Gaming How-To

Adopt Me: How to Play Ghost Gallery (Halloween 2026)

How to join from the Manor hall, how the hold-to-fire blaster works, and what a round pays in Candy Corn and Crypt Keys.

How to join from the Manor hall, how the hold-to-fire blaster works, and what a round pays in Candy Corn and Crypt Keys.

by AllThingsHow StaffAllThingsHow Staff

Ghost Gallery is a timed shooting minigame in Adopt Me‘s Halloween 2026 event. You queue in the Manor hall, get a ghost blaster strapped to your back, and spend the round blasting ghosts for points. The controls trip people up. Clicking does nothing useful, so you have to hold the button down.

Quick answer: Put your cursor on a ghost and hold the left mouse button. The beam follows your cursor and your Score climbs. Single clicks score nothing. If your Score stays at 0 and you get no Candy Corn, equip one of your own pets before the round: with no pet out, the game gives you a Practice Dog and, in our rounds, nothing scored.

Shortly before a round starts, a pop-up appears: “Ghost Gallery is starting soon! Teleport there now?” It offers No and Yes buttons, along with a “Do not show again this session” option. Select Yes to teleport to the waiting circle inside the Manor’s hall.

Ghost Gallery is starting soon! Teleport there now? pop-up with No and Yes buttons in Adopt Me
The Ghost Gallery pop-up: pick Yes to teleport to the queue.

Wait in the circle for the “NEXT GAME IN” countdown to finish, and the round will begin.

Players waiting in the Ghost Gallery queue circle in the Manor hall in Adopt Me, with NEXT GAME IN 00:12 above
The queue circle in the Manor hall, 12 seconds before the round starts.
Check your screen once the round loads. A “TIME LEFT” timer starts at around 02:29, a “Score” counter sits at zero, and a ghost blaster tank is on your character’s back like a backpack.
Start of a Ghost Gallery round in Adopt Me: TIME LEFT 02:28, Score 0 and the ghost blaster tank on the character's back
The round has just started: 02:28 on the clock, Score 0 and the blaster tank on your back.
Move your cursor onto a ghost. The beam goes wherever the cursor points, so aim with the mouse, not with your character.
Hold the left mouse button down while the cursor stays on the ghost. Keep holding to keep the beam on target, and track the ghost as it moves. Tapping or single-clicking does not register hits.
Holding fire on a ghost in Ghost Gallery, with the beam reaching the ghost and the purple charge bar above the character
Holding fire: the beam runs to the ghost and the purple charge bar shows above the character.
Watch the purple charge bar above your character. It drains while you fire.
Let the timer reach zero without leaving the round. Later in the round a large blue ghost appears, with its health bar at the top of the screen; in our first round it was there with about 00:35 left. Hold fire on it the same way.
The big ghost in Ghost Gallery with its health bar near the top of the screen
The big ghost and its health bar near the top of the screen.

The Exit Minigame button ends your round early, and the game warns, “You will not earn any rewards if you exit the game!” Play to the end if you want the payout.

When time is up, a “GAME OVER!” screen lists your Score, your Combo and your rewards. The reward screen shows NICE! Here is what each of our rounds paid:

GAME OVER screen listing 657 Candy Corn and a Crypt Key for a score of 1500, with a NICE! button
The GAME OVER results screen with 657 Candy Corn, a Crypt Key, and a 1500 score.
ScoreComboCandy CornCrypt Key
15000657Yes
440001350Yes
18000713Yes
13501730No
1000400No
3500446Yes
745001683No
14500648Yes
440001350Yes

These are nine paying rounds we played, as the GAME OVER! screen showed them (the last two on October 27, 2026, with our Mummy Spider equipped). The payout did not simply follow the score: our 1350-point round paid 730 Candy Corn and no Crypt Key, while a 1500-point round paid 657 and a key, so we can’t give you a rule for how pay is worked out. A Crypt Key came with six of the nine rounds, not every round. Your new Candy Corn total shows at the top of the screen, which is the quickest way to confirm the reward landed. Keys are spent on the coffins in the Crypt beside the Manor.

GAME OVER results showing a 4,400 score, 1,350 Candy Corn, a Crypt Key and the NICE! button
The GAME OVER! screen after a 4,400-point round: 1,350 Candy Corn and a Crypt Key.

Our best round so far scored 7,450 and paid 1,683 Candy Corn, but no Crypt Key.

Ghost Gallery GAME OVER screen in Adopt Me: x1683 Candy Corn for Score 7450, Combo 0, with a NICE! button and no Crypt Key
Our 7,450-point round: 1,683 Candy Corn and no Crypt Key.

Back in the hall, the “NEXT GAME IN” countdown resets to a longer wait, for example 26:20. The Ghost Gallery leaderboard stands nearby, and its top score sits at 190,500.

The Ghost Gallery leaderboard board in the Manor hall in Adopt Me after a round, with 657 Candy Corn in the top bar
Back in the Manor hall after the round: the Ghost Gallery leaderboard and the next countdown.

If you join a round with no pet of your own out, the game hands you one for the round: a white dog with the name plate “Practice Dog” walks beside you. On October 27, 2026, we played several rounds in a row that way. The Score stayed at 0 for the whole round, even through the big ghost at the end, and the rounds paid no Candy Corn and no Crypt Key.

Ghost Gallery round in Adopt Me with TIME LEFT 01:05 and Score 0, the big ghost's health bar full, and a white dog named Practice Dog beside the player
With no pet of our own out, the game gave us a Practice Dog, and the Score stayed at 0.

What fixed it for us was equipping a pet of our own before the round:

Before the round starts, open your backpack, go to your pets and equip any pet you own, so it follows you.
Join Ghost Gallery as usual and hold fire on the ghosts. With our Mummy Spider out, the next two rounds scored 1,450 (648 Candy Corn and a Crypt Key) and 4,400 (1,350 Candy Corn and a Crypt Key).
Ghost Gallery GAME OVER screen in Adopt Me: x648 Candy Corn and a Crypt Key for Score 1450, Combo 0, with the NICE! button
Our first round with the Mummy Spider out: 648 Candy Corn and a Crypt Key for 1,450 points.
After the round, unequip the pet if signposts or doors stop answering your E key: a pet that follows you takes the E prompt first.

Completing one Ghost Gallery round fulfills the Daily Haunts task named “Wanna play a game?”, with the instruction “Play a Halloween minigame!” To claim the task:

Open the Halloween widget on the left side of the screen. It also shows how long the event has left.
Select TASK BOARD, then pick the pumpkin tab labeled The Daily Haunts.
Adopt Me Halloween TASK BOARD on The Daily Haunts tab with Wanna play a game? complete at 1/1 and the Claim All button
The Daily Haunts board after a minigame: Wanna play a game? is done at 1/1, with Claim All at the bottom.
Press Claim All. Your reward is a Crypt Key, an Untradable, Uncommon Limited item that goes into the Halloween tab of your backpack.
Crypt Key card in the Halloween tab of the Adopt Me backpack, marked Uncommon and Untradable, with an Equip button
The Crypt Key in the backpack's Halloween tab.

The same board lists other daily tasks, each with a key icon as its reward, and an “Expires in” timer for the current set:

  • “Wanna play a game?” Play a Halloween minigame! (0/1)
  • “Knock Knock!” Unlock a reward with the Crypt Key! (0/1)
  • “Gooped” Complete 30 pet Needs! (0/30)
  • “Complete all Halloween daily tasks!” with a bigger key reward

Check two things. Hold the left mouse button on a ghost (single clicks score nothing), and make sure one of your own pets is out before the round. If a “Practice Dog” is beside you, you joined with no pet, and in our rounds that way the Score never left 0.

Our rounds with the Practice Dog paid nothing. Equip your own pet first; leaving early with Exit Minigame also gives no rewards.

No. A key came with six of our nine paying rounds.

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