Zombies vs. Humans game coming to a campus near you

by chowdawg | October 8, 2008 at 10:11 am

1664 views | 2 Recommendations | 13 comments

Bored with video games? Procrastinating from studying? Well then maybe you should go and find a game of Humans vs. Zombies near you. It’s Night of the Living Dead, all day, everyday until all the zombies are gone or you become one of them. The mass live game, started by a group of students Goucher College in Towson, Maryland is basically a variation of tag. Zombies chase and tag humans, and just like in the movies the humans then become zombies; headbands distinguish the living from the living dead, though I would imagine that costumes are encouraged. There is a designated play area and ideally hundreds of people are involved. The game ends when zombies rule the earth or are eliminated in style. Really, what’s not to like? The whole thing involves zombies and zombies are cool.

Welcome to the world of Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ), a tag-like game that is the latest trend in campus entertainment. An HvZ game typically involves hundreds of students and runs 24 hours a day for days on end; dwindling numbers of humans try to fend off and outlast growing legions of zombies.

The rules are fundamentally simple: Zombie tags human, human becomes a zombie. Unlike movie zombies, with shambling walks and undead makeup, zombies in the game just wear headbands to distinguish them from armband-wearing humans.

Humans ward off zombies with Nerf guns or by hitting them with a balled-up sock — a defensive move that stuns the zombie, usually for 15 minutes. The goal is to still be a live human at the end.

A group of students at Goucher College in Towson, Md., is credited with starting the game, which has spread across the USA. Addicted to the first-person shooter video game Splinter Cell, the students wanted to create a live version of it on campus; it turned into tag and then became zombie-fied, says Goucher graduate Brad Sappington, one of the creators.

The Internet has played a big role in the spread of the game. Goucher students created a website (hvzsource.com) that is a repository of information about and rules for the game. And YouTube videos of the game being played at Goucher have found fans at other schools.

Mass live games, sometimes called social urban games are not a new concept. Manhunt for example, a variation on hide-and-seek, where one person, known as the “manhunter” is “it” and the rest of the players, the “fugitives” hide. If a fugitive is tagged by a manhunter, she or he is “brainwashed” and forced to join the side of the manhunters. At the end of the designated time limit, all fugitives who have not been arrested are declared the winners.

Vancouver has holds Manhunts at least once a month. There are chapters all over Canada as well as the US, UK and Australia and recently April 26-27 has been designated International Manhunt Day.

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Jason Sanders

at 10:13 on October 8th, 2008

Whoa, that's cool. Why can't we have something like this in Van?

Jordan Yerman

at 11:40 on October 8th, 2008

OK, that's awesome. Sort of like Assassin, but without the potential for security panics. Unless your campus security has an irrational fear of headbands.

(Manhunt is really popular on my street: the local kids prefer to play at dusk, when their furtive street-crossing is at its most dangerous)

Jordan Yerman

at 11:55 on October 8th, 2008

Oh, and Splinter Cell isn't a first-person shooter. Unless you're in sniper mode. Or so I hear.

altrugon

at 13:53 on October 8th, 2008

I remember to play this kind of game during my years at the university, although we have vampires and/or werewolf instead of zombies and we never got famous... but we were called "those crazy guys" more that once :P

princessski

at 14:38 on October 8th, 2008

This is myself and my husband Matthew Woitunski. We had a blast from start to finish. We went with a good friend of ours and his son. Before the walk began we all played kickball and frisbee. You can bet that was quite a sight!!

princessski has contributed a photo to this story.

princessski

at 14:41 on October 8th, 2008

This game sounds great! I would love to give it a shot! Games like that are some of my favorites! Thank you so much for sharing with me.

FehlmanFam

at 15:11 on October 8th, 2008

Zombie walker...sifting through the crowd

FehlmanFam has contributed a photo to this story.

Amy Judd

at 15:29 on October 8th, 2008

I think this just sounds like so much fun!

JeffHuang

at 15:39 on October 8th, 2008

Yeah, sounds mucho fun.

MichaelAnthonyPhotography

at 11:13 on October 9th, 2008

i took this picture at the first annual Asbury Park Zombie Walk held in Asbury Park, Nj on october 4th. the two ladies in the pic are roller derby girls (The Nonster and A.C. Skater) from the league the Jersey Shore Roller Girls, who were there promoting for the their next bout.

sites to check out:

www.asburyparkzombiewalk.com
and
www.jerseyshorerollergirls.net

MichaelAnthonyPhotography has contributed a photo to this story.

Ann Smarty

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 01:43 on October 13th, 2008

chowdawg, love the pictures! and cool game idea! much better than video games really.

kai4462

at 19:29 on November 6th, 2008

This was part of the Zombie Rampage with the Unicycle Bastards in Portland Oregon. I did the makeup for the group and if you want to see our video for Unicycle Bastards Kick Zombie Ass go to the YouTube website or you can go to the Unicycle Bastards website to see what they are up to. I did their makeup for the movie and the rampage. Here are a couple of links http://www.unicyclebastards.com/

kai4462 has contributed a photo to this story.

kai4462

at 19:47 on November 6th, 2008

I did the makeup for a bunch of Unicycle Bastards for the Zombie Rampage and the trailer for a movie that may eventually happen. I'm the girl that bites off the lead actors cock. No one else would crawl around in the woods for a day and get covered in fake blood and get a eye full of red colored Karo syrup. We did a trailer for "Unicycle Bastards Kick Zombie Ass" that was included in the Portland Filmed By Bike series in the summer. If you want to check out these crazy bastards in action here are a couple of links, and maybe a couple of my other experiments at other venues.

http://www.unicyclebastards.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kai44/

I think I may have almost scared away my new boyfriend at the time when I threw the cellphone out in the street to get something to attach to this boy's head.

kai4462 has contributed a photo to this story.