Vampire Count is a perfect game to play at an evening Halloween party — it’s a game for all ages. Moms, pops, grandmas, grandpas. Youngsters and teenagers.

The only props you need to play this game are a deck of cards and some scary music and a way to play the music such as an iPod hooked up to speakers. (You don’t really have to have scary music. It justs adds to the ambiance if you do have it.) When you invite guests, recommend that they wear dark clothing.

Before guests arrive, set up the music system outside in a common area such as on your patio. Get a deck of cards. Count out one card for every guest. Determine which card will be ‘it.’

After guests arrive, gather in the common area. Let them know where the boundaries of play are and give them a couple of minutes to inspect the area to find places to hide. Call everybody back to the common area. Tell players they must stay within the boundaries.

Shuffle all of the cards. Pass the cards out face down so each guest has one card but cannot see anybody else’s card. They look at their card. The person who gets the card that is designated the ‘it’ card is the vampire. The others are victims.

Collect the cards and put them in a safe spot. Turn off all lights in and outside the house. The darker the better.  Turn on the scary music and have the vampire close his eyes and slowly count to 25. While the vampire is counting, the victims run away and find a place to hide. Once they are hidden, victims cannot change their hiding place. When the vampire gets to 25, he turns off the music and yells out, “I vant to drink your blood!” Then he begins searching for his victims.

When he finds a victim, he gently puts his hands around the victims’ neck. The victim cannot struggle or flee. The victim gives a blood curdling scream and then turns into a vampire. The victim-turned-vampire now helps the vampire search for other victims.

If the vampires are having a difficult time finding any of the remaining victims, the head vampire yells, “Come to Transylvania.” All victims who have been found return to the common area where the play began. The vampire counts all of the victims. If there are still victims that are not found, the vampire calls out, “Oh victims, where are you?” The remaining victims have to give a ‘nervous’ cough to assist the searching vampires.. The first vampire can continue calling out “Oh victims, where are you” until all of the victims are found. Victims have to give a nervous cough every time the first vampire calls out.

When all victims have been found and turned into vampires, everybody returns to the original starting point. Begin a new round by shuffling and passing out the cards and following the remaining rules of play.

When we played this game several years ago, we had invited families so we had guests of all ages. On one of the rounds, we couldn’t find one of our son’s friends. We looked, and looked and looked. When the main vampire called for the ‘nervous cough,’ the cough led us to our son’s Ford Ranger pickup. We looked under the truck. We looked in the bed of the truck. We looked in the cab of the truck. We walked around and around the truck. We couldn’t find the last victim. Finally we gave up. The main vampire called out for the victim to come out of hiding.

Imagine our surprise when the friend stood up from behind the truck. He had been laying on the back bumper! Even though we had walked several times around the truck, nobody saw him because he kept so still (and his clothes blended in with the dark of the evening . . .1). We had a great time playing this game!

If you’re planning a Halloween party for this Friday evening, you might want to give this game a go. Try it. You’ll like it.

Digi-Gram

Here’s a picture of our little vampire . . . Click on it to see a larger picture.

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