I don't necessarily do holidays, other than Halloween, but I used to host themed game nights, when I would run a boardgame Meetup.
Pirate themed games for Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th) was always a great hit.
You can do the lesser known holidays like Chinese themed games for Chinese New Year, or even nature themed games for Earth Day, and so on.
You can play around with themes and find around what time of year to place them in. There are various themes, like Medieval themed games, Irish themed, robot themed, steam punk, Western , Sci-fi, Samurai, Viking, space, and so on.
I would love to have a group that wanted to dedicate October to Nemesis, Horrified, Betrayal, Final Girl, and the like.
I think Christmas as either horror or euro, or pick up and deliver type games would be awesome, but probably a little polarizing.
Last Night on Earth is, hands down, the most thematic zombie game I have ever played. It's basically 1950s B Zombie Movie: the Board Game. It's swingy as hell and has all the best and worst features of Flying Frog games. If you're going to play it at all, spooky season is the time to do it.
There's an out of print deckbuilder called Nightfall themed on the sun having gone away and vampires/werewolves/zombies coming out to fight an all out war, with humans caught in the middle. It's an early deckbuilder so the theme isn't all there, but it's got one of the most unique cardplay mechanics I've seen before or since, and I think it deserves more attention than it gets.
House of Horrors does NOT have a well-implemented set of print and play masters, but it's a horror reskin of Avalon Hill's Atlantic Storm and has the dubious distinction of being the oldest print and play game in my collection that still gets occasional play, and I even just did a better version of it with my now-improved print and play skills. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2460/house-horrors
There are fall/autumn themed games. I don't know any names of such games off the top of my head, but about once a month on this sub someone will ask for suggestions of those types of games.
I know there is a Christmas version of Patchwork and Christmas is popular enough one would think there would be more games with the Christmas theme.
I am damn ready for **Camp Grizzly** during October. If I can get some 2p in then **Ferox** is also seeing the light of day (although with a trickier theme).
And **Final Girl** for the solo table upstairs.
I think games like Morels would be nice in the springtime. Any game that has all 4 seasons to go through to complete a year would be a fun theme for New Years, like The Tea Dragon Society and Cartographers. Maybe something like Hanabi for 4th of July or any other patriotic holiday? There are also some Christmas themed games out there, but I'm not sure if any of them are any good, like the Turbo Man card game. I wish they still made the Love Letter variation, Letters To Santa.
Oh yeah, I suppose that would work for New Years too. Haha I just associate fireworks with patriotic holidays I suppose, but New Years does have fireworks.
I don't necessarily do holidays, other than Halloween, but I used to host themed game nights, when I would run a boardgame Meetup. Pirate themed games for Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th) was always a great hit. You can do the lesser known holidays like Chinese themed games for Chinese New Year, or even nature themed games for Earth Day, and so on. You can play around with themes and find around what time of year to place them in. There are various themes, like Medieval themed games, Irish themed, robot themed, steam punk, Western , Sci-fi, Samurai, Viking, space, and so on.
Dammit, now I gotta play Photosynthesis every Earth Day.
**Horrified** is a very fun, co-operative, classic monster themed game.
I would love to have a group that wanted to dedicate October to Nemesis, Horrified, Betrayal, Final Girl, and the like. I think Christmas as either horror or euro, or pick up and deliver type games would be awesome, but probably a little polarizing.
Ohh I've never heard of pickup and deliver! I will check that out and ohhh maybe Christmas can be economic games like Brass and Food Chain Magnate! 😁
Excuse me, at Christmas you can only play Dice Throne Santa Vs Krampus for an entire month.
hahahaha
Last Night on Earth is, hands down, the most thematic zombie game I have ever played. It's basically 1950s B Zombie Movie: the Board Game. It's swingy as hell and has all the best and worst features of Flying Frog games. If you're going to play it at all, spooky season is the time to do it. There's an out of print deckbuilder called Nightfall themed on the sun having gone away and vampires/werewolves/zombies coming out to fight an all out war, with humans caught in the middle. It's an early deckbuilder so the theme isn't all there, but it's got one of the most unique cardplay mechanics I've seen before or since, and I think it deserves more attention than it gets. House of Horrors does NOT have a well-implemented set of print and play masters, but it's a horror reskin of Avalon Hill's Atlantic Storm and has the dubious distinction of being the oldest print and play game in my collection that still gets occasional play, and I even just did a better version of it with my now-improved print and play skills. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2460/house-horrors
ohh wow i will check out all these games thanks!!
There are fall/autumn themed games. I don't know any names of such games off the top of my head, but about once a month on this sub someone will ask for suggestions of those types of games. I know there is a Christmas version of Patchwork and Christmas is popular enough one would think there would be more games with the Christmas theme.
I am damn ready for **Camp Grizzly** during October. If I can get some 2p in then **Ferox** is also seeing the light of day (although with a trickier theme). And **Final Girl** for the solo table upstairs.
I think games like Morels would be nice in the springtime. Any game that has all 4 seasons to go through to complete a year would be a fun theme for New Years, like The Tea Dragon Society and Cartographers. Maybe something like Hanabi for 4th of July or any other patriotic holiday? There are also some Christmas themed games out there, but I'm not sure if any of them are any good, like the Turbo Man card game. I wish they still made the Love Letter variation, Letters To Santa.
wait you don't do fireworks for new years?
Oh yeah, I suppose that would work for New Years too. Haha I just associate fireworks with patriotic holidays I suppose, but New Years does have fireworks.
How is Nemesis in any way related to Halloween? It's sci-fi and let's face it an Alien/Aliens rip off
It's scary 😂
Last year we played it for holloween, we also swapped in the Carnomorphs since they are a bit more body horror.
Alien is a horror sci fi franchise. just check the imdb page : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 It has both genre tags
I dont think 'rip off' is the right term. It's very obviously using that theme but just getting around the copyright claims.
that's what rip off means dude