Games: Zombie Dice & Cthulhu Dice

We stopped in a comic shop recently (because I needed sleeves for my Buckaroo Banzai comics - the originals sleeves were a little dingy and I want those comics to stay pristine) and spent some time looking through the game section.

We didn't buy anything else that day, because the prices seemed a tad high, but after we got home, my husband looked up one of the games online and found that they were available for a much better price directly through the company (Zombie Dice, at the comic store: $24.99; direct from Steve Jackson games: $13.13, plus shipping). I'm all for buying locally, when it's sane. The local shop's price, however, was not sane.

What we got, for around $20: Zombie Dice and Cthulhu Dice, directly from Steve Jackson Games. Pictured above is the die from the Cthulhu set (more on that in a bit). Both games are fun, fairly quick to play, and very portable.

Zombie Dice
With just two people playing, this game went pretty quickly; like all games of this type, it's certainly more fun with three or more players.

In this game, you're the zombie. Each die represents a potential human victim, color-coded to indicate the strength of your opponent. (The green dice have more brains, the red have more shotgun blasts.) You roll three dice at a time, hoping for brains (obviously, since you're a zombie). Setting aside the brains and the shotgun blasts (feet = escape), you keep rolling three at a time until you have three shotgun blasts, then tally up how many brains you got. The first player to get thirteen brains wins the round.

Cthulhu Dice
Technically, it's just Cthulhu Die, because there is only one 12-sided die, but that sounds a little funny. (You can also get extra dice.) This game went crazy-fast.

For about $5 plus shipping, this was a great buy. The game comes with the custom die, instructions and a handful of sanity tokens* (flat glass marbles). It went way too fast with just two people -- you would need at least three for it to be a challenge -- but it's meant to be a fast game.

Your goal in this game is to stay sane. Depending on the results of the roll, you can take a token from your target, take one from the center (if there are any) or force one or all players to put a token in the center. After you run out of tokens, you've gone mad, but you can still finish another round and hope for a chance to steal a sanity token from Cthulhu and stay in the game. The winner is the last sane player (the only one with at least one token left).

*The mat pictured here does not come with the game. It's a one-of-a-kind piece, put together by my hubby, because we're geeks that way. He printed it onto the same Printable Fabric from Avery that I used for the skull pillow, and I ironed it onto the back of the shaded green fabric pictured above. I think I have just enough fabric left to make a small bag for the die and sanity tokens.

Decorate: Deck the Walls part 1

I'm no great shakes as a decorator, but I do have this vision of a gallery of sorts; a wall of portraits and photos that, near Halloween, are randomly replaced with framed images that fit the theme. This is, in part, because I'm a lazy decorator. One set of nails/hooks is way better.

The wall
In our house, the gallery will be on a red wall. A wall painted in a vivid color has always been something I wanted to do, but I've been intimidated to take that step. Lucky for me, the previous owner of the house was less timid and painted the main wall of the room we now call the library a perfect red. While not all of the rooms in this house were painted to my taste, we did luck out with two: the library, with it's broad, red wall; and the guest bathroom, which is quite orange. Eventually everything else will be repainted, but not those two.

The gallery
Some of the following I already own, some of it has been wished for, and some others are just links I'd like to share.

The pictures with the green wall were from our first Halloween party, several years ago. "Aunt Sarah" and "Constance" are lenticular prints. You've probably seen similar images on DVD covers and in-store displays. When the technology is applied to portraits, and hung on a wall or framed on a table or shelf, they become something else altogether.

You don't want to fill a wall with these -- just one or two, nestled in with some real portraits (you don't have to know the people - more on that later). It doesn't even have to be expensive. We've purchased 5x7" prints for under $10 locally, and they can be purchased online for as little as $14.95, including shipping (depending on the company).

Imagine that you walk by the portrait of Sarah here (left), and a bit of movement catches your eye. You look again, and it's not the same portrait anymore.

"Aunt Sarah" was the my first big Halloween décor purchase. I bought a gaudy frame (well, really, an ugly framed print with a sturdy, gaudy frame (less expensive that way)) and hung her in my dining room. I surrounded her with some old family portraits and some creepy looking ones of my husband and I that he Photoshopped. She startled our guests... and then I left her hanging on the wall for 3 years. She was that cool.

This is Constance. I won an 8x10 version of her a couple of years ago from Haunted Portraits, and she looked fabulous in our gallery last year! (I took pictures, but they didn't turn out. Will definitely make sure to get some good ones this year.)

One item on my long-running ("splurgie") wish list is one of his Ghost Portraits.

I don't own anything from Lewis Barrett Lehrman's Haunted Studio, but one of his prints has been on my wish list for quite some time. (I like many of them!)

If you have the cash, Lehrman will create a print of your house, haunted. How fun would that be? Personally, I don't like the shape of my house (on the outside), so I'd be content with one of the existing prints. But if I had a differently-shaped house (and the $), I'd be all over this option!

Your own gallery
You can nestle one or two "zingers" in among your regular family photos, or you can keep going with the theme and frame regular (color, black & white or sepia) photos (of your family, or ones you buy at an antique store). More options:

• Dig through family photo albums for old portraits or pictures of yourself or other family members in Halloween costumes, copy/enlarge and frame.
• Remember how I said the pictures didn't have to be of anyone you know? Download these free scans I've uploaded: Boy and Girl, then print & frame. (Not spooky, just old.) I don't know who they are, either. They were a gift from someone that knew I was looking for portraits like this.
  
• Hit up antique and thrift stores for old portraits. Bonus if you can find one already framed. I'm still kicking myself for not buying one we found that had human hair (probably the subject's) added to a portrait.
• If you have some Photoshop skills, take an ordinary photo and add some "orbs" or ghost-like shapes. Like these:
  
  • Example of a fake orb
    
  • OogieBoogie (This one features some of my husband's brilliant Photoshopping skills. The ghost (hub, in a sheet) image was taken at one location, the headstones at another, the landscape at yet another, etc.) Prints available for sale; please contact me if interested.
    

One thing I'd like to do is get all the frames to be in the same color family. I'm leaning toward a dark, antique gold.

Finally, for the end of part 1, you might want to check out Uppercase Living* (Fall 2009 catalog, p. 138 ff) for more permanent applications. The vinyl rub-ons can also be applied to sign boards, etc., and stored (I have a small one (a gift) that I'll be adding to the glass of a framed piece of fabric or paper). I've had my eye on the wall-sized tree myself, but would be nervous about screwing it up! They seem to sell via reps and home parties only, and their online catalog isn't search-able (and it makes a sound every time you turn a page (ew)), so it may not be worth the hassle.

*I'm a little hesitant about sharing this because, while the company doesn't appear to be opposed to selling Halloween items, the one representative I encountered announced that she was skipping those pages because she hated Halloween and didn't understand why anyone would want to decorate for it. Turned me right off. Saved me some money, though.

Had to order it: Pumpkin Scoop

It's a real pain when you're in the Halloween mood, but it's July and there is very little shopping to be had. Last week, when I was updating myhalloweenlinks (the list), I clicked on every single link, including the one for Crate and Barrel. At the moment, their selection is quite small, but they had this Pumpkin Scoop on sale for half off ($3.95). The shipping was a little steep at $4.95 (compared to the item -- it's always seems a little weird to pay more for shipping than for the item I'm buying), but only put the total to just about $1 over the original price. So I decided to go for it.

I've been wanting to put a real pumpkin carving kit together for some time, and this is my first official piece (if you don't count the random little saws leftover from previous poke-'n-carve sets).

Shop: The Sunshine Shed

I would be shocked to find a Halloween buff that didn't find something they liked at The Sunshine Shed.

Personally, since I collect acorns, I have my eye on the rusted acorn (page 2), but there are so many other things!

PS: I'm working on a zombie-themed post -- lots and lots of zombie items -- and am going to do a small giveaway after I get a couple more "followers" on Google. Have you been dying to try something from Dark Candles? I'm going to share one of my votives so you can see for yourself.

Shop: Urban Legends Yarn

Why not start out by promoting my own stuff?

Available in my Etsy shop.