Well, it's almost time for Halloween, and that means people all over are preparing for their annual traditions of trick-or-treating, apple-bobbing, and costume parties. Or, in my particular case, watching Friday the 13th: Part IV, eating Almond Joys, and playing Hugo's House of Horrors until I collapse into an insulin coma. But, of course, I always make time for a few horrific adventures from the JayIsGames archive. This week's Vault is, in a word, Spooktacular!... Which I guess really isn't a word, now that I think of it... BOO!

• Dead Frontier: Outbreak - It was kind of tough limiting myself to one zombie game this week, considering that I'm pretty sure a full 80% of games released nowadays involve the undead in some way shape or form. But even in the face of such a glut, Dead Frontier: Outbreak, a 2009 piece of interactive fiction by Neil Yates, is a doozy. Gamebooks are a natural format for the zombie genre, with the latter's emphasis on ordinary life swiftly changing, difficult choices to be made, and, of course, death around every corner, and here it is played to the absolute hilt. If you're the kind of horror fan who doesn't mind their scares being in text rather than pictures, Dead Frontier: Outbreak is a good dose of Halloween gore.
• Monster Basement - Apart from "In Your Pocket" or "At The End Of This Book", basements seem to be a natural place for a monster to be kept. But being locked in with an injured one snarling in its cage is no picnic, as this 2008 point-and-click by Godlimations more than sufficiently demonstrates. Combining the puzzles and structure of a quality escape work with the cuttable-with-a-knife-thick tension of a creature feature, Monster Basement is Godlimation's masterpiece and a locale worthy of a yearly pilgrimage.
• Exmortis 2 - The particular quirks of Ben Leffler's Exmortis series have been parodied by many across the internet (including myself). However, even with Exmortis 2's tendency towards long-winded found documents and secret codes in Sudoku puzzles, exploring the farm house whose occupants have failed to survive the on-going apocalypse had some of the best atmosphere of any browser game when released in 2006, and the scene near the beginning, where you struggle to break into a car, while a dark cloud of demonic forces creeps ever closer over the horizon, still gives me serious willies. And hey! Check out that name on the CB radio in the basement! It's nice to know that even when hell is literally on earth, our fair website will still be providing quality entertainment.

While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!