By Keleigh Norman
Prepare your Nerf guns, ready your unmated socks, and be on the lookout for Zombies beginning November 29, 2010. GCU hosts its first Humans Versus Zombies game on! All students may participate in the infectiously fun campus wide variant of tag.
The game started at Goucher College in 2005, quickly developing a massive nationwide fan base. Colleges across the United States host HvZ games frequently, and the game even received press from sources such as the Washington Post and USA Today.
HvZ is a modified and moderated game of tag that starts with a large group of humans and one secret zombie. The goal of the zombie is to kill and convert all of the humans. As he or she tags a human, they become a part of the zombie horde and must then start converting other humans into zombies. A zombie must tag a human within 48 hours; otherwise, he or she will starve to death.
In contrast, the human teams must band together and be wary of their surroundings, tossing socks or shooting foam Nerf bullets at attacking zombies to stun them and then run to a safe zone (designated by HvZ hosts). Think you can out live the zombies? It is a lot tougher than it sounds.
Some groups of students already signed up seem to be taking the game extremely seriously. Shane Geant, Theater major, is the participant of a recently formed group called The Great Alpha Psi Resistance.
“Alpha Psi s a theater-based group designed to protect each other during the game,” says Geant. “Anybody can join. We’ll also be holding drills to get you read for things like running from and shooting zombies.”
With over a dozen members, Shane posts updates on Facebook regarding team strategies and ideas about HvZ.
He even makes the game seem a bit more real to the Resistance members by posting blogs and short entries such as “I hear some guy at another university had mutated rabies and they had to quarantine the school. I guess he brutally attacked fellow schoolmates and infected them.”
Anybody can join the Great Alpha Psi Resistance on Facebook, or simply receive updates by contacting Shane Geant or other Alpha members for a group invite. Other GCU Students simply wanting to play have to register online and then prepare their arsenal. The variant of tag can take place for several days or end quickly, depending on how vigilant humans remain.
Anybody interested in playing the game can visit http://gcu.hvzsource.com/ to register for the game, review rules and safe zones, and visit a small forum to ask questions. You may also contact Stephen Gusman or Joshua Hill on campus or via email at [email protected].
