Halloween 2026 - Two Games, One Night

Halloween 2026 - Two Games, One Night

UX/UI Design · Creative Direction · Web Development · Editorial Design · Game Design

It started with a Halloween party.

Twenty adults, one house and a Halloween party to organise. I wanted something a little more exciting than the usual drinking games, so I decided to create two experiences: a murder mystery and a photographic scavenger hunt.

There was just one small problem. Almost nobody had played a murder mystery before, everyone would be in costume, and asking twenty people to download an app for a single evening wasn’t exactly the vibe I was going for.

So I built my own.

Three weeks later, I had two fully designed web applications, twenty individual character stories, eight photographic challenges, a complete set of printed materials and a rather elaborate plan for one Halloween night.

What started as a party idea became a project that brought together pretty much everything I love doing: storytelling, visual design, user experience and figuring out how to make things work.

Making the complicated feel simple.

The biggest challenge wasn’t creating the games themselves. It was making sure twenty people could actually play them without needing constant instructions.

Both experiences had to work on any phone, without downloads, registrations or complicated setups. Players needed to access their own information without seeing anyone else’s, and everything had to be easy to navigate in a dark, noisy house full of distracted people.

I designed the experience around one simple interaction: open a link, enter a six-character code and start playing.

No accounts. No installations. No unnecessary steps.

Game 01 — Sangue na Mansão Drácula

The first experience is a murder mystery set in Dracula’s mansion, where the Count has been found dead and everyone has something to hide.

I wrote twenty interconnected characters, each with their own personality, secrets, relationships and information. Ten suspects, ten guests, three rounds of questioning and one murderer.

Each player receives a unique code that unlocks their personal character card, including their backstory, what they know, what they’re hiding and exactly what they need to do throughout the game.

I also designed a private notes section, character-specific hints and a quick guide for anyone feeling completely lost.

Because even the best mystery stops being fun when nobody knows what they’re supposed to do.

The host has a separate interface with a minute-by-minute schedule, evidence for each round, emergency scenarios, the final solution and access to every character’s code.

The goal was to make a fairly complex narrative feel effortless to play, even for someone who had never tried anything like it before.

Game 02 — Caça ao Terror

For the second game, I wanted something more physical, spontaneous and competitive.

I divided the twenty players into four teams and created eight photographic challenges spread across the house and surrounding outdoor areas.

Each team receives a unique access code and can only see its current mission. To advance, the entire team must complete the challenge, take a photograph and present it to the Judge.

Once approved, the Judge reveals the code for the next mission.

I designed a dedicated interface for each team, with mission instructions, a progress indicator, a timer and a photo album that stores their pictures throughout the night.

The Judge gets a completely different experience: a dashboard to track all four teams, approve missions, record their progress and manage the codes.

I also included two special missions designed to bring the teams into direct competition.

A little chaos was part of the brief.

One visual world, two different experiences.

Although the games work differently, I wanted them to feel like they belonged to the same Halloween universe.

I created a visual system inspired by vintage horror illustrations, combining dark photographic backgrounds, translucent glass panels, warm cream typography and small orange accents.

For typography, I paired the expressive, imperfect Creepsster with the cleaner Figtree, creating a balance between atmosphere and readability.

I also developed twenty custom illustrations, one for each murder mystery character, using recognisable horror-inspired objects and symbols.

The visual language extends beyond the screens into the physical experience.

I designed character cards, badges, access codes, quick guides and voting papers, all prepared for A4 printing and cutting.

The idea was that the digital and physical elements would feel like one cohesive experience rather than two separate projects.

Built to work without a backend.

One of my favourite parts of this project is what happens behind the interface.

Each game runs from a single HTML file, built with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, without frameworks or an application server.

Every character’s private information is encrypted, and the individual access code is used to derive the key that unlocks it. This allows the same file to be shared with everyone while keeping each player’s content separate.

Notes, photographs and game progress are stored locally on the device, using browser storage.

I used Figma for the interface design and printed materials, Python for generating and preparing the access codes, and Claude Code as a development assistant.

It was an opportunity to explore how far I could take a relatively simple technical setup without compromising the experience.

Designed for real people, not perfect conditions.

This project reminded me that good UX isn’t necessarily about adding more features. Sometimes it’s about anticipating all the little things that could go wrong.

Someone forgetting what to say. A player getting lost halfway through. A team trying to skip a mission. A host having to manage twenty people at once.

I tried to solve those problems before they happened, through clearer instructions, private hints, guided interactions and backup scenarios.

The result is two complete, mobile-first experiences designed to make a complicated evening feel surprisingly simple.

Two games. Twenty players. One Halloween night. And absolutely no app downloads.

Personal Project · October 2026 · Three weeks

Tools: Figma, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, WebCrypto, IndexedDB, Claude Code.