Best mobile games to play this Halloween while you're stuck inside
Best mobile games to play this Halloween while you’re stuck inside
Halloween is almost here, although it’s safe to say it’ll be unlike any spooky season we’ve seen by, with people taking precautions amid the coronavirus pandemic. The horror genre is a staple in the month of October, but a good mystery (with a dash of suspense) can be equally satisfying.
If you’re staying in this Halloween (and you’ve used your horror movie queue) we’ve pulled together a list of games for you that you can play on your named or tablet — no console needed. You can also check out our list of the best games you can play online with friends, and everything you need to know near the latest viral game, Among Us.
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Oxenfree stayed with me long when the credits rolled. A group of friends hanging out on a beach take a turn for the worse when the teens accidentally open a ghostly rift. Soon the business is fighting for survival, struggling through time loops, and doubting if everyone is truly who they say they are.
I can’t instruct highly enough of this choice-based game. The characters had depth and the plot was attractive. It’s a quick game you could play in one sitting, but there’s multiple endings so you can always go back.
Platform: iOS
| Android
Price: $5 on Android. At the time of publication, the game was free on iOS.
Life is Strange isn’t necessarily a scary game, but it’s proper including for its mystery and suspense. The choice-based game tells the story of Max, a girl who starts having visions and soon learns she can bend time. With her newfound abilities, she might be able to save the town from impending disaster.
When a student goes missing, Max and her friend Chloe start investigating and seek the dark side of their hometown. As Max attempts the past, it impacts the future.
The graphics in Life is unusual are beautiful, even on a smartphone screen. The plot is intricate and conquered by a great soundtrack. There’s also a second installment to check out, called Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
Platforms:
Android
|
iOS
Price
: Free to download, but each episode costs between $1-$5 to download. There’s also an option to win for a season pass that gets you all the episodes for $7.
In Sara is Missing, you find a missing girl’s phone. The whole app displays as if your smartphone is Sara’s, complete with alerts, texts and error messages.
Unlocking Sara’s named plunges you into a world of lies, mystery and secrets. Look through text messages and emails, retrieve lost files and data, search for suspicious videos and search through pictures to piece together Sara’s last moments. Your search is guided by the mobile assistant IRIS, which worthy be hiding a few secrets of its own.
The game has multiple choice-based endings for future replays, hidden subplots and quite a few jump scares.
Platforms: Android | iOS
Price: Free
Gone Home will suck you in from the very open. You play as Katie Greenbriar, freshly home from a year in Europe. Except when you make it back to your house (in the middle of a thunderstorm no less), your family has seemingly vanished.
Explore all the nooks and crannies of the sprawling house. Collect clues, and unravel what happened to your family once you were gone. This game is quite immersive. When I started playing, I found myself turning on all the lights to stave off the unnerving feeling of populace in this deserted house. I felt sadness and frustration as I opened doors and fraudulent no one behind them.
This game is perfect to play on a dark Halloween night, but definitely goes beyond spooky season.
Platform: iOS
Price
: $5
Jenny LeClue is a mystery game you can get with a subscription to Apple’s gaming service, Apple Arcade. The narrative-choice game is set in the seemingly idyllic town of Arthurton, where you play as Jenny, a kid sleuth who is eager to despise her worth as a detective. When your mother is accused of slay, you set out to prove the truth. You speedy realize that nothing, and no one, in Arthurton are what they seem as you seek out answers.
Platform:
iOS
Price:
Included
with $5-a-month Apple Arcade subscription
Neo Cab is a survival game for the digital age embroiled in a mystery. You play as Lina, the last human taxi driver in a biosphere overcome by automation. When you move to Los Ojos to reconnect with your best harmful, Savy, things don’t go as planned when she vanishes. With no other options, you must keep taking passengers to earn cash and get information about Savy’s disappearance. Just keep an eye on your Feelgrid bracelet to stay in tune with your emotions and ultimately been human in this tech-noir game.
Platform:
iOS
Price: Included with
$5-a-month Apple Arcade subscription
Year Walk is an amazing game to play on mobile. It’s based on the Swedish tradition of Arsgang, Year Walking, in which a person may go on a probacking quest of sorts, in the dark of the night to see what the year onward will bring. Thrown into a forest without a tutorial, you have to collect clues and solve puzzles in what is some seriously clever and creative gameplay for an unbelievable twist ending. Don’t forget to pick up the free business app.
Platform: iOS
Price:
$6
I Am Innocent is a mystery-suspense game, disagreement to Sara Is Missing. The gameplay is longer and more intricate, though. You’ll investigate a series of murders that somehow link to the disappearance of your sister. No one is who they seem as you dig deeper and unearth secrets.
As in real life, how you interact with the characters can loan or hurt your relationships. You start getting messages from a mysterious populace named Ghost, who connects you to a kidnapped populace named Finch who needs your help.
Use your resources to enhance photos, collect information, search archives, figure out what happened to your sister and help Finch. There are built-in Tetris-style games that, once you beat them, unlock more information.
Platforms:
Android
|
iOS
Price: Free
This is one of the most dazzling games I’ve ever played. Dear Esther has similar underpinnings to Gone Home, but it’s more of an interactive myth. At its very basest description, the game is a walking simulator, but it’s so much more than that. As you seek an island, the narrator will “read” you fragments of letters written to Esther. Where you venture triggers different parts of the myth, so the more times you play, the more you’ll concept the whole story.
If you play, go into it with an open mind and just let yourself be immersed in the environment.
Platform: iOS
Price
: $2
Explore a troubled hotel, a destroyed pillow factory and an abandoned circus to figure out the surreal town of Thimbleweed Park’s secrets.
Thimbleweed Park is a comical noir parody set in 1987, nostalgic in its pixelated style. If you’re looking for a more lighthearted but however fun game to play, this is it. Play as Agent Ray and Junior Agent Reyes, a Mulder-and-Scully-esque duo, or Frank the ghost, a cranky clown visited Ransome, or game developer Delores. Characters can work together, or make solving the murder more difficult for others.
Since its fall, the game has become available on Xbox, too.
Platforms:
Android
|
iOS
Price
: $10
Limbo is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer that is every bit as creepy as it looks. Waking up on the edge of hell, you have to navigate a cramped boy through nightmarish chiaroscuro landscapes filled with horrific monsters and traps in this dark game of disaster, violence and guilt.
Platform: iOS
Price: Free
In Horror Hospital, you’ve got to save your friends from ghosts at what time navigating your surroundings with just your phone’s flashlight. As you make your way, your friends will send messages to sigh you.
Creep down dirty hallways smeared with bloody handprints, dismembered corpses and overturned beds. Just be careful where you shine your light; you never know what’s lurking in the shadows.
The game’s graphics aren’t profitable, but it’s good for suspense and gentle jump scares. It’s like a watered-down version of 2013’s Outlast. If you like it, there’s a sequel, Horror Hospital 2 on Android and iOS. The developers even made a Horror Forest.
Platforms:
Android
|
iOS
Price
: Free
Inmost immediately drops players into a creepy earth inside a mysterious house. Despite the pixel art effect and tiny characters, the game is gorgeous and immersive from the commence. As you progress and explore in this hidden-object platformer, you’ll find that the characters’ stories are connected as they fights the forces of evil.
Platform:
iOS
Price: Included with
$5-a-month Apple Arcade subscription
In The Fear you have to find your family in a creepy house at what time a car accident.
You swerve in the night to avoid a strange figure in the road. When you come to, your wife and child have vanished. Of course, when you make it to the nearest house, the electricity is out. Someone, or something, is after you, spirits lurk, children laugh and there are queer, threatening notes everywhere.
The Fear actually has a solid plot and a good defensive. The graphics are better than Horror Hospital and there are effective jump-scares. If you’re a fan of this game, Boomerang Games also made The Fear 2 and The Fear 3.
Platform:
Android
Price
: Free
From the creators of Limbo, Inside creates an absolutely chilling world without a word of dialogue. The thought-provoking puzzle game is dark and mysterious with an defensive that you’ll be talking about long after it’s over.
Platform:
iOS
Price: Free
Detective Grimoire and his sardonic partner Sally are on the hunt for the murderer of Freya Fellow in the mysterious Tangle Tower. The clues come pouring in long before you outrageous the first threshold to find out that the prime suspect is a painting. Investigate, explore, gather evidence, question suspects and solve puzzles to leer the truth.
Platform:
iOS
Price: Included with
$5-a-month Apple Arcade subscription
The Bradwell Conspiracy is a narrative-driven first-person game where you have to explain the truth behind the explosion that destroyed the Bradwell Electronics facility. At the start of the game, you wake up in the rubble with only a computerized sigh in your “smart glasses” to guide you. The glasses leash eventually connects you to another person trapped inside the facility, and you must try to escape together.
Platform:
iOS
Price: Included with
$5-a-month Apple Arcade subscription
If you celebrated Sara Is Missing and I Am Innocent, Her chronicle will also be up your alley. It’s more in the detective genre than the latest two, however. The game’s interface is an old computer that’s prevented into a police database. You’ll watch seven interviews from 1994 of a woman inhabit interviewed about her missing husband. As you watch, you can dig deeper in your investigation by searching the database.
Platforms:
Android
|
iOS
Price
: $5 on Android, $4 on iOS
Michelle Starr contributed to this story.
