What’s this Humans vs. Zombies jimmyjam?

Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ) is a game of moderated tag commonly played on college campuses. A group of human players attempts to survive a “zombie outbreak” by outsmarting a growing group of zombie players. HvZ Source is a company started by the friends who invented the game. Our mission is to spread the game as far and wide as we can by offering awesome services and free game hosting.

Who are you mysterious people?

We’re college students and professionals who think that play is part of adulthood. We live in Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Texas, and our game is played at hundreds of colleges across the country, as well as Denmark, Brazil, Korea, Australia, England, and Canada.

Ok, now how do I play?

Easy – start your own game! To do that, we suggest you head over to the Game Guide. You might also want to check out the rule sets on the Multimedia page to see other ways that people play Humans vs. Zombies.

Humans vs. Zombies was invented in 2005 by Brad Sappington and Chris Weed at Goucher College. The game spread virally across the internet as hundreds of Goucher students posted Flickr photos and YouTube Videos, and told their friends from home about the game. Today, HvZ is played at over 200 colleges and universities across the country, as well as high schools, military bases, summer camps, and public libraries.

Goucher College is the only school in America that requires study abroad as a graduation requirement. As a result, Goucher students have spread word of the Humans vs. Zombies game all over the world. We now host games in foreign countries such as Brazil, Denmark, Australia, England, Canada. We work with students in those countries to translate the rules into their languages.

In 2007, we made a documentary about the game at Goucher which inspired students to start the game at their own schools:

The game has been profiled by the Associated Press, the Washington Post, The Boston Globe, ESPN Magazine, and a whole lot of college papers. Steven Colbert named “Humans vs. Zombies” the number-one threat to America in the “Threat Down.”

We launched the first Humans vs. Zombies website in the summer of 2006 to ensure equal access to the official rules and source code, and to offer resources to students looking to start games at their schools. Since then, we have incorporated as a gaming company (Gnarwhal Studios) to protect the legal rights of Humans vs. Zombies so that the game will always be free to play and we will always be free to play it.