After a scuffle in the woods followed by a mad dash to the church basement, the fourth annual game of Humans vs. Zombies concluded Tuesday night, crowning Egypt Boyd, a sophomore film production and writing major, as the winning human and Levi Moser, a sophomore environmental science major, as the winning zombie.

“Humans vs. Zombies is definitely one of the most exciting games we have here,” Boyd said.

“It’s a unique college experience,” Levi Moser said. “You get an excuse to talk to people you don’t normally talk to.”

The game started on Thursday, Oct. 23, with the two initial zombies having been chosen as the brothers Levi and Peter Moser, a first-year secondary education and biology major. “It’s been a lot of fun to do it with my brother,” Peter Moser said.

Throughout the game, Henry Meyer, a senior biology major, who ran this year’s edition, sent out daily emails with an update on the story, how many zombies there were, and modifiers for the day. 

“In the past years, it wasn’t as heavy on the story,” Meyer said. “This year, I thought it would be fun to do that. So, I’ve just kind of been making it up off the dome.”

For the first few days, the goal for the humans was to evade the zombies, and the goal of the zombies was to infect the humans. 

“There’s a lot of pressure to stay alive,” Meyer said.

“Last year I was a human, and it was fun, but it was also like you’re living on the edge of your seat,” Levi Moser said. “Now, I don’t have the stress of being a human at all. I just get to run around and tag people.” 

“It takes a lot of teamwork being a zombie,” Peter Moser said. “It’s a fun adventure.”

In previous years, there was a problem with time. “It’s hard to get the length of the game right,” Levi Moser said. 

“I think in past years, it was almost two weeks long,” Meyer said. 

This year, Meyer had a plan to keep the players engaged. Instead of waiting for a small number of humans, which took longer than the players would have liked, he set up the final moments for excitement. “The goal is to get as many humans and zombies in the same place at the same time,” Meyer said. 

His plan paid off — there was a battle between the humans and zombies at Witmer Woods, before it was revealed the mysterious Doc Zombo, creator of the zombie virus and played by Max Estep, a sophomore engineering major, was in his lab in the basement of the Church-Chapel. With him was the cure to the outbreak. “It was unclear who the human winner was in the chaos,” Meyer said.

“I haven’t done any intramurals because of cross country,” Peter Moser said, “but I think this definitely is one of the events that’s easy to participate in. I mean, it’s just kind of happening. It integrates with your life.” 

“I wish we could bring that kind of energy to everything at GC. I wish we could have 50, 60 people show up to every soccer game, every extracurricular that’s offered,” Levi Moser said.

“I love competitive games like this, and the fact that this was campus wide, made it all more exciting,” Boyd said. 

“Next year, I might try and run it Monday to Friday,” Meyer said. “Saturday and Sunday were pretty dead, because nobody’s really on campus.”

“It was kind of cool, now I see all the zombies and it’s like, ‘That was Peter’s and my fault.’ Ah yes, we started this,” Levi Moser said.

“I’m really looking forward to playing again next year,” Peter Moser said.