The Urban Games League, a Ball State recreational gaming group, kicked off their bi-annual Humans vs. Zombies event Oct. 14. The five-day event ends at 10:30 p.m. Oct. 18.
HVZ is played at over 600 college campuses across the United States, and there are 140 students registered for BSU’s game. UGL's website keeps track of how many humans and zombies there are at any given time; as of print time there were 61 zombies and 81 humans.
All players are marked with a green bandana that represents which side they are on. A bandana on a players arm represents a human, and people with one wrapped around the head are zombies. Moderators are at every mission to enforce the rules, settle disputes and provide first aid if needed. They are marked with a white bandana.
Humans are armed with Nerf guns, foam swords and balled up socks to fend off zombies that try to tag them. Zombies that are hit get stunned, rendering them useless for a short amount of time.
But what do participants like most about Humans vs. Zombies?
Zombie Ambush
Burton Fisher, junior stage management and sound engineering major
“[A zombie] was hiding out in Bracken, then a human came through the back side near the University Green and so the zombie calls his friends and 30 people show up for one human. It was amazing and that human almost peed themselves because there was a crowd of zombies for just one person. It was fantastic.”
“Get him!”
Tyler Lhamon, senior criminal justice and criminology major
“Last year in the spring, I was running away from a bunch of zombies. I was running back to Elliot Hall from the CAP building and I got tired and my friends who are better runners than I managed to leave me so I went and hid in some bushes ... I got halfway across the parking lot south of the Atrium and I look over and there are about 30 zombies and I hear someone scream, “Get him!” So I take off running as fast as I run — which is more of a jog at best — so I run in between the Teachers College and the Applied Technology building, and I turn around to fight and luckily only six zombies actually followed me. They came at me one at a time and I managed to kill every one of them but I also wasted every single dart that I had, so I had to hurry up and get back to my hall. So that was pretty exciting.”
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Characters
Kayla Jones, sophomore theater education major
“There are some characters out there, people get really hyped and super crazy and dressed up for this. Just be prepared to see anything, and the unexpected isn’t so unexpected anymore.”
Tree man comes across drugs
Jules Patalita, senior telecommunications major
“I was playing ... another [non-playing character] in a game, and I was walking back to try and help out with the briefing to help everyone get back on schedule. As I was walking past, I was in a Ghillie Suit, like the big tree-looking things that snipers wear. I was walking in one of those and I run into kind of sorority-looking girls walking and it turned out they were waiting for an ambulance to come up because one of them had been mixing marijuana edibles and anti-depressants, so she is having that time of her night and this giant tree man walks up and offers to help them out.”
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