A Game of Zombie Tag Took Hold at Ole Miss (ONLINE VERSION)

(ONLINE VERSION)

From April 5 to April 12, zombies roamed free on the Ole Miss campus, while humans bearing Nerf guns tried to stop their invasion.

An elaborate game of tag called Humans versus Zombies has taken hold in many universities in the U.S. and has spread to six continents. The Ole Miss game was registered to have 184 students actively playing on the game’s official website.

To play, humans used Nerf guns to stun the zombies for 15 minutes of inactivity, while a tag from a zombie would turn the human into a fellow zombie. The conversion would be registered by the original zombie on the website dedicated to the Ole Miss game, OleMiss.HvZSource.com

Tyler Penny, an Ole Miss student who survived as a human until the last night, spoke of the extreme lengths some went while playing.

“Humans could tag zombies with either thrown socks or nerf blasters, some people even went to lengths of using marshmallows.” Penny said.

By the end of the week, only three players remained human of the 184 originally registered. The rules state that if any humans are left, the zombies lose and the humans will have won the game. This was the case for the Ole Miss campus, which is a less common outcome for the zombies to be defeated.

Jackson Fitzgerald, a zombie in the game, knew the details as to the origin of the game and how far it has spread in only a few years.

"The game had originated in Goucher College in Baltimore, but by only a few people... Now over 600 colleges have had games on their campuses and it has been in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and England that I know of," Fitzgerald said.

For more information, you may visit the full print version at the website http://jour102.blogspot.com/2011/04/game-of-zombie-tag-took-hold-at-ole.html

The official website Humansvszombies.org can be visited to buy merchandise, view the rules of the game, and the mission statements.

OleMiss.HvZSource.com is the web address to view the results and personal messages written to students and participants specifically for the Ole Miss game.

View this video for more information:

2007 Humans vs. Zombies Documentary from HvZ Source on Vimeo.

Photo in heading courtesy of Humansvszombies.org