Humans vs. Zombies is a game of moderated tag commonly played on college campuses. A group of human players attempts to survive a "zombie outbreak" by not being tagged by a growing group of zombie players.

This site is a resource for people hoping to start an HVZ game.

 

 
 

 

Rules
These are the official "Goucher-Style" Humans vs. Zombies rules as invented by Brad Sappington and Chris Weed of Goucher College in 2006, with a few changes since to make the game more balanced and safe.
Source
Using a web interface to track tags and players is the key gameplay mechanic of Humans vs. Zombies. This free source code (written by Karl Tata) is used by Goucher College students and requires a server with PHP and PostgreSQL.
(Please Note: This script will require modification to work for your game. Some PHP/HTML skills are required. We suggest paying off a C.S. kid to help you - that's what we did.)
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
(Don't sell it, give credit to us if you host it, and share it the same as we do.)
Movie
This documentary follows the events of the fourth Humans vs. Zombies game at Goucher College. It includes a tutorial on the rules, footage of gameplay, and interviews with the original creators and players of Humans vs. Zombies.
Community

Coming Soon! These resources will put you in touch with the HVZ community so that you can get help starting a game at your school, get updates on other schools, and see what's new in the world of zombies.

 

7/25/07 - Threads on SomethingAwful and MetaFilter.

7/21/07 - Goucher president Sanford Ungar defends the zombie game.

7/1/07 - Hosting donated by WebFeats Design, the best web design in the Northern Hemisphere.

6/28/07 - Site Launch, source code hosted on open internet for first time.

6/22/07 - "Humans vs. Zombies" documentary posted to Digg.

Humans vs. Zombies was invented in 2005 by Brad Sappington and Chris Weed at Goucher College.

It is now played by about 150 students at Goucher (a school of 1,300).

In 2006 and 2007, HVZ began to spread to other schools, and is now played at the University of Pittsburgh, Cornell, NIU, UMass, Wesleyan, Whitman, University of Illinois, and many other colleges and high schools across the country.

National Zombie Day was created by Brandon Mendelson of SUNY Potsdam to help promote the game, and today, it marks a common starting date for many schools' HVZ games.

This page was created in the summer of 2007 to ensure equal access to the official rules and source code


 
 

 



HVZ Source code by Karl Tata.
Documentary ©2007 Max Temkin.
Hosting donated by WebFeats Design.
Web design and logo by Maxistentialism.
"Humans vs. Zombies" rules, logo ©2007 Chris Weed.
Please send any comments or questions to the webmaster.