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On campus in college played humans vs zombies frequently. It's one of the most fun sports I've ever played. The magic really came from two directions. The first
by Taek 12y ago
On campus in college played humans vs zombies frequently. It's one of the most fun sports I've ever played. The magic really came from two directions. The first was being a human, where you've got a nerf blaster that fires nerf darts. If you hit a zombie, they are frozen for a few seconds, usually between 6 and 15. A decent human could manage 5-on-1 attacks. Its a blast to be charged by 5 opponents and to come out on top. But you only had one life.
As a zombie, the fun came from having unlimited lives. You grab 2-5 friends and you charge a group of humans. And then you spend minutes wearing them down, taking their ammo, waiting for a mistake. Occasionally you'd dodge a shot or two and then you'd be close enough to tag them. It's very rewarding when you finally do get the human, because they are so much stronger than you. The infinite lives means you don't get discouraged, and it also means its okay to make risky attacks.
This game looks like fun, but a few mechanics worry me. The first is dying. If your opponent is a lot better than you, can you have fun? How long do you stay dead? You are almost certain to have interactions that you aren't prepared for, or you drop your phone, or some set of frustrations happen. Is the game built to prevent frustration?
The second is that having to hold your phone with two hands seems really clunky. In HvZ, the (for many players anyway) blaster is everything. It has to feel good in your hands, you have to trust it, you have to be able to sprint while firing. You can't sprint and aim with two hands. If you stumble, having two hands out means you have nothing to help you hit the ground smoothly. You can't grab a tree and use it to turn faster. You can drop a nerf blaster because they are tough and cost $5-$20 for the small ones. You can't drop your phone unless you really trust the case. You have to be a lot more careful, and you have to trust your grip. Phones don't have handholds the same way that blasters do.
Cool idea, but not excited by the current demo video.
- archon 12y ago> where you've got a nerf blaster that fires nerf darts. I'm surprised your college let you guys get away with this. Mine included nerf guns in the campus 'zero tolerance' weapons policy.
- Taek 12y agoThe guy who started the club was very proactive about talking to the administration. I think that nerf blasters (we were not allowed to call them guns, they are "blasters") were originally allowed by campus policy, which made things easier. But there were many strict rules. No black, no silver, had to be a brightly colored "blaster" firing brightly colored ammo. No playing in the streets, no interacting with non-players. We were very aggressive about complying with the administration. Any request was immediately honored, and if it was unfair we'd request a change in policy on a later day. We were very diplomatic and worked very hard to be on the good side of the administration. I think this helped a lot. I'm not sure how that would scale to a city. Trying to be compliant with many police forces in different residential areas sounds a lot harder than trying to be compliant with a single college campus administration. Especially because it's a lot harder to enforce a diplomatic attitude among thousands of random players than it is among 50 people who are all either friends, or friends of friends.