice idea, but a halfass hack.

[emphatic]

DeathSmiles is in MAME now, but it has no sound as of yet.

[NickG]

Missing Darkstalkers series...

[Nephasth]

It's that time of year again! Play 'em up!

[Mysterioii]

I don't have a trackball in my cabs. I never cared for trackball games personally, can't stand Golf as a whole, am shite at Centipede, and I couldn't merit installing a trackball for one game I'd play with it (missile command).

True, but since they can be used with light gun games too (and pretty well for the most part), then they're a little more valuable than you may have originally thought.  Plus I frequently go out to the desktop on my MAME cab to configure stuff or check something out on the web, in which case I just use the trackball as the mouse.  I love it.  And don't forget bowling games etc.  But if it's just not your cup of tea, that's cool.

I discovered Ghox a while back...  pretty cool breakout style game, but of course it's best with a spinner or trackball.  Very interesting graphics, a fantasy vibe but I think is still haunted-housey enough to qualify as a Halloween game.  Last I tried it though the sound wasn't emulated, but I found the graphics and board layout interesting enough that I still played it through to the end (with many many continues).  I beat the final boss in like 8 seconds thanks to a multi-ball though, and I wonder if that was a glitch or something.  But still, pretty cool game.

Edit:  D'oh, and I just realized I replied to a year-old post...   

[flashiv]

I have never played CarnEvil, but why is there not a a remake of this already!!!???   

Just watching the attract mode is awesome!!

[opt2not]

Halloween Necro bump!  Figured I should resurrect this thread again, since this year we're planning another party. Our last Halloween party was a big hit and the cabinets were occupied through most of the night. From what I remember, Nightmare in the Dark was one of the more well received games being played.

[harveybirdman]

What's the name of that one that is a mixture between Gauntlet and Gradius?

You can be a boy or girl and you get power ups exactly like Gradius

Edit: Found It Devil World.

[jimmy2x2x]

A 2015 Arcade Game Top 10

[opt2not]

What's the name of that one that is a mixture between Gauntlet and Gradius?

You can be a boy or girl and you get power ups exactly like Gradius

Edit: Found It Devil World.

Wow, I haven't played Devil World in a looooong time. Completely forgot about that game!  Added to the list!

[BGoulette]

And DeathSmiles has sound now, too! (at least it does in .165) So now you can listen to Japanese schoolgirlswitches squeal like toddlers while unleashing spells on, um, stuff!

[CheffoJeffo]

Chiller.

All day and all night.

I have to admit that I love that the MultiExidy boots with the Chiller scream, even though Mrs. Cheffo and the Cheffette hate it.

[Aceldamor]

More sci-fi, but has monsters:

Area 51

Sequels:

Gauntlet 2
Ghouls N' Ghosts

??

Death Race - Not Halloween per se, but damn it was a cool marquee.