Spring Break

Over my Spring Break I had the honor of participating in an event at CU. An event that involves running, dogging, shooting, and killing zombies. The wonderful event I am referring to is the four hour long CU HvZ lock-in. They lock the doors of CU engineering center at 10pm and we play. The game Humans versus Zombies (HvZ) is a LARPing game for the most part. LARPing, for those of you who don't know, is Live Action Roll Playing.

HvZ consists of two teams, humans and zombies. The zombies are identified by bandannas around their head, they get to run around converting humans by tagging them, they just can't be shot by the humans who get to carry as many Nerf guns as they want. Humans are identified by bandannas around their arms, they get to run around and "stun" zombies by blasting them foam darts shot by Nerf guns or by a thrown rolled up sock. Once a zombie has been "stunned" by a human they can't tag other humans until their stun timer is up, which is usually 1-2 minutes. A standard lock-in rings in about 100-150 players. The game starts with two Original Zombies (OZs), from there the zombie hoard slowly grows. The first game typically lasts around two hours running past midnight usually ending around 12:30-1:00am depending on when we actually get to start and what kind of game it is.

This lock-in was especially fun because I got to be one of the secret killers that got to hind in the crowd. My job was to kill other humans by shooting them in the back in which they then became zombies. The people who are controlling the game are called moderators, basically referees. I got asked by the CU mod team to join them last semester and sense I was new no one else new I was a mod making me the perfect secret killer.

The mods were pointed out at the very beginning of the game for any new players who wanted to stay safe. The mods also gave clues as to who the secret killers were among them, every 5 minutes they gave a new clue to nearby players. I was the first killer so they quickly figured that it was me and killed me. The fun twist to the game was that when the players found and killed the secret killers, they became a special kind of zombie called a banshee. Banshees are unique in that they can not be stunned by Nerf darts, they can only be stunned by socks. Once I was killed I got to be a banshee which is identified by a bandanna around the head and by wearing a white lab coat.

Everyone who attended the lock-in agreed that it was one of the best games we had ever done.

That's what my first Friday night of Spring Break was like... the rest was just me at work and sleeping.