When hearing the word invitational, what often comes to mind for most people is an invitational meant for common sporting events, but for SRU, the upcoming invitational to be held tomorrow is one of a different kind.
SRU will be hosting its first Human vs. Zombies (HvZ) invitational, where students from all different campuses will come together and play a large-scale version of the game.
According to senior political science major Becky Soloman, extensive planning was needed for this invitational to be a success.
“It’s a big project,” Soloman said. “We spent all summer on Skype and Facebook planning a story line for the invitational. We had to modify the rules of the game since other schools will be here for safety issues, and also we had to set up housing for them to stay in.”
Soloman, 22, is the Urban Gaming Club president. She said her job is to make sure everything runs smoothly, from normal HvZ games, to planning big invitationals like this upcoming one.
“It runs all day, 12 hours straight,” Soloman said. “That’s almost two weeks of game play all put into one day.”
Ryan Noblet, a junior Emerging Tech and Multimedia major, is also a moderator for the Fall 2012 Invitational.
Noblet, 20, elaborated on what goes into planning for the Invitational and what schools are expected to attend.
“We planned for three months of summer creating missions, graphic designing for player identification cards and advertisements, and ironing out rules,” Noblet explained. “Even once we returned to school, the moderators had to spend time creating cardboard box props, writing lengthy journal entries and scripts, finding actors to play “Non-Player Characters” and of course, inviting the other schools who are going to participate. Currently, there are three schools confirmed. Slippery Rock, Penn State, and Youngstown State.”
Being that this is SRU’s first HvZ Invitational, Noblet said that it is very anticipated by the students that are involved in the organization.
“Total player estimates have been between 150 and 300, while our SRU-only games have between 75 and 100 players per semester,” Noblet said. “The Invitational is easily going to be the biggest game of HvZ in campus history, and with what we have planned, it will probably be the best of all of them, too.”
