Zombies and humans collide at Last Night on Campus

With the success of the Humans vs. Zombies fundraiser, the HVZ group hosted Last Night on Campus, a choose-your-own-adventure game on Friday.

The game itself has been taking place on Utah State University’s campus since fall of 2010.

“The game of HVZ is basically a glorified game of tag,” said Coltin Grover, HVZ president and junior studying psychology. “It’s an infect tag, so one person or a select few start as people that are ‘it.’ And they try and tag as many people as they can, and those people in turn also become ‘it.’ And eventually, everyone starts on one side, and the goal is to try and get everyone on that side to join the other team.”

The people that are not “it” defend themselves with things like sock balls and nerf darts, Grover said.

With the success of the game, the group decided to host a fundraising activity.

“For the fundraiser, it’s basically a choose-your-own storybook put into live action,” Grover said. “There’s a story plot line through the building, and you start at the front desk where you check in. You are given the first bit of your story, and you get to make choices depending on how you want your story to go, and you hope that you survive the night.”

This is HVZ’s second fundraiser event. With a good turnout last year, the group wanted to keep the tradition alive, Grover said.

“This year, we’re raising money for the Cache County Food Pantry and Four Paws Rescue,” said Stephanie Taylor, a junior in family life studies who volunteers with the group.

“We try and pick local causes that will affect the university or the surrounding area,” Grover said. “All of our causes are local. We try to keep it as close to the university as we can.”

Mikaila Young is a member of the presidency as well as a junior in computer science at USU.

“It’s kind of like a video game,” Young said. “You make a choice and commit yourself to ‘Okay. We’re going to go into this room,’ and you don’t know what you’re going to find on the other side.”

Along with the flashcard descriptions of each choice that the groups can make as they go through each room, participants can also use items found in previous rooms.

“There’s tools they can pick up in each of the rooms that they can continue to use throughout the story, and they’re trying to basically escape this town that has been overtaken by zombies,” Taylor said.

Cassandra Collard, a sophomore in biology, went to this fundraiser as well as last year’s. Collard said this year there were more choices and last year’s required participants to win relay races or target shooting and such in order to pass each room, while this year’s was more based on whether or not the right decision was made.

“This one was just all about if you make the right choice or not,” Collard said.

Curtis Burks, a junior in aviation, came to Last Night on Campus this year for the first time.

“I liked all the different choices. That was the trickiest part — knowing what to do and where to go,” Burks said.

The overall event proved an exciting one for those who did attend.

“I love Humans vs. Zombies,” Young said. “It may seem a bit silly to people who have never played it before, but it’s just a great way to relax and make a bunch of friends and really pick up some really valuable skills.”

— sadiejherrera@aggiemail.usu.edu