Students will be fleeing from the fictitious “NecroTech Laboratories” housed in Walter Hall, Room 135 Friday after zombies are released into the room, signaling the commencement of the Humans vs. Zombies fall invitational game.
The gameplay, themed around the cult-hit video game Portal, will summon “test subjects,” which will feature incoming freshmen, out-of-town players and HvZ pros. The test subjects represent the human role in the HvZ battle.
“We have normally around 300 people come out for every game,” said Nat Simonetti, a senior studying geology. “Recently, there’s been somewhere around 400 to 500 depending when the game is. We always have more during the fall game (than the spring).”
Simonetti, a moderator and fourth-year player, said HvZ has a large following on campus of primarily freshmen and sophomores. After those two initial years, it becomes more difficult to fit the game, which never pauses during its play, into an upperclassmen’s schedule.
“A lot of people start playing during their freshmen and sophomore years,” Simonetti said. “But junior year we have a pretty big fallout because people start getting into their harder classes so they don’t have as much time to put into it.”
However, for some, the pros outweigh the cons for returning to the game. During his three years at OU, D.J. Noga, a junior studying meteorology, has played twelve games, 6 in Athens and 6 traveling games/invitationals.
“I just got my first Nerf gun right before college and when I saw there was a group that played with them, I felt that it was a group I might actually fit in with here,” Noga said.
He became a regular player because of the friends he made and the thrill he experienced during the game.
“I’ve made a ton of friends playing this game, and it’s really fun to just run around and be yourself,” Noga said. “When the storyline is good, the paranoia over a week-long period is so exhilarating. You just cannot wait to play another game.”
Taylor Dimmick, a recent OU grad who has been involved in sixteen games, both playing and moderating, said it was the unique Athens HvZ community that kept her coming back.
“The kids that play HvZ make it worth it to me to keep playing, let alone spend months of my personal time and money planning a game for them,” said Dimmick, who studied wildlife and conservation biology. “If you ask other players about some other schools’ communities you'll hear right away how a few jerks can really ruin the game.”
Simonetti said that the invitational is a chance for OU to show off Athens’s slightly different gameplay style. Around 70 players are traveling from the Ohio State University, Ball State University, Bowling Green State University and University of Dayton, he said.
The introduction to the game will begin at 11 p.m. Friday and the game will run missions throughout the day Saturday, ending at 11 p.m.
eb104010@ohiou.edu
FAST FACTS
— The game is meant to imitate the spreading of a virus that would lead to the zombie apocalypse. This is done through a large game of tag.
— A small group of players begin as “zombies”, designated by moderators. A zombie is identified by a bandanna around his/her head or neck. The other players are designated as humans and are indicated by a bandanna around his or her arm.
— The humans aim to stop the spread of the disease by attacking the zombies with Nerf weapons and sock-balls. When a zombie is shot, they are unable to tag anyone for a set time-interval, which varies from day to day.
— If a human is tagged on either arm they will become a zombie.
— Over the course of the game there will be a series of missions, which allow the humans to be targeted by “the hoard,” or cluster of zombies, and band together for gameplay.
— There are special zombies that play by different guidelines and are indicated by green glow sticks.
