Need a Halloween arcade costume or T-Shirt?! Boo! Yes, we’re getting to that time of year again where, for people in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s getting cooler outside, plants are dying, trees are starting to lose their leaves and the days are getting shorter. It’s right about now in late September, early October people start thinking about Halloween. For gamers, it’s also an exciting time of year, you don’t need an excuse any longer to stay inside and play games. As we think about combining two things that we really like, Halloween and arcade gaming, it’s not an easy synergy. We spent some time trying to come up with some ghoul ideas to lend a scream to the arcade world this Halloween season.
Traditional Arcade Costumes
Normally, when people think of Halloween dress up, they think costume. We’d venture to say that if you are going trick or treating or to a costume party, you’d go costume. So let’s go that route first. A quick search on Halloween costume stores gave us some interesting results.
Arcade Costume Websites
Typical costumes you will find include Donkey Kong, Mortal Kombat (Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Katana), Pac-Man, Q*bert Space, Invaders and Wreck it Ralph costumes. Some of them are, honestly, not bad. We then looked on Amazon and that’s when we found Super Snake. Not sure what to say about that one but it is definitely humorous. There are other similar legit arcade versions like Tetris and Pac-Man but the reviews indicate cheap foam that doesn’t hold it’s shape.
Halloween Arcade T-Shirts
The visit to Amazon opened up another Halloween angle that spirited more investigation. Every Halloween there is always that someone who refuses to wear a costume to a costume party and, when forced, they show up with the typical “This is my costume” T-Shirt. With a little creativity and taking the T-Shirt angle, we thought we might be able to dig up a few ideas.
Go Mario (or Luigi)
A simple green or red shirt and matching hat mixed with a fake mustache would get you looking like Nintendo arcade legends Mario and Luigi. They sell pre-made shirts and hats with the letters “M” and “L” if you don’t feel like putting the time into it. We added an image with a link to a cheap but good hat and mustache on Amazon for Luigi. Mario will be suggested when you go to the page if you are looking for him instead.
Aside from that, you would just need some darker blue jeans or navy pants, black shoes and some suspenders and then your set to start stomping turtles, cleaning pipes, rescuing princesses or whatever your thing is. NOTE: Please don’t stomp real turtles, just arcade ones.
Pac-Man Face Tee
Just like Mario and Luigi, Pac-Man is universally recognized. If you want to be a little lower profile but still get the point across, maybe try a bright yellow Pac-Man face shirt. Wear some dark pants and shoes and the focus will be on Pac-Man. Have the kids wear blue, red, orange or pink blankets or shirts and you can go as a Pac-Man family. Sting some foam balls in between you and the kids and it will add to the effect and you won’t have to worry about losing them. Don’t get tangled!
Amazon also sells ghost costumes for kids but if your crafty, the T-Shirt of blanket idea would be way more awesome!
The 8-bit bit
The 8-bit graphic trend has been in full swing for some time now. There are plenty of 8-bit shirts out there. You can go 8-bit pumpkin or skull but we found an awesome 8-bit ghost shirt that looks cool. Maybe wear some black pants and shoes and that’s all you need. You could always get one of those all black hoods that hides the face if you wanted to take it a step further.
Whatever way you slice it, there are many cool ideas you can use for Halloween arcade costume ideas. Maybe we’ll add some more arcade costume ideas as time passes.
Have any ideas of your own for Arcade Costume ideas?
Feel free to place a comment below, we would love to hear from you!
Our Halloween Arcade Video Pick
We thought it would be a bit of a bummer if we didn’t at least show some real arcade action in relation to Halloween. First thought was Konami’s Castlevania but one game in particular that we love from back in 1985 was Capcom’s Ghosts ‘n Goblins. Check out this video of a rare arcade cabinet and it’s gameplay: