It’s nearing spooky season – the pumpkins are appearing in Tesco, Thriller is being played more and more on the radio, and the kids are already knocking the doors in premature trick-or-treating. I’ve gone on a bit of a web hunt for some cheap and cheerful gaming fun for Halloween, and found 10 Halloween-themed free games for you to play online. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Halloween Bubble

For those of you who remember good old Puzzle Bobble, this is a free online Halloweeny version!

• Click here to play Halloween Bubble

Instead of the basic coloured bubbles that were in Puzzle Bobble, Halloween Bubble has orange pumpkins, white ghosts, black cats, etc. You just match the same colours to make them disappear. It’s relatively simple, but this little game can eat up 20 minutes of your time before you even notice it!

On my first try, I got a fairly decent score of 32,790. The sound effects are a bit annoying, but you can just hit mute on your computer if they start to bug you.

2. Halloween Mahjong

Another alternate of an old favourite, Halloween Mahjong is exactly as the name suggests!

• Click here to play Halloween Mahjong

Instead of strange cryptic Asian characters on the tiles, we have Frankenstein, ghosts, gravestones and eyeballs. Quite an addictive little number, but the 3D layout of the board is a bit hard to read.

3. Zombie Farm

With the ear-grating organ soundtrack, this is a great little zombie sim game!

• Click here to play Zombie Farm

Your aim is to infest a country with zombies – kind of like Civilisation for the undead! If you see a person walk across the bottom of your screen, be sure to click on them to add one person to your zombie army. The annoying thing about this game is that if you lose a battle, you have to start it all over again, as you have lost your army of the undead.

4. Vox Populi, Vox Dei (a werewolf thriller)

This funky looking werewolf game is a very simple little platformer.

• Click here to play Vox Populi, Vox Dei

Once you start the game, there are a few intro screens which tell you the controls. Meeting your first werewolf is great fun! This game actually made me cackle out loud at some of the killings – give it a shot! It does get quite difficult when there are multiple werewolves on the screen though.

5. Ghoul Academy

You’ve got to ignore all the annoying ads all over the page for this game.

• Click here to play Ghoul Academy

Take a look at the “how to” before you play, to familiarise yourself with the controls. Ghoul Academy takes you as Father Painbringer on a platform journey through the graveyard. I found this one quite difficult, and only made it to level 2 before giving up. How far did you get?

6. Halloweenies

This free online game is a simple puzzle game where you are a witch on a broomstick and you have to collect marshmallows, chocolate, candies and pumpkins, and avoid the ghosts, bats and gravestones. Sounds simple enough!

• Click here to play Halloweenies

My first score was only 27 points, I am sure you can beat that. I found this little game a bit boring though, but good for a few minutes fun.

7. Spooky Spider Hunter

This might not be everyone’s cup of tea, as it is one of those “hidden object” style games.

• Click here to play Spooky Spider Hunter

While they’re not exactly hidden, you have to click on all the spiders you can find, over a series of spooky pictures. I scored 56,796 on my try.

8. Square meal

This game is an incredibly addictive little puzzler from Miniclip.

• Click here to play Square meal

You play as a cute little green monster. You must stun your enemies with blocks, then eat them, to clear the levels. It looks like there are about 50 levels. I found this one extremely addictive, I think I lost about 2 hours playing it when I first found it, making it to level 26 before the RSI kicked in. I was of the “just one more level” mentality, as all the levels are quite short and sweet. Soundtrack isn’t annoying either.

9. Hollowscream

This is just a simple point and click monster shoot-em-up.

• Click here to play Hollowscream

I killed 45 monsters on my first try here. Probably doesn’t have much return-ability, but it’s an OK little game.

10. Bashing Pumpkins

This game is hilarious! The concept is simple – bash as many pumpkins as you can by putting your mouse over them when they appear.

• Click here to play Bashing Pumpkins

It probably doesn’t have a great replay value, as the game is the exact same the second time round. I giggled when the pumpkins started flying out of the Easter Island statue’s nose, and when the spread-eagled lady appeared. On my first try I scored 359 of 455 pumpkins, probably could have done better. Give this game a try if you want a quick laugh.