Survive Raleigh VI-Spring Edition kicked off Saturday at the court in front of Talley Student Union where participants tried their best to survive a zombie outbreak.
Survive Raleigh is a game of tag with two types of players: zombies and humans. The humans must wear black T-shirts over white shirts, and when they are tagged, the checkpoint monitors spray paint their white shirts with biohazard signs. On the other side, the starting zombies must be wearing white shirts spray painted with black. Once the game has started, the humans can only run to one of four checkpoints around campus in the first hour and half of the game.
“I chose that rule because it gives the game the certain escape and evade feel which forces the human players to stay moving,” said Deshawn Utley, the event organizer for Survive Raleigh.
During the game, if you are tagged by the zombie players, that doesn’t mean you are out of the game. Rather, the zombie who just tagged you will escort you to the nearest checkpoint, where the monitors will spray paint your white shirts. After that, you will play the rest of the game as a zombie. The game ends with two winners. One is a human player who completed all the checkpoints first. The other is a zombie player with the most kills. There are no prizes for the winners, but their pictures are taken and uploaded on the Survive Raleigh Facebook page.
“In this game, being tagged doesn’t suck,” said Alex Johnson, a senior studying international relations. “If you get tagged, you get to chase down your friends who ditched you as zombie.”
When Johnson participated in the last Survive Raleigh, he was tagged very early in the game. This year, he participated with the goal of surviving longer than the last time.
According to Utley, Survive Raleigh was initiated by his close friend, Cameron Purser, in 2010. The first Survive Raleigh was a huge success, with Utley estimating about 1,000 participants. Despite the popularity, the game soon faced the possibility of going defunct.
“After the second event, the Survive Raleigh had no one to organize,” Utley said. “Because I had so much fun seeing people enjoying this event, I stepped in to be the organizer, which is a title that I still continue to uphold to this day.”
As the event organizer, Utley cooperates with University Police to provide safety for the participants. He also works with the members of Talley Student Union to get permission to hold the event.
“The NCSU campus always appealed to me because not only can I easily change the checkpoints each year, but the large size was very appealing too,” Utley said.
So far there are two Survive Raleigh editions, one in the spring and the other in the fall. Although the games are played out according to the same rules, these two events are different.
“The fall edition is pretty epic,” Utley said. “It is around Halloween, and we get more people than spring.”
Utley said he is currently interested in holding the next Survive Raleigh either on Centennial Campus or Fraternity Court.
