Thursday, October 29, 2009

How to Host a . . . Zombie Massacre!

[Just looking for the files to download? Find them here.]

What it is:

Zombie Massacre is basically a round-based excuse to use Nerf guns, play tag, and violently mime brain-consumption.


Atmosphere/Setup:


Lesson learned from the spy game: people don't like to read. As a consequence, I decided to make the atmosphere for this game optional. We used the "Radio" mp3's (available in the files), interspersed with the Halloween music playing at the party. It is important the "radio" files play in order though.

Fundamentally the background is simple: There have been recent outbreaks of "rabies" around the country, but they're small and isolated - no one is really paying them any mind. The military and public are treating it something like they did with swine flu, and industry is already taking advantage of the situation. There have been no local outbreaks in [Your Town Here]*, but the evening is still young.


How it works
:

The game is pretty simple, primarily inspired by Humans vs. Zombies. See the Rules section for elaboration.

1. Prior to the game, people draw tokens to decide who will be human, and who will be "seed" zombies. Humans also have one person they're trying to protect, and one person they're trying to get killed. (I made tokens, but strips of paper from a hat will do fine too).


2. Humans can only attack zombies with Nerf weapons, and zombies one-hand tag their victims. After "consumption", humans become zombies. Killed zombies shamble back to a "spawn point" before attacking again.

3. Game is 30 minutes long, split into 5 min rounds. Between rounds there is a safe-time when Zombies have to all go to their spawn, and humans go to the "radio room" with supplies and a computer to play the "military clips." Limited ammo and weapons are distributed then. I used a whistle to denominate the end of rounds.

5. I'm toying with the idea of a points scoring system, and will include notes in the files, but for now we're leaving it out.

[See Game Management below for more details].


Rules:

All:

- Try to keep track of ammo, I need to reuse it all night so if you can pick it up and return it to me or your respective “safe zone” please, please, do.


Humans:


- Don’t spend more than 10sec outside or you risk alerting the hordes!*

- Munitions are zombie specific, they don’t work on humans! Find another way to take out your target.

- After the repellent tone, make your way to the radio room quickly. Zombies can’t bite you then, but you *MUST* go to the room post-haste.

- If you get one hand tagged by a zombie you’re out. Follow them where they take you and they’ll give you more instructions. During the eating though - ham it up! Hand the zombie your death token afterwards - I want to see who is the best at the eating ;-).


Zombies:

- You’re a zombie, act like it!

- No running, keep to a shamble. You can lunge if they’re in range, but limit it to a “basketball move”

- One hand tag. Once you tag them though, ham it up! Eat them loudly! Then take them to the respawn point and share the zombie rules [you don’t have to shamble for this].

- When the repellent tone sounds, head to the respawn point. Drop everything you’re doing to get there. If you’re eating someone, bring them with you.Wait till I come down to release you before heading out again.

- If you get “shot,” you have to touch the respawn point before heading out again [you can run once you’re out, but once you tag back in you have to shamble again].


Game Management:
(Things to do during the game)

- Play "repellent sound" (whistle) every 5 minutes
- Hand out weapons/ammo using the attached schedule. See the excel spreadsheet in the files.


* We played at a friend's house, but wanted to limit outdoors mobility. Revise this rule as appropriate for your play-space.
** Since this is the first test-run, I'm playing ammo and weaponry by ear. It should, however, be very limited. This isn't Left4Dead - humans should mostly be running.
*** Additional notes about pre-game setup and such can be found in the files.

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