These gaming pumpkins are a real treat, no trick

When planning a fun way to celebrate the fall season, we believe the early settlers tried a variety of creative, yet failed, traditions:

• Asparagus-eating contests

• The entire town acting out Hamlet at the same time, with their own grandfathers' skulls playing the part of Yorick

• Jumping off a 60-foot cliff into a pile of dead leaves

• Grave-robbing (that one stuck, but it became year-round and highly lucrative in a non-spiritual way)

• Eggplant, leek, corn and lentil carving

Most of these died out with the maypole, but that last one may have led us to the modern fascination with pumpkin carving, which has now led us to these beautiful video-game-inspired pumpkins from ceemdee. This year's pumpkins feature Bastion, Doom 2, The Dig, Worms, Oregon Trail, Outlaws and Magicka. Apparently ceemdee has been doing this since 2009, and the squashy backlog is just as impressive.