Happy Halloween, folks! Here are a final few games to check out this evening that fit the spooky season without actually being too spooky!

Geek to Geek Media was provided with review copies of some or all of these titles.

Blood Waves

• Price: $9.99
• Suggested Audience Age: Rated M for Mature
• Availability: Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, Steam

Blood Waves is the most barebones Switch game I’ve had fun playing. It’s also the second most barebones game I’ve played, but the one at the bottom of that list was truly awful.

Blood Waves has you controlling a clunky character in a tiny arena as waves of horror-themed enemies pour in at you. After each wave, you can buy weapons, traps, and health or stamina upgrades.

And that’s it. This is a bad, bland video game.

The mechanics are too janky for this to be a good wave shooter, but it is broken in a bit of a fun way. If you got some friends together for a Halloween-at-home, I bet you could devise a fun drinking game to go alongside this one.

My Dear Frankenstein

• Price: $4.99
• Suggested Audience Age: 15 Years or Older
• Availability: Steam, Itch.io, Directly from Publisher

Halloween brings to mind a veritable rogue's gallery of classic stars – Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman – but their presence in video games seems to be fairly hit-or-miss. Don't get me wrong, Alien: Isolation and Evil Dead are both wonderful. But it astounds me that there's no predatory map-exploration game based on The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Enter My Dear Frankenstein, a charming little adventure game about the newly-born Adam ( a.k.a. Frankenstein's Monster ). He's but a lad here, and so you control him as he stumbles wide-eyed through a world entirely new to him. Contrary to usual Halloween Spooks, there's more of a soft, starry-eyed wonder to the world after dark in this game. And as you explore each new locale during the game's seven bite-sized chapters and solve some light puzzles, the game does its darnedest to weave in darker themes while maintaining its gentle tone all the way.

And, much like Doctor Frankenstein keeps careful notes about his madness, the level of organization in this game is quite nice. The game's inventory doubles as a built-in glossary to keep lore on track, which is immensely helpful when tracking down the game's five endings. Like many modern visual novels, it also features a helpful story tree, allowing players to quickly page through the story and uncover any hidden paths they may have missed at the time.

The text itself is, admittedly, tame and passive to the point that it may not command attention over extended play sessions. But if your heart, like Adam's, shies away from the idea of terror? That might be just the cozy salve you need to approach a classic monster.

Circus Electrique

• Price: $19.99
• Suggested Audience Age: Rated T for Teen
• Availability: Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch

I first saw Circus Electrique around the same time I was listening to the wonderful Daniel K playing through Darkest Dungeon, and I got really hooked on the idea of a Victorian steampunk version of that game. When I got a chance to try it out, sadly, the circus systems encroached on the combat and kept me from getting too engaged.

The turn based-combat in Circus Electrique is really good. You control a team of four adventurers traversing London. Each character class is a different type of circus performer and features skills designed to be delivered from different spots in your lineup. After each battle, a big map of London gives you all sorts of nodes to explore.

Unfortunately, after each run you end up back at the circus your performers operate out of, and this is where the game lost me. You can rest your characters, buy gear, and recruit new heroes, just like in Darkest Dungeon. However, you’re also tasked with using those performers who arent out questing to put on a show, and the mechanics around that system didn’t click with me at all.

If you dug Darkest Dungeon and are looking for something in that vein with a bit of a management sim glued to the other side, this would be a great way to while away October.

Cursed to Golf

• Price: $
• Suggested Audience Age: 
• Availability: 

I’m sad to say that I haven’t played much more of Cursed to Golf since I reviewed it. I know the glitch that was keeping me from progressing got fixed, which is good, but the second world feels like a big jump in difficulty.

The core gameplay loop of Cursed to Golf is fantastic. It’s probably my favorite side-perspective golf mechanics I’ve played on the Switch, and the level designs are really fun… unfortunately, the fact that the game doesn’t really utilize much in the way of meta-progression like most modern roguelites means that you really have to git gud, rather than being able to buy upgrades to make the game easier.

This obviously fits the Halloween aesthetic, seeing as the game starts with your death and is built around an attempt to escape the afterlife… Hey wait, isn’t that Hades?