When Flappy Bird hit the scene, developer madgarden realized that it was sorely lacking in lurking horrors. The remedy for that was FlapThulhu, featuring the most adorable little 8-bit Old One that you’ve ever seen.

Flap through the horrible gates of R’lyeh and unleash the Madness to open a portal to the eldritch dimension… or will the madness take you?

It’s available for name-your-own-price download at Itch (currently only for Windows, but Mac and Linux are in the works). It’s also just been made available in the Apple Store.

The same developer has a couple of other interesting games, including Eggnog, described as a “local multiplayer stabbing game,” which may be one of my favorite game descriptions of all time; and Saucelifter, in which you pilot a UFO in hopes of saving your stranded crewmates from the aggressive Earth military.

FlapThulhu. Sooo cute.

(via BoingBoing)

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, look at this cute li’l guy.

This mummified leprechaun, complete with remnants of ginger hair and clutching a gold coin, is one of several miniature gaffs made by Lynne of Footsteps in the Wind. She’s also got miniature skeletal mermaids and demons.

These guys are kindred spirits to my mummified fairy, and I’m kicking myself for not thinking of this idea. You could put together a whole collection of mummified supernatural fauna.

The mermaid rather puts me in mind of a fossil, and an interesting display idea might be to present it as such: Glue it to a flat piece of shale (available in the outdoor department of many hardware stores), blend the edges into the stone with polymer clay or papier-mache, and spray-paint to make it look like it’s been carefully chipped out of the matrix.

You could use tattered miniature clothing and accessories to create mummified gnomes, imps, tooth fairies, pixies, and many others. Display individual specimens in shadowboxes or bell jars, or fill a curio cabinet with a whole collection. If you’re feeling particularly macabre, you could display them as though they were live specimens who had died of neglect–a mermaid in an empty goldfish bowl, or a gnome in a jar with the scrawled note, “Air holes….”

Lonesome Wyatt describes himself as “the Ambrose Bierce of underground country,” playing “the kind of music you’d hear while walking down a dirt road headed deep into the woods weaving your way through haints and shadows.” He tours solo and also has a side project as “Lonesome Wyatt and the Holy Spooks,” which specializes in murder ballads, ghost stories, and other fun stuff.

Here’s “Dream of You,” which is rather pretty; their most recent release is Halloween is Here, whose title track rather puts me in mind of Spike Jones.

Oh…dear. Just…lawsey, lawsey, lawsey.

:::clearing throat::: Let me start over.

Artist Erika Deoude believes that even monsters deserve to feel sexy now and then, so she’s put together a pinup calendar featuring blobs in corsets and sasquatches with come-hither looks in their eye. You can see the whole set at The Mary Sue.

She’s also selling prints of individual pages in her Etsy shop, along with lots of other art; I particularly like the Pennywise Valentine and the adorable Lullabeast.

If you’re looking for an offbeat gift for a monster lover, these would certainly be…offbeat.

(Hat tip to xJane)

(I would apologize for posting this so close to Halloween that nobody could make one in time, but they sold out of their kits and don’t expect to have them back in stock until November 8 or so. Let’s count this as “prep for next year.”)

A few years ago Evil Mad Scientist Labs posted a wonderful tutorial for turning a miniature pumpkin into a “Snap-O-Lantern” with light-up eyes and snapping jaws. Here it is in action:

They’ve recently made this even easier by offering a Snap-O-Kit which includes all of the electronics and instructions.

Since the project involves carving the pumpkin in a very particular way (big pointy teeth in front, hinge in back) that might be a little fiddly, I’m thinking that this might be better accomplished with a re-usable styrofoam pumpkin. There are miniature ones available in craft stores (especially now; they’re probably on clearance) or online plus, since the reason EMSL discourages the use of larger pumpkins because of their weight, you might be able to use a larger styrofoam version.

The kit uses a timer to make the eyes light up and jaws snap at set intervals. If you’re feeling extra geeky you could hook it up to a proximity sensor instead and have it snap when it detects movement.

The Goblin Market posted the photo at left (unattributed, of course) to Facebook the other day and I thought, “Gee, what a unique idea; should be easy to find the artist.” So I started googling and it quickly became clear that elf ear cuffs are definitely a thing and I am just really late to the party.

They’re all over Etsy, in a vast array of styles, from shops including Belethil, MadeByKozee, EluneAraBijoux, ElfinWorks, KunoichiCreations, AltPercept, SalmonNaturals, KimberlyNichole, and ensorceller. (A few more interesting one-off designs from other shops are here, here, here, and here.) The ears from the original photo were apparently made by Starlit Skies.

There’s a tutorial for making your own available for purchase but, unsurprisingly, there are plenty of free instructions as well; there are three here, here, and here, but googling “how to make wire ear cuffs” will turn up plenty more.

Obviously, you needn’t restrict yourself to elf ears; you could bend the wire into bat wings or some other interesting shape. The basic idea doesn’t look terribly difficult, and you can add detail as desired. The results are certainly striking.

This image has been widely shared across the intertubes, and a couple of months ago BoingBoing tracked the original concept back to an artist by the name of Ash Violette; the maker of the prototype is named as “DR.HC.”

The post about the initial concept art is here, and two followup posts with lots of photos are here and here. Unfortunately, that’s all they are: Photos. There are no details on how they were made (or, indeed, if they’re even edible or just “for show”). DR.HC.’s deviantART account has been deactivated, so there’s no information to be found there.

This is a crying shame, because these are just wonderful. (A couple of the best suggestions I’ve seen for using these is as part of an absinthe bar, and as a feature at a twisted Alice in Wonderland-themed tea party. How perfect is that?)

The skulls wouldn’t be too hard to replicate; Mexican Sugar Skulls sells a mini skull mold, and Wilton has a skull candy mold which has a more 3-D appearance. Mexican Sugar Skulls also has a recipe and instructions for making the skulls, although their site is so eye-searing that I’m paraphrasing it below:

Mix together 1 C granulated sugar and 1 tsp meringue powder*. Sprinkle mixture with 1 tsp water and blend thoroughly until all sugar is moistened. Pack tightly into molds, invert onto a flat surface (like a cookie sheet) and let dry. For colored skulls, mix a bit of paste food coloring into the water before adding it to the sugar.

(Incidentally, if making your own seems like too much work, there’s also an Etsy shop which sells the little skulls.)

I’m a little less sure about the long bones; they seem so skinny that I don’t think they’re made of packed sugar. In the photos they look a little smoother than the skulls, so I’m thinking they might be piped meringue. Meringue “bones” are a fairly common Halloween treat, so there are lots of recipes available; typical ones are here and here. (If you’re making your own skulls you’ll have meringue powder anyway, so you might also try using that instead of fresh egg whites.) Update: In the comments, xJane suggests SugarVeil for the bones. I’d never heard of this stuff, but it looks promising. Thanks, xJane!

Package in bags or little boxes, with pretty labels.

Bonus links: The artist’s site has a lot of other neat stuff too; like bone dominoes (which could be made with polymer clay) and Decadence playing cards featuring notable figures like Aubrey Beardsley and Charles Baudelaire.

*The brand of meringue powder used apparently makes a difference, since the stuff used for cake icing isn’t strong enough; they recommend the stuff produced by CK Products.

Jenny the Bloggess was recently honored with a zombie likeness of herself in a Kickstarter-funded card game called They’re Coming. I’m not usually a fan of zombie art–too oozy–but I have to admit that this is pretty badass:

This particular piece was done by Tommy Arnold, whose art sort of puts me in mind of Frank Frazetta’s stuff (there are only a few pieces in his portfolio, but his blog has lots more). His site notes that he’s available for freelance work, so it might be possible to commission a piece similar to Jenny’s (I have no idea what the cost might be).

This would be a really unique way to commemorate a wedding or other special occasion. If zombies aren’t your thing there should be plenty of other options, from vampires to superheroes to gladiators. Smaller prints of the work would also be nice as wedding invitations or reception favors.

I’ve mentioned Failbetter Games’ interactive browser game Fallen London previously. Since then, they’ve done a couple of interesting things: Expanded their browser game offerings to include several new worlds (including dozens of user-created milieus) under the umbrella site StoryNexus; and set up a Kickstarter project for a PC/Mac computer game called Sunless Sea. The game is set in the same world as Fallen London, but you get to explore the vast undersea ocean that is hinted at in that game.

Thirty years ago, London was stolen. Now it rests on the shore of the Unterzee, that old dark ocean under the world. Hell is close, immortality is cheap, and the screaming has largely stopped. Steamships ply all the wild black zee, between the Iron Republic and the Elder Continent, between Hunter’s Keep and the Travertine Spiral and the Dawn Machine. Welcome. Delicious friend.

One of the things I like best about Fallen London is the storytelling: The phrasing is evocative and lyrical, and hints at a rich, largely hidden, backstory. The Sunless Sea project updates indicate that this game will be similar.

THE EMPIRE OF HANDS, where monkeys become kings through the theft of human souls

THE CHELONATE where the slayers of the Elder Turtle founded their home in its upturned shell

THE SEA OF LILIES where toad-oracles roam the fungus pads , offering answers in exchange for fresh flesh

THE NEW KHANATE with its dreaming-khan and its war trimarans… and its floating rebel twin-city

THE SALT LIONS where the sphinxes wait, where riddles are quarried

THE SEA OF AUTUMNS where the mists watch, where all light is faint, where the sea-beasts cannot bear the sight of their own faces

THE PORT OF WHITHER, gateway to the Pale Wastes and the North, where they answer a question with a question

ADAM’S WAY, the river that flows through the Presbyterate’s heart . Only ‘living ships’ may dare its waters

The Kickstarter runs through October 3. £10 (around $16US) gets you a copy of the game, and larger sums offer larger rewards (including exclusive content in Fallen London).

I have never been particularly interested in high-end handbags, instead preferring cheap satchels I’m not afraid of scuffing. But this…this is tempting.

The Disney Parks blog just announced the release of a new Haunted Mansion-inspired handbag by Dooney & Bourke. The company worked with Disney artists to design the bag, which includes a grey-and-black exterior palette, a striking red interior, the iconic wallpaper pattern, and a hang tag featuring the attraction logo. The result has a marvelously spooky vibe, but it’s subtle enough that it wouldn’t raise eyebrows in more mundane settings.

The bag retails for $330 and will be available at locations in Disneyland and Walt Disney World on September 13. The announcement doesn’t indicate whether it will also be sold in non-US Disney parks, but apparently it will be available online “later this fall.”

(Hat tip to Nez)