BRRRAAAIIINNSS! Zombie game infects UGA campus

RENEE AYLWORTH

Kyle Mackey, 20, a chemistry major from Dublin, keeps watch for zombies outside of Payne Hall. Humans in the game wear bandanas on their arms while zombies where them around their head or neck. Roll

If you choose to wear a bandanna this week, beware of the zombies.

This week, more than 1,000 students are playing a University-wide game of tag called Humans vs. Zombies.

Players wear bandannas to identify themselves – humans wear the bandannas on their arms, zombies on their heads or necks.

The game began at sunrise on Monday and will end at sundown on Friday. Zombies can “bite” humans and turn them into zombies by tagging them with both arms. Humans can defend themselves with NERF guns, rolled-up socks or more creative defenses such as silly string and marshmallows, stunning the zombie so it can’t attack for 15 minutes.

The game has been played at other colleges and universities across the country, starting with Goucher College in 2005.

Adrienne Schwartzman, a freshman environmental engineering major from Suwanee, decided to start a game of Humans vs. Zombies at the University after hearing about the game from a friend at Georgia College and State University.

“I thought, like, ‘That’s a really cool idea,’ and I immediately got on Facebook and made a group, and I invited all of my friends from UGA . within two days, there were already like 500 people on the group,” she said. “I think it hit 1,000 maybe after like four or five days, maybe even less than that, but it’s 2,500 right now.”

The group is now being used to report zombie sightings.

“People are posting up their zombie sightings all over campus,” said Tyler Gagat, a co-organizer of the group and a freshman from Marietta. “And so there’s, you know, ‘Two zombies ambushing outside the [Miller Learning Center], one wearing blue bandanna, one wearing red bandanna. Beware!’ And there’s almost like 30 or 40 posts of that already this morning, so people are keeping everybody’s backs covered, trying to let the resistance win, I guess.”

In addition to the Facebook group, the University’s game has an official Web site, uga.hvzsource.com, where players can register. They will then get an identification number that they can use to keep track of “kills.”

Despite the competitive nature of the game, Schwartzman said it has brought people together.

“What I really love about it is that you have an opportunity to meet people that you normally wouldn’t through it,” she said. “I’ve met so many people already that I probably wouldn’t normally have met otherwise – people of different majors, different grades, people that live off campus, because I’m a freshman.”

The game began with 10 zombies on Monday morning. Their objective: to win by turning all the humans into zombies by Friday. If there is one survives, the humans will win.

The game can only be played on campus and only outside. Dorms, dining halls, classes and all other buildings are off-limits.

The strategy of the game changed slightly when the organizers contacted the University police and were told they could not use NERF guns on campus for the game.

“They’ve got pretty much every possible excuse you can come up with covered,” Gagat said. “They’re very strict about that.”

University Police Chief Jimmy Williamson said he worried the game would disrupt classes, the NERF guns would be mistaken for real guns or the game could lead to injuries.

“Under the policy and the law, anything that shoots a projectile, a piece of foam, anything, is prohibited,” he said. “It could be a straw and a spitball.”

Williamson said he would not arrest anyone for carrying a NERF gun, but wanted to discourage the game.

“Over the years, there’s been different games. There was one called Spies and Assassins,” he said. “I just think college students are beyond game playing. This is an academic environment.”

But students have enjoyed the game, even without the NERF guns.

“The game has been fantastic,” said Phillip Nowicki, a senior biology major from Franklin.

“You see people all over campus who are wearing bandannas on their head or arms. I’ve talked to a lot of people who are playing and it gives you something to talk about. There is a massive amount of paranoia that is associated in the game. You walk around campus looking over your shoulder and just take off running the other direction when you see a zombie. It’s been the most fun I’ve had in a while.”