Halloween Adventures
Everything in the library worth setting up for halloween.
Halloween is the one night of the year when the setting does the work for you. The lights are already low, the house is already dressed, and nobody has to be talked into the idea that something strange is going on.
It is also the night when attention is shortest. Children are in costume, full of sugar, and half of them want to be back outside. Build for twenty five minutes, not an hour, and put the best moment early rather than saving it for an ending that may not arrive.
Two practical things. Test anything that relies on darkness in actual darkness, because a clue that is perfectly readable at four in the afternoon is a blank page by seven. And know the room's nerve: there is a real line between a game that is thrilling for a seven year old and one that ends the evening, and it is usually crossed by a sound or a sudden reveal rather than by anything written on the page.
Build It Yourself
