18 Scary Games to Play for Kids & Adults!

Scary games are always popular with kids and adults alike! Everyone loves a bit of spooky fun on a sleepover. The rush of adrenaline and the sense of momentary fear is exciting, especially in the company of your friends.

Both Children and adults alike enjoy this feeling. To help you have a little spooky fun, this article contains a list of spooky and scary games.

These fun scary games can be played by people of all ages. We recommend you have your closest friends around to save you from all the creatures that are lurking in the darkness. Have a spooky night!

Scary Games To Play With Your Friends (Involves Spirits)

Tapping the Spirits

Set yourself up in a dark room. There are multiple ways of invoking spirits and talking to them. People are familiar with many different ways of doing so.

Get together and try to call on spirits the way you know. Everyone present can try to invoke a spirit in the way they are familiar. Invoke them and encourage them to appear in front of you.

Though spirits may not appear, all of you will have a spooky experience anticipating the arrival of the many spirits.

Sara Sarita

All you need for this spooky game is your friends and a coin for each player.

Sit in a circle facing each other. Ask at once, “Sara Sarita can we play together?”

Now flip your coins. If all of you get tails, the answer is a no.

If heads and tails both appear, the answer is maybe. If all coins show heads, the answer is yes.

Once you have entered the game, you can ask Sara and Sarita any questions you want. After getting all the answers, you can exit the game by flipping the coins again.

The game is best played with a smaller group of 2-5 people.

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The Midnight Game

The game is inspired by a pagan ritual. First, write your full name on a piece of paper and put spit or a drop of blood on it. Let the paper soak in water.

Make sure that you are in a completely dark room. Go to a wooden door, place the piece of paper with your name on it, and light a candle.

Place the candle on top of the paper. Knock the door twenty-two times. It must turn midnight on the last knock. Now, open the door, blow out the candle, and close the door again.

You have just allowed the Midnight Man in. Re-light your candle quickly. The Man will stay around till 3:33 am. Try your best to avoid him.

Scary Games To Play in The Dark with Friends

Below is the list of the most popular scary games to play in the dark outside with friends or even indoors!

Monsters in the Dark

This scary game takes place in a dark room. All players take turns sitting on a chair. The aim of the game is to scare the person sitting on the chair.

Choose a person to sit on the chair. Everyone else is required to leave the room. As they re-enter the room, they must try to scare the person sitting on the chair.

Players can scare the person by making noises, using feathers and fuzzy items to make them feel like something is crawling on them, slowly sneaking up on them, or dropping items and making spooky footstep sounds.

When the player shrieks or shows signs of getting scared, the round is over. The next person can sit on the chair now.

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Seek and Kill

This scary game gives a twist to the traditional hide-and-seek game and is played in the dark. Try to keep the room as dimly lit as possible.

One person closes their eyes and counts to ten. The other players must try to hide during that time.

After counting to ten, the person counting must go seek the hiding players before they tag the spot where the counting happened.

If players manage to tag the base, the same person counts again. If all the hiding members are found, the first person found counts while others hide.

Hide and seek is a classic that everyone enjoys, putting a spooky spin on it makes it more exciting.

Zombie Tag

One person is the zombie. All other players are human. The zombie must try to tag all the humans. While trying to do so, they must impersonate a zombie.

Once they tag a human, they also become a zombie. Now, they must tag the other humans together. The game goes on till there is only one human left.

The fun of the game is to act like zombies while chasing each other.

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Monster Tag

Monster tag is similar to zombie tag. The person catching the humans acts like different monsters – crawling on the floor, jumping around, making scary noises, etc.

As humans get caught, they turn into monsters. The game goes on till there is only one human left. Make sure to stay in character and have some spooky fun!

Scary Games to Play at Sleepovers

Here is a complete list of scary games for sleepovers.

Red Book

The Red Book game is inspired by the Mexican game El Juego Del Libro Rojo.

All players must sit in a circle facing each other. Dim the lights of the room and ensure that it is quiet. A lit red candle must be placed in the center of the circle.

Place your hands on a hardbound, red book and ask with closed eyes, “Red Book, may I enter your game?”

Keep your eyes closed and open the book to a random page and point to a sentence. If the line reads negative or nonsensical, do not proceed further.

If the line reads positive, you may proceed with the game. Each player must ask for permission in this manner. When everyone is permitted to play by the book, everyone can take turns asking the book questions.

Keep your hand on the book, close your eyes, and ask your question to the red book. Once asked, open the book to a random page and point to a line. Open your eyes and read the line. That is the answer to your question that the red book has provided.

The way you interpret the line is up to you. Everyone can ask the book questions turn by turn. Once everyone has asked their questions, they must ask the book permission to leave the game in the same way.

Everyone must leave the game. Hope the book can answer all the questions you have.

Sandman

This scary game depends on the power of suggestion. It includes the creative and storytelling skills of the players.

They must build a story as the game goes further. One player is on the ground motionless with their eyes closed. The story starts with a person dying.

One of the players must slice the limbs of the lying person with their finger. They must proceed to fill it with sand and sew it up.

After this, the person must try to get back up. They will feel too heavy to sit up or move. They have become the sandman.

Players must keep building the story as the sandman is being filled with sand. Play the game till everyone has had a chance to be sandman.

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Three Kings

Arrange two mirrors facing each other and place a chair in between them. Sit on the chair without looking at the mirrors. Hold a lit candle in your hand.

Make sure to not look at the flame directly. The chair you’re sitting on represents a throne, and you are the King. The two reflections of you in the mirror are the Queen and the Fool.

Once you’re seated with a lit candle, you may ask your questions. If everything is right, answers will come through the darkness.

However, take the answers with a pinch of salt because you don’t know if the answer is from the Queen or the Fool.

Ghost in the Graveyard

This is a fun challenge to play outdoors when it is getting darker. One player is asked to go hide – they play the ghost. All other players find an area that they consider the base.

At the base, players must count to 20. After, they must all go in search of the hiding player.

If someone spots the ghost, they must shout, “Ghost in the graveyard!”

All players must run back to base. If the ghost tags a person before they reach the base, the player becomes a ghost for the next round. If no one gets tagged, the same player remains the ghost.

Scary Funny Games

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

This game is played in a group and depends on the power of suggestion. One person must lie down with their face up, eyes closed, and relaxed.

One player must place two fingers under the prone person. Everyone must sit around the prone player and chant, “Light as a feather, stiff as a board” 20 times.

Now they must shout, “One, two, three, lift!” The person who has their fingers under the prone person lifts them. Sometimes, the person levitates.

If some things do not go right, the person will not be able to levitate.

Buried Alive

This game is a way to experience how it feels to be buried. A person lies face down on the floor. Another person holds their hand and pulls their upper body off the floor.

There must be at least a foot distance between the face of the person lying down and the floor. Gently, the person must be laid down again.

Throughout, the eyes of the person lying down must be closed. The person will feel as if they are being buried.

The Answer Man

Stand in a circle with your phones in your hand. Everyone types in the number of the person to their left. They all call the number at the same time.

All calls will play messages saying that the person is busy. However, someone may get the Answer Man. Someone will talk back through the phone.

They hold the answer to your questions, so ask away! The catch is that for every answer he provides, he asks another question

Spooky Stories

Another fun way to have a spooky night is to sit around and exchange stories. The spooky stories can be personal experiences or stories that you have heard.

There’s nothing more fun than sitting in a blanket fort with your torches and talking about the spooky experiences you have had or heard about.

Scary Kids Games

Tsuji-Ura

This game is a Japanese fortune-telling game.

Ensure to keep a comb and a cloth that covers your face. At night, go to a crossroads. Cover your face. Begin to strum the teeth of the comb with your fingers.

Then, repeat, “Tsuji-ura, tsuji-ura, grant me a true response” thrice. Then you have to wait for a person to approach the crossroads.

If no one approaches for quite a while, the process has failed. Try again another time. If someone you know crosses the path, the ritual did not succeed. If a stranger approaches the road, the process is successful. You must now ask the person a question.

Do not uncover your face at any point in the process. When your question has been answered and the stranger has left, you may uncover your face and leave.

Dead Man in a Bowl

Prepare some items to serve as eyes, brain, intestines, muscles, fingers, toes, and other body parts. Put the items in a bowl.

In a dark room pass around an item while telling a story about a dead man and his parts. Items that you can use are – peeled grapes for eyes, a peeled tomato for the brain, cold pasta for intestines, sliced watermelon for muscles, and sausages for fingers and toes.  

Murder in the Dark

This is one of the most interesting scary games to play at sleepovers. Chits are made. They contain roles of Detective, Murderer, and Victim. The person who picked Detective must leave the room.

The Murderer must kill the victims by tapping their shoulders. The victim must shout ‘Dead!’ when they are tapped. The Detective returns. Everyone must freeze in their spot. “Where were you when you heard the scream?” – the Detective must ask this question to everyone and try to figure out who the Murderer is.

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Summary

Scary games for kids are fun to do in groups and during sleepovers. Have a fun time exploring the wonders of the night. Make sure to stay safe and enjoy the night.