At ease, soldiers: after five stressful days, “Humans versus Zombies” comes to an end
By Philip Mulder, Staff Writer
After five days of orange bandanas, huge crowds of students eating at Hicks with Nerf guns, and epic, multiple-hour, late-night battles, Kalamazoo College’s first game of Humans Versus Zombies (HvZ) came to an end Sunday evening.
Humans versus Zombies began in 2005 at Goucher College, and since then it has been played at “over 650 universities and colleges worldwide,” according to www.humansversuszombies.org.
The game involves “zombie” players with a bandana around their head tagging other “human” players with bandanas around their arms. Humans are to attempt to defend themselves with socks and Nerf guns. Missions are held throughout the multiple-day game and across campus to encourage players to go outside.
About forty players began the game, but by the time registration closed on Friday night, there were over sixty players participating.
Each player took away a different experience from the game.
Ben Abreu (K ’15) says he “took a lot more time going to and from classes. I didn’t really go outside unless it was necessary to do so.”
Trent Loos (K ’15) learned “the importance of sacrificing yourself for the greater good.” After he became a zombie, Trent says he was “proud to sacrifice my life for the humans.”
After becoming a zombie, James Villar (K ’15) said he felt relieved. “I no longer had to be paranoid–now I was the one jumping out at people.”
There were some hitches during the game. Objects hidden for missions would go missing, and some rules had to be interpreted on the fly.
Moderator Adam Eisenstein (K ’15), known in the game as “Agent Ironstone”, hopes that the HvZ community can use this first game as a learning experience to make a planned game for next fall go even more smoothly. “We learned a lot moderating this game. Next year’s is going to be much bigger and much better…on an entirely different scale.”
Despite the occasional hiccup, Bo Martin (K ’15) still says that the game “was like a thousand unicorns spraying rainbows across a field of bunnies. But also there were zombies eating people.”
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