Preview for HvZ: Academy

Yesterday, I took a trip back to Lafayette Park, which will be the scene of Humans vs. Zombies: Academy on July 13th. "Took a trip" may be a bit misleading, as the park is just up the hill from my apartment. It recently went through a multi-million dollar renovation that took a couple of years to get done (which is purely miraculous in San Francisco, where it can take upwards of five years just to get the permits in  order), so when I got a free moment I hoofed on over and had a gander.

My first thought was that someone had dropped a gold mine in my backyard. On my first pass through, I saw places that could be used as safe zones/storage areas, choke points, open fields, narrow passes, collections of trees and brush and ambush points galore. I felt not that I could host not a game, but games. Tons of them, potentially every week if I had a willing audience (to quote Trevor, I would "need more Super Nerds like us").

Walking around yesterday afternoon, I decided to take a different route than I had the first time around.

When walking along this path, I immediately thought of formation training. In groups large or small, unit cohesion is a major challenge. I thought of a mission where the humans would have to stay and fight along this path en route to a checkpoint, before either returning or proceeding onto a different path. To ensure safety, zombies would have to move out of the way and not block the path when stunned. Once we've done it a couple of times, with the zombies getting a chance to be humans, we'll run it again with only melee weapons. 

These concrete paths criss cross the entire park, with choke points, forks and ambush points along the way

In the middle of the park, on what looks like (or, being a history nerd, am hoping is) an earth mound (Kurgan!), with a flattened out summit, lined with trees and interspersed with picnic tables. I thought of doing both Survival and Break Out types of missions in this summit area. There are a couple of other circular, semi fortified areas in the park where we could do similar missions as well. 

This spot, on the other hand, I plan on using for the final HvZ mission of the day. I want to do a "buddy system" type of mission, where teams of two break out of this grassy area to reach a couple of check points before heading back to safety. The Zombies will be able to stand on the concrete surrounding the grass, but not the grass itself. There are times in the game where you find yourself either completely alone (I hope its not just me) or with just another Human, but this notwithstanding, you still need to survive. Its a situation in the game I've haven't heard too many other folks talk about, so I figure we could give it a try and get some feedback about the experience from the players. 

There are only 8 spots left on the meetup.com listing, which with almost two weeks left before the game is a nice turn out. Since I live so close to the park, Im gonna bring some of my blasters and melees that I almost never bring with me, such as my Stampede, Buzz Bee Range Master (because I still haven't gotten a kill with it), my Axe and Courtney's Zelda sword. I'll definitely be heading back to rack my brain for more concepts and scenarios before the the 13th.