Humans vs. Zombies

HvZSOURCE Squads!

Joe — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:29:19 +0000

On behalf of everyone here at Gnarwhal Studios I am very pleased to announce the release of HvZSOURCE Squads.

For $5, you get the ability to:

Create a squad in any game you play in.
Name your squad and give it a unique avatar.
Create custom ranks for your squad-mates that will be displayed below their name in the player list.
Create a hierarchy and decide who will take over as squad leader if you are tagged.
Keep sensitive information private with the chat box on your squad page
Receive mission information from moderators or calls for help from fellow players with a squad inbox.

You can read more about it here. If you have any questions or comments you can always reach us at contact@humansvszombies.org. As always, have a great game.

Chris Weed
President Gnarwhal Studios

P.S. Humans vs. Zombies, as per our mission statement, will always be free to play. You will never need to pay anything in order to play HvZ. Features like Squads help us improve the software for everyone.

New Sponsorship Policy

Joe — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:28:31 +0000

Our mission is to keep HvZ free to play. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always mean that HvZ is free to organize. Putting on the best possible game for your players can be costly. Not every game has access to school funding and donations can’t always cover all of your costs. Some schools have inventively begun seeking outside sponsorship to solve this problem. However, negotiating one of these deals can be even more daunting than organizing the game itself. Our new sponsorship policy hopes to eventually make this process easier.

We are beginning to work on the national scale to offer optional sponsorships for games that need help covering their costs. To be clear, at no point in the future will any HvZ game be required to participate (we will not force you to run a game of “HvZ brought to you by the Shake Weight®”). This will always be optional – and hopefully a useful tool for a lot of you.

The first step in this process is to make an inventory of past and current sponsorships. This will help us to negotiate future sponsorships and to get a sense of what has and hasn’t worked. Our new sponsorship policy asks that any future game of HvZ notify us if they are participating in a sponsorship. We just want to know how it went, we won’t ask you to change anything unless (1) you’re receiving way more money than it costs to run your game or (2) you’re associating with a sponsor that hurts the reputation of HvZ. For example, we don’t want you accepting sponsorships from the Westboro Baptist Church.

And it should go without saying, but if you want nothing to do with any of this sponsorship nonsense that’s perfectly fine. You will have our blessing as you champion the DIY spirit HvZ was built with.

Thanks, Cweed

The Escapist Expo to be Overrun by Zombies (September 14th-17th Durham, NC)

Joe — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:56:23 +0000

And there’s nothing you can do to stop it! Unless, of course, you can dust off your trusty dart blaster and make your way to the expo.

We’re running a full fledged weekend long game of Humans vs. Zombies throughout the entire convention space. You’ll have to watch your back and trust your fellow players as you make your way between booths and panels. To start playing all you have to do is stop by our booth. So come join us for some zombie killing, brain eating fun.

And here is all the information you’ll need to plan your trip to The Escapist Expo.

See you there!

This year at Gencon we will be hosting the world premiere of our new game: Cards vs. Zombies

Joe — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:45:11 +0000

August 16th-19th, Indianapolis, IN – Sign up today!

Cards vs. Zombies is a new game we created specifically for Gencon. It’s heavily inspired by Humans vs. Zombies and designed to be played in the middle of a huge convention. Players will work together to survive against the zombie menace using card ammunition (conveniently given out by our booth). Once turned into a zombie, players will prowl the convention looking for fresh meat and new teammates.

You can read the detailed rules here. And you can sign up for Gencon here.

We hope to see you there!

We can run your team building and corporate events!

Joe — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:04:57 +0000

There really is nothing that we’re better at than running and organizing games of HvZ! We’ve personally set up games at colleges, conventions, festivals, and even offices. Our team of experienced moderators will work with your organization to deeply understand your needs, and create a custom game Humans vs. Zombies just for you. We can arrange HvZ events to suit your needs, whether that’s a week-long adventure or just a few hours or intense fun. HvZ works great in parks, and can even be set up indoors. All that we require is enough room for people to be able to run around, throw balled up socks at one another (or shoot foam dart blasters), and lose themselves in the experience.

If you’d like to find out more information, please head over to our corporate and team building page or shoot us off an email!

Goodbye to an Old Friend

Joe — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:23:18 +0000

Dear HvZ Community,
Over the last couple of years we’ve been working incredibly hard to come out with a suitable replacement for the KarlvsZombies software. Now that the new HvZSOURCE is ending it’s beta, we’d like to finally announce that we’re finally decommissioning the KarlvsZombies (KvZ) game engine. Between now and January 1, all KvZ game sites will be archived and removed from our servers. Please don’t fret, if you’d like to still use KvZ or continue contributing to the open source project, you can checkout the code base on our GitHub page. You’ll just need to run it on your own server.

One night in late 2006, our dear friend Karl Tata wrote the original code. Because of this lone wolf, we’ve been able to host hundreds (maybe thousands) of your game sites. Karl has done more for the HvZ community than he probably even knows. Now, it is time that we say good night to this beloved software.

Sail onto Valhalla! Sail on Sweet Prince!

Love and Peace,
Gnarwhal Studios and the HvZ Team

Humans vs. Zombies stands with the students of UC Davis

admin — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:04:21 +0000

We are outraged at the police brutality which occurred on the UC Davis campus when the administration ordered the use of police violence against peaceful protestors.

Humans vs. Zombies is played at hundreds of schools across the country including UC Davis, but it can only exist in spaces where players are not threatened by violence.

As players, we work closely with school administrations to make sure that HvZ is played respectfully and peacefully. It betrays our trust when school administrators fail to extend that same respect to the students they are supposed to protect.

We are working with student organizers to assess the safety the UC Davis Humans vs. Zombies game, and we stand in solidarity with the students of UC Davis.

As all Humans vs. Zombies players know, we are stronger when we work together. It’s up to all of us to educate one another about what happened at UC Davis, to keep each other safe, and to respond to this kind of violence by holding perpetrators responsible.

HvZ The Movie Party Contest

Joe — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 03:01:44 +0000

Humans Vs Zombies The Movie is coming out next month and the movie crew wants to get the word out by hosting free end-of-game parties for selected schools.

WE ARE NOT ACCEPTING ANY NEW ENTRIES! THANKS TO EVERYONE THAT ENTERED THE CONTEST!

It’s our job to select the schools, so we’re having a drawing. Any school is eligible that will have a game starting before Nov. 5th.

To enter the contest, just set up your game and click the entry box before Oct 25th. and your school will be instantly entered to win a zombie party! Winners will be Notified before Nov. 5th

So whats so special about a zombie party?

Free food and drink (no brains served to humans)
$500 to spend on HvZ merch for your players (That badass hoodie can finally be yours just in time for fall)
Free HvZ the movie swag (movie posters/hats/t-shirts)
Appearance at the party by cast member Christine Quinn (currently in the movie Shark Night 3D)
Christine will also select a group of players at random and invite them to be her guest at the local theater to watch HvZ the movie. Boosh, free tickets with the talent.

So whats keeping you? Go set up a game of HvZ at your school!

EDIT: We just notified our three finalists! Over the next week, we’ll be chosen one of the three. This decision is based on which theater confirms first. Thanks to everyone for submitting!

Official HvZ Dart Blaster!

Joe — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:55:21 +0000

Hey Humans vs Zombies Community, Guess what?

We have teamed up with Toys“R”Us to release Official HvZ blasters!

That’s right, as in actual things you can go to a store and buy. HvZ now has its own official blaster line, and you can only get it at Toys“R” Us stores and online at Toysrus.com!

We know! It’s really exciting. We have had a hard time keeping this secret, but we can finally scream it from the tallest mountains. They are still making their way to many stores, so if you can’t find them near you, they should be arriving shortly.

We will be posting more details in the next week or two. We just wanted you to hear it from us first.

The New HvZ SOURCE Is Here

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:10:33 +0000

We are extremely excited to make the brand new HvZ SOURCE available today. We’ve worked really hard for a very long time to make this and provide it for free.

We’ve given SOURCE a much-needed facelift and added a ton of new features. This version of SOURCE will make it easier than ever before to host and play Humans vs. Zombies.

HvZ SOURCE – 100% new, 100% free, 100% here. Sign up now or discuss this on the forums.