In his column “Zombie attack bad for university image,” Sean Quinn states, “above all else UF is a four-year research institution, focused on educating its students to their fullest potentials.” I would argue this is exactly why alternate reality games like Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ) should have a place on campus.
Students playing HvZ constitute a highly participatory culture. They are students interested in collaborating, communicating, creating and having fun outside the walls of the traditional classroom. UF can be proud that with about 1,000 students, the Gators HvZ group is one of the largest internationally.
Purdue University, another top-ranked institution, is the only school with more players.
HvZ is not a frivolous game of tag. The game lasts multiple days because it involves “missions,” or complex team-based problem-solving tasks.
Missions challenge players to use a variety of skills to complete that require students to synthesize digital, printed and geo-based information.
Furthermore, to survive as humans, students must practice forming affiliations, collaborating within those groups and communicating across groups.
Beyond the players, the moderator team is a highly creative group of UF students who are writing narratives that inspire hundreds of their peers to participate in an intricate performance piece that lasts for days.
In each instance of the game, moderators carefully craft stories with overarching themes, hidden rewards and engaging surprises. In fact, professors from the University of Maryland have interviewed students from our UF iteration of the HvZ game for their research on designing game narratives in alternate reality games.
In his 2006 paper, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture,” MIT’s Henry Jenkins outlined 11 new media literacy skills students will need to succeed in the 21st century. These skills include play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking and negotiation.
I have anecdotally observed UF HvZ players actively engaging in all of these skills at different times during the game. While further research is needed, it is my suspicion a high level of learning and creation is occurring within and around this game.
Maybe a zombie attack is just what UF needs.
Editor's note: This letter refers to this column.
