Not a host but I think you can still create a Halloween themed game without horror elements. For example: Witch Racing Game, Ghost Maze, Pumpkin Parkour, Skeleton Dance Off, Demon Dating-Sim... On another thread one of the hosts said the following about the theme, "However if you don't want to use it [theme] then that's completely fine too! Jams themes are just there to try and provoke new or unique mechanics but as always you don't have to use it if you don't want to". I bet if you linked your game to anything stereotypical "Halloween" themed could fit.
Viewing post in 🎃 And the Theme for the Spooktober jam is....
That's what I mean. There's halloween in and of itself, then there's content that has nothing to do with the day and its symbols that is considered halloween like what u see on tv....and this is almost always horror genre. Stephen king movies for examples all seem to be considered halloween worthy regardless of the monster at play...cause its all horror.. The time machine had the morlocks, who would be considered halloween worthy creatures, but without those it probably wouldn't be considered a halloween tv worthy. idk how u make a childrens game with halloween pumpkins and then add the theme of sacrifice to the mix.
I'm trying to think of how to do a 2d vertical scoller shooter like ikaruga. The theme sacrifice is easy, done. Halloween tho...what does that mean? My pilot is a ghost? is that halloween enough? its horror themed, is that enough? the colour scheme? what combination can i do short of making everything pumpkins sprites.
It's not that strict of a theme. It's more just like, use it as inspiration and if it goes off the wall a bit then that's fine. The word "Sacrifice" could be taken in many other ways, for example you could use "Halloween" elements (pumpkins, etc), but then you could interpret the sacrifice as something other than like a ritual sacrifice. With that in mind you could quite easily use the Halloween theme and make it fun, bright, etc. I don't think anybody is going to score you low because it's not scary or doesn't have a ritual scene. It's really just a springboard to get you going.
"Halloween" is a super rough guideline because we didn't want to restrict people to just "Horror" or "Ghost" or anything like that. You can theme the levels with halloween themed creatures and assets, for example, or just have the main character as a ghost. Pretty much anything you yourself consider to be Halloween-themed can work. Also there's a rule which says the game doesn't have to be horror and that we want to encourage people to be creative, so I have a feeling that the majority of the games won't be horror. Hopefully this helped and good luck on your game!