#halloween novels

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

If you're looking for some indie novels to get you into the Halloween mood, let me recommend the works of my friend Ren Montgomery. She's self-published over on Amazon, and I want to get the word out for her three books.

Horror

Haunt is a period piece set in the late 1970s. It tells the story of the Stewarts, a dysfunctional family who are looking for a fresh start in a brand new housing development, but the trauma they bring with them feeds into something sinister within the house itself. Pete is an abusive alcoholic, Mae is a lapsing fundamentalist at her wits' end, and their three young girls Kelly, Robin, and Lori are just trying to get through the new school year without slitting each others' throats.

Ren explores what it means to have faith when your views don't line up with what your Church dictates, and when those in power don't have your best interest at heart. Haunt is about the ties that bind a struggling family together, for better, or more often for worse, and the pain they face while trying to break the cycle of abuse. The presence which darkens the doorstep of the Stewarts' new haunt heightens their worst impulses and brings each and every one of them to their personal breaking point.

Haunt is both terrifying and gripping, and the 70s setting permeates every aspect of the plot; it doesn't feel like a modern story with a nostalgic 1970s coat of paint over it, it feels like something straight out of the dingy, smoke-filled, no-seatbelts-or-airbags era, an oft forgotten aspect of the decade that so many authors struggle to capture on page.

Contemporary fantasy

Monsters Are We is a story about burning bridges, both accidentally and on purpose. With some relationships, when the passion is gone, you can cut your losses and go your separate ways, but Penelope Draven doesn't have that option. Her old life with Leo the soul-sucking cheater needs to come to an end so her new life can begin.

She's danced this dance before, but this time around is going to be much more difficult for two very important reasons. First, she finally has something that makes her hesitate before throwing it all away, something she wants desperately to take with her when she goes; her teenage daughter, Clementine. Second, Leo knows what she is, what she's done, and what she's capable of, and he's not going to let either of them go so easily.

Ren explores the relationship between a mother and daughter from two very different generations, but who are more like one another than either realize. Monsters Are We is about figuring out who you are and choosing who you want to be. It's about being allowed to make irreparable mistakes so you can learn from them. The Draven girls find themselves on a road trip to hell and back which puts their lives and the lives of their closest friends into Leo's crosshairs. When they find themselves down on their luck, Penelope knows how to make her own, but it comes with a price.

Psychological thriller

Drawn to You is the story of the one that got away and one woman's twisted machinations to try and get it back. Ruby Deardon never got over her college crush, Sean Chaplin. They could have had something beautiful, Ruby tells herself, if only they had had anything at all. The timing was never right, the dominoes never fell the way she needed them to, so she lost her chance at her fairy tale happy ending.

Well, after nearly a decade of pining from a distance she decides to take matters into her own hands and insert herself back into Sean's life so they can finally have the life she's always wanted. He wants it too, she's sure of it, he just doesn't know it yet.

But just as she's about to zero in on Sean, she learns that Jeremy is zeroing in on her. She's was his one that got away, and while most women would be wary of his level of obsession, Ruby sees him as nothing but an obstacle standing between her and the future she's set her mind on. Jeremy is an unexpected dog in Ruby's game of cat and mouse, but cats have claws, and he has no idea what she's willing to do to make sure the mouse gets got.

[dommnics]

Happy Halloween season! Here's another stab at my own take of Carrie White, based on her book description. I'm super happy with how these turned out! I'd love to tackle some of the other characters in the book eventually, especially Margaret!

EDIT:

Now available as an art print here!

--

Check out more of my work on other platforms!

My Instagram -- My Twitter

[panthermouthh]

“Oh, Frankenstein… Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to by thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.”

[screensavorstudios]

Jill O' Lantern: Final Cut now available on Steam and Itch.io

[alexis-royce]

Two film nerds sit down for a comfy evening watching old movies. Next up is Steamboat Willie, and they quickly take to bickering.

By the time the cartoon is over, one of them will be dead.

Features

One classic cartoon from 1928, obtained legally and presented uncensored,

Auto-advancing gameplay, game ends when Steamboat Willie does,

Full Voice Acting,

Original Jazz Soundtrack,

Convenient web playable build...

...Or download for best quality!

No Good Ending?

Download Let's Watch Steamboat Willie right now on itch.io!

[dinolich]

late night Fritz Frankenstein appreciation post because I'm obsessed with my own side character. HELLAWEEN 2 is out now btw

[luccaeli]

Spooky season

[redspringstudio]

Happy Halloween… and Happy 1 Year Anniversary since TOUCHSTARVED’s launch! 🎉

We hope you like our trick— err, treat ☺️

[n1ghtmxre97]

[mysharona1987]

[callmevenus]

⭐️🎀🎃｡☆ ﾟ ＊ ¸* .魔法使いの女の子 ｡ ☆ ﾟ ＊ ¸* .⭐️🎀🎃

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

🕯️ Shadows & Symbolism: The Gothic Writer's Grimoire 🦇

Hello writers! I hope you're all doing well. Autumn is my favorite time of year, and I'm sure many of you love it too. With Halloween just around the corner, I thought it would be nice to start getting into the spirit a bit early. For those of you working on a gothic or fiction book, I wanted to share some themes and symbols to help bring that spooky, gothic, and dark vibe to your writing. 🦇

.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆

🕸️Themes and Symbols for Gothic & Horror Stories🕯️

🌙 The Moon 🌚

Symbol of mystery, the unknown, and the supernatural

Represents the cycle of life, death, and rebirth

Can signify madness, hysteria, and the primal forces of nature

🕷️ Spiders & Webs 🕸️

Symbolize entrapment, deception, and the unseen

Represent the intricate, tangled nature of evil and darkness

Can foreshadow impending doom or the unraveling of secrets

💀 Skulls & Bones 💀

Signify mortality, the fragility of life, and the inevitability of death

Evoke a sense of the macabre, the morbid, and the occult

Can represent the lingering presence of the dead or the afterlife

🖤 Darkness & Shadows 🌑

Symbolize the unknown, the subconscious, and the mysterious

Represent the hidden, sinister forces that lurk in the corners

Can signify a descent into madness or the loss of control

🦇 Bats & Ravens 🦇

Portend ominous events, death, and misfortune

Symbolize the supernatural, the occult, and the Gothic

Can represent messengers from the underworld or harbingers of doom

🕯️ Candles & Flames 🕯️

Signify the fragility of life and the ever-present threat of extinguishment

Represent the struggle between light and dark, good and evil

Can symbolize the human soul, spirituality, and the afterlife

🧠 The Mind & Madness 🧠

Explore the depths of the psyche and the fragility of sanity

Represent the battle between reason and the irrational

Signify the descent into obsession, delusion, and the unknown

🏰 Crumbling Mansions & Castles 🏰

Symbolize the decay of the old order and the erosion of power

Represent the weight of the past and the burden of history

Can signify the collapse of the elite and the rise of the macabre

Use these evocative themes and symbols to craft your next Gothic or horror masterpiece and chill your readers to the bone! 💀 Let me know if want more post related to everything spooky!

.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆.˚⊹.🎃₊˚.˚⊹.🎃₊˚𖦹⋆

Happy Writing! - Rin T. 🍁🎃🍂

Before you go, why not join us at The Write Right Society? We're a supportive Tumblr community where writers lift each other up. Whether you're a newbie or a pro, we'd love to have you! Share your work, get feedback, and connect with fellow wordsmiths, writers and aspiring authors. 

[mxtx-incorrect-quotes]

Pei Ming: Would you slap General Nan Yang-

Mu Qing: Yes.

Pei Ming: I didn't even finish!

Mu Qing: Fine, continue.

Pei Ming: Would you slap General Na Yang for 100 gold bars?

Mu Qing: I would do it for free.

Feng Xin: Rude...

[ponyasworkshop]

Asra is a sea witch glow in the dark mermaid

Portia is a werecat ninja

Lucio is a slutty fallen angel

Nadia is vampire in a swan ballgown

Julian is a tortured Vampire-Werewolf hybrid who is also a pirate

And Muriel is a sheet ghost

Hate to disappoint, especially if I'm one of the people being disappointed, but I won't be doing all the characters as full illustrations. But I can do them all as chibis, and that's what I did.

I'm done drawing for now. NGL this was the most stressful drawing month I had. First my cable for the drawing tablet just caught on fire, then my work schedule had it's guts rearranged, and before I knew it there were like 10 days of October left out of which I had only 5 days off and I'm having an art identity crisis.

So I had to improvise a bit.

I hope you enjoy them non the less.

Have fun!

[halloweenlandmotherfucker]

W*I*T*C*H We Intend To Create Havoc by Jane Harman

[arimiadev]

spooky indie visual novels you've never heard of for spooky season

since it's October I thought I'd put together a list of spooky indie visual novels (horror, Halloween, creepy, dark comedy, anything in the spirit of the season goes) that you've probably never heard of but can play right now on itchio!

model employee

Model Employee is a corporate horror visual novel. Just discharged from the hospital and massively in debt for their life-saving cybernetics, the player-character must adapt to the “extreme” work-life balance of a Tethys Team Member- but they have help. Penny, the artificial personality that controls all security, waste disposal, and employee surveillance in the facility, specializes in reinforcing an especially cutthroat variety  of workplace culture- and she’s taken an interest in you.  If you want to get ahead in your career, you gotta be willing to take some risks.

model employee is such a tightly structured visual novel for being made in just one month for a game jam, making full use of everything while surprising you at every corner. every part of this game was so well planned and thought out- dystopian corporate satire isn’t my cup of tea (we’re living it) but the way they present everything in this game makes it feel so much more intense.

beary the hatchet

It’s Halloween 199X, and you killed someone during your morning shift. Honestly it’s inconvenient. This job was imperfect, sure, but you got to wear a mask with no questions asked and the pay was livable. But now you’ll have to keep the body in the backrooms till your shift is done. Bummer. “You’re… the absolutely WICKED and AWESOME Bearwater Grizzly Killer, aren’t you?!” …and now enters the dreaded true crime fan.

beary the hatchet is such a uniquely lovely game to look at, even if the subject matter is grim. I love the color palette and tones in this, I love the 2.5D graphics, I love how expressive all of the designs are. it’s a game oozing with style.

WE KNOW THE DEVIL

Anyone can kill the devil; that’s why they always make teens the vampire slayers, the magical girls. But some kids can’t even get that right; and that’s why meangirl Neptune, tomboy Jupiter, and shy shy Venus have to endure one more week of summer camp and each other, singing boring songs about jesus, doing busywork for adults, and hoping god’s radio can’t hear them. Before they can leave the summer scouts, they’ve got to spend twelve hours in the loneliest cabin in the woods and wait for the devil to come and live through the night–or not. You know.

it’s a visceral experience, something that feels foreign and familiar at the same time. I love the direction for it, the sketchy monochrome sprites against the colored photos- parts when there aren’t any characters on screen feel that much more real, like you’re watching found footage because of how tense everything is.

disconnect

Late at night, a phone call from a friend keeps disconnecting from you… On and off, on and off, constantly… …What would you do if you realized your friend wasn’t who you thought they were? And how would you react when the truth was finally revealed? (“̷̢̑W̸̨̊o̸̫͊u̷̱͝ḽ̸͛d̴͉̐ ̵̚ͅy̵̜̽o̸̥͗u̷̮̎ ̷̜̏s̶̤̄t̸̥͐i̴̻̕l̸̰͝l̸͉̓ ̷͕́ȁ̸̩c̸̡̓t̵̜̊ ̵͓̈t̶̙̄h̶̦͂e̸̩͠ ̸̩̅s̶̘̏a̷̪͛m̵̮͒e̴͖͑ ̸̭́w̷̨̚á̴̱y̵̯̑?̶͎̌"̷͈̆) Find out what happened to our scaredy-cat protagonist, Indie－a famous horror storyteller on the H-T-M (Horror, Tales, and Mystery) forum. What would she do when she unintentionally uncovered a mystery hidden deep within her own home?

I love the style of disconnect and the unorthodox way of getting to the truth of the matter. I’m not normally one to play furry VNs, but the designs are adorable and I love the presentation of the game, it has a lot of animation in it. there’s also one moment not too far in on this screen that made me scream…

curse of the juniper tree

Curse of the��Juniper tree is a tale of two siblings, a cursed tree and an isolated village. It is a short kinetic visual novel featuring 2d exploration. Walk around the snowy village and talk to its inhabitants! Story is loosely based off the fairytale called The Juniper Tree by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm’s Fairy Tales in 1812.

this is a lovely and short story about two siblings living in a frozen land together. it’s a very atmospheric story with so many beautiful blues and detailed character designs. the controls were a bit hard to figure out at times but it’s worth your time.

reaplaced

Grea Perrim is a reaper of souls, and it’s her duty to bring the deceased to the other side. But in the world of reapers, death isn’t any kind of equalizer. The value of a soul is directly tied to the peculiarity of its death. Grea’s supernatural senses bring her to a Halloween house party with three costumed guests. She soon finds the most valuable kind of soul: the victim of a locked-room murder. In order to reap the soul, Grea must unravel the identity of its killer and explain its death in full. Is this the work of a human? A witch? Or something else entirely…?

reaplaced is a fun little whodunnit set on Halloween about a grim reaper out on the hunt who finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery. it’s much more indepth than I was expecting and the soundtrack is wonderful—there’s a lot of small touches to it that make it great.

Silver Thread

An exorcist that doubts the existence of ghost might sound contradictory but to Alicia Wilkershire, this is the right way to get closer to the truth. Her latest job sounded like another run-of-the-mill case and she greeted her client with her usual pessimism but is it, really?

Silver Thread is a spooky and short RPGM game about a skeptical exorcist trying to help a guy with his problems. the style is lovely and if you also like this kind of style, the developer has several other RPGM games like this!

Elevator Hitch

Elevator Hitchis a short 2.5D surreal horror/escape room visual novel with point-and-click and puzzle elements following the story of two co-workers suddenly finding themselves stuck together in a "Perfectly Normal" 70s office elevator.  They must explore each liminal-looking floor and find a way to get off the elevator to their actual destinations.

like a few others on this list, Elevator Hitch was made in just a month for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam and was my favorite game from the year it came out (2022). it's more of an adventure style game than pure visual novel, so expect puzzles and a lot of bad ends! this developer also has a lot of other similar style adventure visual novels.

The Case of the Serialized Killer

When a popular illustrator is found dead, disgraced demonologist Harold Ludicael is hired to summon her ghost. Ghosts are the one thing he can't summon, but with sharp insight, perhaps he can solve the mystery, and resurrect the most important thing: His career.

this visual novel is an absolute feast on the eyes as all of the art is done by traditionally painted watercolor artworks! the characters are all unique and the world feels very lived in. if you like murder mysteries then check it out.

Stillwater

"����𝕖𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕒𝕥 𝕒 𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕖…" A woman arrives with a mysterious letter in hand addressed to her grandfather. Etched in crimson is a foreboding message, a warning—a promise made from a time forgotten. Private Investigator Hugo Laurent and his assistants must solve this bizarre case before an old family's curse befalls them all.

Stillwater is a lovely looking game - I love everything about the art direction for it. it's not overly scary but very atmospheric with several endings to find.

Who is the Red Queen?

Alice falls down the rabbit hole into a Wonderland not quite right. Meeting an eclectic collection of people, animals, and some things in between, she sets out on an adventure in this odd new place to find the missing Red Queen. Or, more specifically, to find the pieces of the dismembered queen whose body has been strewn across the land.

a familiar but new take on Alice in Wonderland, now with a lot more yuri. like a lot of the VNs I've recommended, this was originally made in just 1 month. this one in particular has a lot of dead ends, mention of gore & dismemberment, and other content warnings.

okay now that you've made it this far I'm going to promote my gay horror / Halloween visual novels

Asphodelium

Hazel is an ex-adventurer who's settled down with some of his previous guildmates after the adventure of a lifetime—taking down a doomsday cult that tried to end the world, but at the cost of killing their former guild leader who turned against them. Despite their adventure still haunting him months later, he's tried to move on. —That is until a man with the same face as their guild leader approaches him. This is a story about cults and killing and killing cults. And being in love.

Asphodelium is a melancholic dark boys love visual novel that I made solo in about 3 months. it's entirely in NVL mode (I love you NVL) and around 3 hours long and my personal favorite game I've made so far.

Dahlia

a vampire has snuck into your room while you were sleeping. the only question is - are you next on her menu? Dahlia is a very short sapphic visual novel made in under 36 hours for the Velox Formido game jam, a jam for shortform visual novels. survive being trapped with a lovely little vampire, or don't.

also NVL mode because I love NVL mode. this is a short and sweet vampire visual novel I made solo in a weekend for a game jam that has several different endings.

Witch You Want

With a rather sparkly magical paper, you find a job listing for a local witch needing an assistant with making potions before the town festival that weekend. You sign up, unsure exactly what to expect...... A pompous and questionably excellent witch runs a local apothecary in town but finds that if she wants to make enough potions before the festival that weekend to sell (and keep her ongoing potion shop afloat) she'll need some assistance. After a dubious help wanted ad, she gains you as an assistant. Will the two of you see through to the festival? Will you be able to make a single potion? Will this girlfailure capture your heart?!

this is my latest visual novel that released just a few days ago! I directed & programmed this short cutesy game for a game jam at our studio. it's pretty fluffy romcom with a potion minigame in it. please help our girlfailure make potions, she needs all the help she can get.