SpudFiles

For 4 straight days last week, me and my friends along with some 30 other people played this f*ckin' awesome game called Humans Vs Zombies. (HvZ)

It got started when someone in my town saw a documentary of it on Comcast OnDemand. The documentary is also on google video here It's a long video but watch it anyway!


Basically you start off with one zombie (Original Zombie, OZ) and a huge team of humans. We played with roughly 30 people, which is small compared to normal numbers.

The original zombie goes around and tries to tag people to make them zombies. Humans can stun zombies for 15 minutes by shooting them with Nerf guns or beating them with socks and sock swords. (Don't ask me why we use socks, it was a rule in the original game that we adopted)

The OZ (Original Zombie) can't die or be stunned until they record at least one kill. (Humans are defenseless until the OZ finally gets someone. Then it's open season.) Whe a human is tagged, they become a zombie after a 30 minute "transformation". Zombies die off after going 48 straight hours without recording a kill.

To make the game more challenging, a mission is created each day which MUST be completed by the humans. If not, they must sacrifice one of their own to the zombie horde. An example of a mission would be escorting a neutral person to a safe location without having that person tagged by a zombie or getting tagged yourself.

Now this may sound ridiculous and stupid, but trust me, this game is insane and can definitely bring some life to the generally boring town you live in.


The game is played mainly with Nerf guns. Some of the more savvy players like me mod their guns. I found though that Nerf guns can be inadequate when engaging zombies at longer range or several at close range. For close range, sock swords are the weapon of choice. So I set out to build a single weapon that could do it all.

I was messing around with ideas for single shot pneumatics until I got frustrated, bored, and picked up a piece of 1/2" PVC and started using it as a Nerf blowgun. To my surprise, it was deadly accurate and more powerful than any Nerf gun. That took care of my long range needs, but what do I do for close range? I decided to construct a sword based around 1/2" PVC so it can also be used as a blowgun.

My first sword turned out great but it was a little too heavy to be used effectively. The weight also made it dangerous. I used 1" PVC fittings to make a handle and 1/2" pipe as the core of the "blade". I wrapped the core in 7/8" foam pipe insulation for safety. I then wrapped it in a sock to conform to the stupid rules.





My second sword came out great too. This time I focused on minimizing the weight and I shortened it to 36" instead of the previous 42". I used 1/2" PVC sleeved in 1/2" copper insulation (TIGHT fit). I then took 1-1/2" x 8" plastic tailpiece (from a sink drain) and fit it around the insulation to make a handle. (Also TIGHT fit) I put a coupling on the 1/2" to form a simple mouthpiece. And of course, I attached socks. I had a Ronin Gear 12 gram CO2 cartridge wrist holder to make a 5 dart quiver.




Seriously, try this. And use a sword/blowgun. It's a great weapon.

Awwww I always wanted to play a game like that just without zombies and olny blowguns I know how well they work I made one but I think this game would be more fun just not enough people around me that would want to play that.

same here, that sounds really fun, but i know from experience that no one in my town would even think about playing a game where you have to follow the rules, and don't get to beat people with sticks...

that sounds soooo freakin awesome. I am definitely playing that. A pneumatic nerf dart sniper for long range shots would definitely be sweet

You could always make a simple single shot pneumatic with a small chamber and a pump like <A HREF="http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... 4">this</A>
mounted below it, that way you can fire, pump, fire again, a person can only blow at about 5psi, so with a little bike pump like the one in the link above, you can definitely make far superior shots, just use a small chamber so that you can pump 10-20 psi a pump. Breech loading and valve choice could also be nice additions, maybe even a bayonet made from a sock on the end. Just a thought.

Actually, people all over play nerf games very similar to this all over. A big online center for this would be NerfHaven, which is basically their SpudFiles. Some of their guns rival our best creations for ingenuity and functionality. A good example would be the BS-9, the first and only magazine (not revolving) fed nerf handgun, and the SCAR-N, an advanced pump action battle rifle made by the same guy. Their longshot mods look pretty slick, too.

Anyway, what they do is they are at war 24/7. And they all carry nerf guns. Some guys recall times when they would sprint from their van to their dorm, clutching an SMG. And they can get you anywhere... Except for class, of course. One clip in a news report shows a guy with a rubber banded night-finder creeping towards a guy in the produce isle. I had a little chuckle at that point.

They play this game at WMU, it's kind of corny but if you have a game where the admins aren't rule paranoid like at WMU its a great game. We had about 200 people and it ran for a week 24/7 although most people only played at night to avoid the akwardness of running around with nerf guns in the middle of classes. I was actually elected to be on their "ZVH Council" but I was the first ver to decline it, since they couldn't agree on anything and most of them hated each other. As for blowguns, you'd be amazed how much range you can get, you can even shoot multiple darts at a time. I'd guess you can get up to 50 feet or more with standard nerf darts.

That sounds like something me and some of my friends are doing. WE are having a marshmallow war with are pneumatics, all we had to do was get regulators for them and regulated them down to 5 psi and they dont hurt and still get good range. we are only doing it for one day but the fun part his one of my friends houses is under construction so we are making brick and wood bunkers

EDIT
Argh sorry. Internet fked up and caused double post.

Thats an awesome game.
Though its hard to organize something like that.

So you are allowed to build your own nerf guns?
With a bunch of PVC, a CO2 tank + reg, and constructing a blow-forward bolt action rifle, I bet you can beat them all.

I used to play a game like this on Halo2 on the XBOX.
Zombies only had swords, but they respawned, while humans had shotguns but they had to join the zombies team as soon as they got hit by one. When all humans turned to zombies, it reversed, and everyone became human again, besides the first human killed that round.

Yeah they perfected that game in Halo 3 and it's now a premade gametype called Infection. It automatically switches teams for players when they are infected.

I'd substitute paintball guns for nerf guns. Other than that it sounds pretty interesting. Good practice for the impending zompocalypse.

psycix wrote: So you are allowed to build your own nerf guns?
With a bunch of PVC, a CO2 tank + reg, and constructing a blow-forward bolt action rifle, I bet you can beat them all.

Who needs a regulator just replace pvc with copper.

jonnyboy wrote:

psycix wrote: So you are allowed to build your own nerf guns?
With a bunch of PVC, a CO2 tank + reg, and constructing a blow-forward bolt action rifle, I bet you can beat them all.

Who needs a regulator just replace pvc with copper.

If you want to embed frozen foam into human bodies, it will be a good option.
But since its just about hitting, conserving CO2 (dropping pressure with a regulator) for more shots will be better.

plus the darts just get ripped apart with more than 80psi in a small pvc coax