Planning Halloween with Hank’s Haunted Hayride
Celebrate the spooky season by building attractions along a route for visitors to enjoy all the scares in Hank’s Haunted Hayride.
It’s been years since I’ve seen this free roll-and-write mentioned around October, and finally, I decided to play it! The full and proper name is The Hydrologically-Challenged Haunted Hayride at Hank’s Hen Hatchery… So many words! Yet inside is a thoughtful and hilarious experience about using dice to build spooky attractions and plotting a route. To the fields!
Game Overview
Game Name: Hank’s Haunted Hayride
Publication Year: 2018
Designer: Scott Slomiany
Artist: Scott Slomiany
Publisher: Unpublished (Print-and-Play)
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
This empty map slowly gets filled in over several stages. A parking lot is built on the edges, and then dice rolls provide options in terms of the attractions and placements. Watch out for floods and the terrible egg-throwing teenagers, though! Crafting this haunted hayride takes some work!
First Play
October 1, 2026
Complexity
2
Latest Play
October 1, 2026
Expansions
0
Setup Time
Almost None
Lifetime Plays
1
Play Time
1 Hour & 15 Minutes
High Score
-275
Game Area
18" x 12"
Low Score
-275
Filling in the Map
I decided to spend a slow and quiet evening carefully coloring in my map. The rules took a little time to digest, but they’re quite simple: It’s just a matter of the turn timing.
First, I built a parking lot near the north side. Ticket booths start to fill up the surrounding spaces, with the goal of placing a route next to these during a later stage.
Look at those attractions! A trio of dice offer options for the type of attraction and an intersecting row and column.
Backstage spaces must also be accounted for. All those special effects and actors need places to prepare, of course!
A Field of Scares
Perhaps my favorite part of this play was how little I knew about the strategies. I only had a vague notion of what I would do with the tractor route. Good enough for Hank! Ha!
Building starts off with tons of options, yet there are clever considerations about making sure each attraction is built at least once. These guests are known for giving bad reviews!
I loved sort of “seeing” some of the areas of this haunted hayride. So much science going on in the northwest!
This stage was the longest, yet didn’t feel like it dragged on. I only had to stop when all the ticket booths were built up.
All Aboard the Bus!
I should have known the local guests would be a whole bunch of Calico Critters. Ha ha! Alas, there was no tractor in sight, so they settled on a comfortable bus ride in the field.
Never mind the lack of safety precautions. No one fell off or out of the bus, probably owing to the most boring route ever concocted. My motto? “No scares: You’ll stay in your chairs!”
This sense of not knowing what to do added to this initial play, though. I was laughing out loud at my choices!
Like how backstage areas are supposed to be hidden from view, yet I somehow decided to put them front and center.
Sleepy Hollow
Anyone could fall asleep on this haunted hayride! I seemed to do much better towards the end, but at the start? Allow me to drive you by the edge of these expensive exhibits.
Pretty sure everyone had to squint to see even the slightest scare at some of the attractions. Ha! Yet I could just imagine how cool it was going through the Creepy Tunnel. Fun!
This stage involved making choices about how quickly to build the tractor route against the autumnal flooding.
Maybe it was a good thing I left the east side of the lake so empty. Watch your step in the parking lot… It’s quite soggy!
Surprise Hits and Getting Immersed by Accident
I went into this play expecting a fairly standard roll-and-write experience that might seem like a nice October activity. Once I got started, the mechanics worked really well and I found myself getting attached to all of the little attractions. I liked imagining what might be going on in the backstage areas… Which were more like front stage areas here and there!
There’s nothing on the surface that would have led me to believe this would feel so enjoyable, yet it succeeded! The different challenges associated with the stages had me thinking in various ways, all while I weaved a little story about how hopeful I was for this to be a successful hayride. And when it failed, it did so in a hilariously spectacular way.
These are the sorts of gaming surprises I love to stumble across, especially when the cost of entry is free! I wonder what my map will look like when I play again. The same mistakes probably won’t be repeated, yet I can just see how I might make fun of my random route or the choice to put the backstage areas directly out front. What a view! Ha ha!
A Haunted House
My final score was laughably terrible and firmly in the negative, but that didn’t stop my fun! I decided to check out these attractions, apparently put on by the Calico Critters.
One of the Witches Hollows featured a cozy haunted house. Lots of ghosts, and a witch! Guaranteed not to scare anyone.
I kept going back to my map to admire the possible scenes. Maybe I played terribly, but I had the best time imagining the attractions and the little glimpses guests might get.
There were many things I would do differently next time, yet when else is a spectacular failure so much fun?! Ha!
Pumpkin Patch Kids
Behold, the scariest pumpkin patch ever devised, complete with a tiny bear who transformed into a pumpkin! My goodness: Better cover your eyes for this level of horror!
If it’s not apparent, the highlight of this session was in the theme of the game. I thought it was excellent for the roll-and-write genre, yet I needed a little laugh, and it delivered!
Not coloring this in would probably cut down on the play time tremendously, yet I think I found a seasonal favorite.
No promises, yet I do believe Hank would like one more attempt at a proper haunted hayride before Halloween!
Session Overview
Play Number: 1
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
Outcome: -275 (Loss)
Although the haunted hayride resulted in a loss, I got one last glimpse of a witch flying away on her broomstick! This one was simply perfect, combining meaningful dice and placement choices with a charming theme. I went in thinking it would be pretty standard. No, indeed: It was simply amazing and provided me with a delightfully joyful experience! I hope to play once more by the end of the month, and will certainly turn this into an annual tradition!
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
10
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
10
Originality
Design & Theme
9
Quality
Components & Rules
8
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
7
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
5
+ Pros (Positives)
- Using the dice to choose attractions and placements creates meaningful choices that slowly get harder and harder.
- Each stage of gameplay is distinct and offers a unique challenge, yet it all ties together nicely for the final scoring.
- Aside from a couple of murky areas, the rules are easy to understand and are rarely needed after play begins.
- The theme is neat and silly to create memorable plays, down to imagining what the guests “see” on the hayride.
- Playing for the first time is filled with a sense of not knowing what to do that feels engaging, fun, and suspenseful.
- There are many decisions to make as the attractions and ticket booths slowly take shape prior to building the route.
– Cons (Negatives)
- The diagonal lines take time to get used to, and finding an intersection often involves following a line from the edge.
- Some of the rules are a little unclear at first, but gameplay is straightforward and rarely requires any referencing.
- Dice rolling comes down to some luck, which can get frustrating towards the end when the options become limited.
- Final scoring involves a lot of small sums that take a noticeable amount of time to calculate, at least for a first play.
Victory Conditions
Score 1+ Point
- Overall Goal Progress 0%
Goals and Milestones
Build at least 1 of each attraction in at least 1 game.
Score at least 1 point.
Continue the Conversation
Have you played The Hydrologically-Challenged Haunted Hayride at Hank’s Hen Hatchery? Did you ever manage to achieve a positive score or a particularly memorable route? I was pleasantly surprised with how much this resonated with me. Look at all the Calico Critters! So glad I finally printed this one out to fit in during the autumn season. I had an amazing play!
0 Comments