CityVille's Halloween Decorating Contest offers big rewards for big scares

While CityVille has been around for almost a year, the game has never had an opportunity to celebrate Halloween. That changes this year, and the developers are definitely pulling out all of the stops to make it something you'll never forget. With the release of plenty of themed content in the game's store, and the ability to - with the click of a single button - change the way your entire town appears, they've given us plenty to work with so far, and the team behind the game wants to see how you're using it/them!

Via the "Ultimate CityVille Halloween Decorating Contest," you'll be asked to participate in three separate rounds of smaller contests, with the winners of those going on to compete for one grand prize. Each of the three rounds has a different theme, with the first being Classic Halloween. This round is open for submissions until only October 20, so start decorating fast! After that, a few days will be devoted to an Enchanted Forest theme of submissions, and finally, a Swamp theme will round out the month.

Your goal is to use up to six expansions' worth of space in your city, using any and all items that are related to Halloween or even those that you think just fit in to set the scene. There must be at least one Halloween-specific item in your judging area to count. The top three winners of each round will receive City Cash and decoration prizes, as seen below:

1st Place - 300 City Cash and a Dracula's Mansion
2nd Place - 200 City Cash and a Spooky House
3rd Place - 100 City Cash and a Flying Witch

Once the themed rounds are over, the top three from each will be eligible for a larger, grand prize round of voting. The three winners from this final round will all receive Haunted Houses, but the absolute Grand Prize winner will walk away with a whopping 500 City Cash (in addition to whatever prizes they won in their previous round)!

If you have any interest in this contest whatsoever, make sure to read the rules on the game's official forums, as there are many. The biggest rule is, of course, the size constraint of only using up to six expansions of your town. Still, you can enter all three rounds with a single entry (so long as you change your theme to match), so why not take a shot at it? You might end up being declared the master of Halloween and walk away with all of those huge prizes! Good luck!

[Image Credit: Zynga]

Check out the rest of our Halloween coverage right here.

Will you enter any of the rounds in the CityVille Halloween Decorating Contest? What would you do with 500 City Cash? Sound off in the comments.