Halloween fun with your Windows PC
It wouldn’t be an October TWT newsletter without the obligatory Halloween article and this year is no exception. We’ve gone back over our previous years articles to dig out and update our favourite tips for the spooky holiday.
Decorate your PCs desktop – If your family uses your PC most days, why not surprise them with this amazing, fully animated Halloween themed desktop skin? GraveStone is the latest “master skin” from WinCustomze.com. You will need to be a WindowBlinds user and pay $5.95, but the results are spooktackular! Get the GraveStone theme here.
Paint, colour and create – Kids love to colour pictures, but rather than just printing them and wasting paper, why not let them colour them in on your PC? If you have a touch screen PC this can be even more fun, but it’s still pretty fun with a mouse too. Using the child-friendly paint program Tux Paint, kids can get super creative. Try this site for some Halloween themed colouring pages. If you want to add those to Tuxpaint, we made this quick tutorial to show you how.
There are some great colouring apps on the Microsoft Store too. One of our favourites is Fresh Paint which is a super fun painting package especially if you have a touch screen PC like a Microsoft Surface. You could even try painting and modelling in 3D with Microsoft’s new Paint 3D, which came as part of the Windows 10 creators update. There are plenty of spooky Halloween objects in the Paint 3D library to create scenes with.
Spooky games – We’ve looked back over our game selections for the past few years and picked out our three favourites for kids, teens and adults. Any of these spooky games will give you plenty of fun this Halloween.
Best Halloween game for adults – Alien Isolation – Alien Isolation is a first-person perspective game. Unlike most games of this type, you don’t play as a space marine or soldier armed to the teeth with weaponry. Instead, you’re stalked by a single, powerful alien creature that you cannot kill. You will need to outwit the creature by hiding and running and staying one step ahead. A very frightening experience. You can get Alien Isolation on the popular Steam distribution platform here.
Best Halloween game for teens – Camp Keepalive – When Camp Keepalive is invaded by monsters, it’s not the dim-witted campers who fight back. No, that’s left to the unlucky camp counselors. Hey, the kids parents are paying us well, so keep them all alive! Camp Keepalive is a turn-based strategy game set in a camp straight out of an 80’s horror movie. Save the helpless and dull-witted campers from an onslaught of monsters with a team of counselors, each with a special power. You can get the game directly from the authors here.
Best Halloween game for Kids – Haunt the House – Terrortown – A fun, child friendly little game where you play the part of a ghost who must go to various locations around the town and spook the people who are there. Moving the ghost with your mouse or your finger on a touch screen, you can possess different objects and frighten the poor townsfolk who happen to wander by. A charming little game ideal for Halloween play! Grab the game for just five bucks direct from the authors here.
Honourable mentions should also go out to The Evil Within (Adults only), Freddi Fish 2 – Case of the Haunted School House (particularly suitable for younger children), Slender – The Eight Pages (free – suitable for older teenagers and adults only)
Overdone the Halloween candy? – If you are worried your children ate too many sweets and chocolates this year, how about a PC game that encourages them to get more active? Stepmania is the PCs best dancing and exercise game. What’s more, the game is entirely free! Download a copy with some starter songs by visiting this page. Playable on virtually any PC, all you need is a dance controller which can be purchased here. For best results, hook your laptop up to a big screen TV, you can even buy two dance controllers and let your kids have their very own dance off, just be considerate of the neighbours!
Worried about child safety this Halloween? – Millions of kids will go trick or treating this year and just like every other year 99% of them will come back safe and well. If you’re worried about your child wondering off, why not treat them to a smart watch with a built in GPS tracker? That way, you can track their whereabouts on your PC using a web browser or via your smartphone. Some watches even let you make calls to your kids, just like Michael Knight in Knight Rider! (like any child today will know who that is). Back in 2016 we recommended the LG GizmoPal 2, and this remains one of the highest rated smart watches for Children. The device comes in kid friendly colours that most little trick or treaters will love to wear and at around $30 it won’t break the bank either. Check it out here.
Whatever you get up to this year, we hope you have a fantastic time. Stay safe and don’t have nightmares!
That rounds off our newsletter for October. On behalf of everyone here at Top-Windows-Tutorials, I’d like to thank you all for your continuing support and we hope you all have a fun Halloween, Bonfire night and/or Thanksgiving. The TWT Newsletter will return on the 10th November 2018 and will bring you more tips, tricks and techniques to help you get the best out of your PC, be it Windows 7 Windows 8 or Windows 10. We hope that you found this newsletter informative and useful. If you did not then please let us know why, you can contact us by visiting this page. If you have enjoyed this newsletter, feel free to pass it on to all your friends and family, or better still encourage them to sign up for their own copy. Until next month, keep checking Top-Windows-Tutorials.com, and enjoy happy, safe and stress-free computing! |