March 23 will mark the beginning of a war among humans and zombies at WTAMU. WT students will participate in the first game of tag, put on by the Residential Hall Association at WT. Any WT student is allowed to play. However, they must have attended a pre-game meeting before spring break to be allowed in the game.
“Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ) is a game of moderated tag, commonly played on college campuses,” Miguel Sosa, RHA president, said. “Human players must remain vigilant and defend themselves with socks and Nerf guns to avoid being tagged by the growing zombie horde.”
At the beginning of the game, all students will start out as humans, except for one randomly student chosen to be the original zombie. It is his or her job to tag as many humans as possible and convert them into zombies.
“Humans win by surviving and zombies win by turning everyone to zombies,” Sosa said. “Humans survive by outsmarting the zombies and stunning them with their Nerf blasters or socks.”
Humans can either carry an approved Nerf gun or solid white socks to throw at the zombies. If the zombie gets hit by either the Nerf bullets or the sock, they are stunned and unable to attack a human for 15 minutes. The zombie stuns are timed and ends every 15 minutes on the hour, making it easier for the players. This means that if a zombie is hit at 1:05, they must wait only ten minutes until 1:15. The stuns will end exactly on the hour, a quarter after, half after and fifteen till the hour.
“I’m really excited to play,” Steven Scott, freshman Sports and Exercise major, said. “It is going to be intense, since there will be multiple people against you at all times, trying to turn you into zombies.”
Scott is a resident of Guenther Hall and said he wouldn’t buy a large Nerf gun.
“I don’t want to spend too much money, but I feel it’s better to have a smaller gun to make you agile to be able to run better,” Scott said.
All humans and zombies are required to wear a bandana. If they are human, they wear it on their arms and if they are zombies, they wear it around their foreheads.
To tag a human, a zombie gently touches the back of the humans shoulder. After a zombie tags a humans, the zombie must say “Shazaam” to make the tag official. Zombies must “feed” or must not go without tagging a human for at least 48 hours before being disqualified from the game. Once the zombie tags a human, the human will give the zombie his or her unique PIN or number and the zombie must go to the game’s website and report the tag.
Once the game has started, the players may not shoot in the following locations or risk being disqualified: dorm rooms, bathrooms, academic buildings, the library, the Hastings Electronic Learning Center (HELC), Activity Center, the First United Bank Center (FUBC), the Box, the dining hall and the Jack B. Kelley Student Center (JBK).
The game will last five days. The last day to play will be on March 27. There is no grand prize, only the satisfaction of either surviving and remaining human or the satisfaction of unleashing a zombie horde.
