During the weekend, hundreds of students flooded Ohio University’s campus to participate in the Humans vs. Zombies “Athens Invitational.”
Human vs. Zombies, also referred to as HvZ, is a citywide version of Nerf tag. In this game, students run around campus shooting each other with nerf darts and sock balls in order to fight off the zombies.
A typical game of HvZ on campus lasts for a week and is played exclusively by OU students. This weekend, however, players came from as far away as North Carolina to play a 26-hour version of the game. That was OU’s first invitational.
Dustin Ketterman, a Kenton Ridge High School graduate from Springfield, Ohio, said on Facebook that he had “a great time killin’ zombies in Athens” and that he plans to return in October.
Although the rules and gameplay had to be altered to accommodate the timespan of the invitational, the moderators said they still tried to make the weekend fun and unpredictable.
Megan Moore, a HvZ moderator and OU sophomore, said the storyline for this weekend was “A Wizard Did It!”
To kick off the game, humans had to destroy the wizard’s “crystal balls,” which were actually water balloons.
Throughout the weekend, players participated in other special events such as finding the “BFG,” which is a special tool used to kill zombies, escorting Dean of Students Ryan Lombardi across campus while avoiding zombie ambushes, and “The Last Stand on College Green.”
In this final mission, the zombies overtook the humans, and the humans had to sacrifice their lives to protect the city of Athens.
“It was an amazing, eventful weekend,” Moore said. “Special thanks are in order to all our players, local or not, Dean Lombardi, OUPD and Athens Police. Without all of you, our game would not be possible. The next infection is not far away. The week before Halloween will be our fall game, so I invite everyone on campus or not to come out and play.”
bl171210@ohiou.edu
