Planning Your Game

One thing that's certain about running a game of Humans vs. Zombies is that it will never turn out how you expect, no matter how much planning you do.

That being said, if you don't carefully plan and script each day of your game, it will quickly spiral out of control, and your players will grow bored and frustrated.

In this section, we'll give you some tips for planning your game in advance - making a calendar and scripting events will allow you to plan out the length of the game and keep the human players terrified, outdoors and busy.

What's the Big Picture?

We think that Humans vs. Zombies is most fun when the zombies win. Not only is this the dark, satisfying ending to the typical zombie story, but when this happens, all of the players (even the very last human) end up on the same team - the winning team. It's a great, feel-good moment for the end of the game.

Most games of HvZ put the humans through hell to give the zombies an advantage. That being said, we always like to give the humans a fighting chance and in the rarest of circumstance, the humans last out and win. That's always fine, as long as the humans earn it.

How do you want to plan your game? What's the "story" of the game that you want to see? What's the big picture?

Step 3: Plan Your Missions

Missions are activities assigned to humans. Planning intricate missions makes the game more fun and more intense, and they prevent the humans from "camping" in their rooms for hours and days at a time.

This gives the zombies more opportunities to feast on human flesh.

Missions can consist of any task you can think of - some schools put the humans to work cleaning up trash (fill a bag of "radioactive debris") and other schools make their humans move from place to place gathering clues to a puzzle.

Each mission should have a reward for completion, and a penalty for not showing up or for failure. Thinking of these rewards and penalties is one of the most creatively difficult tasks for the mods. Depending on the mission, you may or may not want to tell the humans about the rewards and penalties in advance.

Here's a list of the mission "archetypes" that are used in HvZ, written by Goucher mod Trevor "Perry" Moorman:

Defend/Secure Location
Humans must keep a person/item in a particular area for a certain time period.

Item/Object Retrieval
Humans must find object and bring it back to set destination by deadline.

Assassination
Humans must kill a particular zombie set by mods.

Puzzle
Humans must complete a puzzle given by mods.

Escort
Humans must move a person through a set path.
Path may be marked by checkpoints that must be interacted with by escorted person.

Obviously missions will work best if they are customized for your school. Planning missions is one of the most fun and creative things you get to do as moderator, and it's also really fun to see what kind of loopholes and twists the players find to use.

"Once we planned a mission where the humans had to rescue a target who we described in an e-mail as, 'the man in the red shirt.

In between the time we sent the e-mail and the humans went to the mission, the zombies tagged a human who leaked information about the mission. The zombies arrived at the mission early and hid. To confuse the humans, they dressed a zombie up in a red shirt and red bandana, and had him wait as a decoy for the humans.

When the humans arrived, they went to rescue the zombie decoy before the REAL 'man in the red shirt' ever arrived. The zombies got a huge advantage in that battle from their man behind the human lines." - Goucher mod Max Temkin

Zombie Missions

One twist on the mission system is to assign missions to the zombie hoard. This is great for team building, and will keep the zombies occupied and busy.

Some moderators cleverly assign zombie missions to keep the zombies busy while the humans do something else.

Sometimes, human and zombie missions happen simultaneously (without either side knowing that the other has a mission happening) and both end in the same place - leading to a great surprise battle for the players!

A Note About Information Control

When planning missions, always remember that the zombies will have opportunities to get intelligence on human missions by tagging a human. No matter how hard you try, humans will be tagged and they will immediately "switch sides" by helping the zombies.

Account for this in your mission planning. Some schools give mission information out at the last minute, to give the zombies as little chance as possible get the scoop.

Game Length + Starting Time

When are you going to start your game, and how long do you want it to last?

We suggest starting your game on a Wednesday and planning for five to seven days of game play.

The first two days are often the most quiet, and will build in intensity to Friday night and the weekend, which is an opportunity for total intense chaos.

By the time Monday rolls around, you want your game to be winding down, and your missions to be ending.

This will give your players the most game time, and create the fewest disruptions for your school.

Step 4: Making a Calendar

Create a detailed calendar that charts your game from beginning to end.

Start a few days before your game begins, and plan time to gather all your players in a meeting (or series of meetings) to explain the game and go over the rules. Since this is your first game, these meetings are especially important.

Then, look at the span of the game and decide which days you will have major events, such as missions, plot events, and changes to game mechanics.

Missions work best after classes and on weekends when everyone can participate. Remember, the overall goal of missions is to get the humans out of hiding, so the zombies can eat them. Anticipate quiet times when the humans would hole up and make a mission to keep the game exciting.

We suggest having no planned missions for the first two days. This will give the Original Zombie (O.Z.) plenty of time to play mind games with the players and strike quietly. It will also create an atmosphere of unbelievable tension - nothing is more terrifying to the humans than waiting for something to happen.

As the game goes on, only the most skilled human players will survive. This will make life very difficult for the zombies. Create more and more difficult and intense missions for the humans, to even the playing field for the zombies. The humans will surprise you - give them a seemingly impossible task and they will rise to the occasion.

Most schools have missions that increase in difficulty and intensity for three or four days, and then let the game resolve by itself. This will allow the game to simmer down, and keep your players from getting burned out. Remember to always leave them wanting more - not feeling like they had too much.

Next: Writing a Plot