Posted by Brad Morris The zombie apocalypse has come. OK, not really. On Apr. 13, the college began playing the campus-wide game of tag, "Humans vs. Zombies." The game will last four days and ends on April 16.
The game has several rules: humans must wear headbands around their arm to signify this status, while zombies must wear headbands around their heads; the zombies feed on the humans by tagging them; if a human is tagged, he or she becomes a zombie, and the zombie rules now apply to her or him.
To fight off the zombies and protect themselves, humans can stun zombies with a shot from a Nerf gun. Students who do not have Nerf guns can throw a sock at a zombie instead. Melissa Philley ‘13, a coordinator of the game, said if you do not want to lose a sock, you can simply run.
On Tues Apr. 5, Philley promoted the event in the dining hall atrium with Graham Dawson '13 and Sam Gunther '13, who helped advertise the game around campus. They were prepared with Nerf guns, bandanas and a cardboard cutout dubbed "Pressure-Point Pete."
All three were styled in Humans vs. Zombies surgical masks. "We signed up about 40 people. It was pretty successful considering we were only advertising for a few hours," Philley said.
Human vs. Zombies was created at Skidmore, but at Goucher College in 2005 by students Brad Sappington and Chris Weed. After hearing about the game, Philley and Charlotte Levy ‘13 decided to try to bring the game to Skidmore.
"It just [felt] natural [to do this]," Philley said. "We've been doing ‘Nerf Wars' since freshmen year so it sort of progressed from there," Levy said.
The process for setting up the game took the coordinators and helpers most of the year. They originally set up a booth at the club fair fall semester "to see how many people were interested," said Philley. After a great number of students expressed interest, they decided to progress their idea by contacting the sophomore class President Emilee Bell to set up event.
When discussing the process for setting up Humans vs. Zombies,
"We've been doing it in bits and pieces [since the fall]. The Humans vs. Zombies website is a big help in terms of registering and keeping track of the participants. The rest of the process is mostly scheduling," said Philley.
On Apr. 9, Philley said around 180 people had signed up for Humans vs. Zombies. By Apr. 1, the number increased to over 200 participants. Philley said this number "is well within the range of how many people we expected to sign up."
Participants are enthusiastic about the event. Dawson, who is participating in the game, said, "I am finally excited to live out my dream to survive and fight through the zombie apocalypse."