8BitKid: Living Bit by Bit

Last month I wrote about how students at Bowling Green State University were getting in trouble over the game of “Humans vs. Zombies” they were playing on campus. Specifically, they were banned from using Nerf guns and the university thought that the game was causing too much of a commotion and interfering with student life.

The game has continued to cause confusion on campuses, this time at Alfred University in western New York, where a student armed with a nerf gun sent the campus into a “lockdown”. The school and their police personnel found that the game was overly disruptive and were concerned about confusion that could arise over the toy guns. Administrators have decided to temporarily suspend the game while they explore ways to ensure that the game won’t pose a security risk or cause an unncessary amount of commotion. UMass Amerhest dealt with these problems by requiring players to register with the school and having them wear red armbands and headbands.

KTTV, the Los Angeles Fox affiliate, recently had a piece covering how “Humans vs. Zombies” is causing concern on college campuses across the country. In an age of hyper-tension among college administrations over campus security, it is easy to understand how having a bunch of students running around with toy guns shooting each other might cause anxiety.

However, I think it is also critical to allow these students to continue playing. LARPing provides a great way for people to escape daily stresses in a collaborative and constructive way. This game in particular, and the resulting campus dramas, could help normalize some of the apprehension on campuses. A flavor of the game must exist that can be a compromise between players and administrations. If colleges use this game to begin an open dialogue with students over their worries, it could help create an environment which could house the successful balance between campus safety and student fun. Clearly, people are on edge over any form of guns being present on campus, and this is a justified source of apprehension. A school cannot ask its students to constantly live in fear, and part of the recovery process is asking honest questions about what are acceptable boundaries and rules.

Here is a fascinating article about a ban by Bowling Green State University on Nerf guns. Live Action Role-Playing, or LARPing, is a sub-genre of of RPG’s that takes gameplay into the real world. At Bowling Green, students began a game of “Undead”, which is a flavor of the LARP “Humans vs. Zombies”. The game involves two teams, the Zombies and the Humans, and the goal is for the humans to evade being “bitten” by the zombies. The humans can fight of the horde of undead by defending themselves with Nerf guns, among other weapons.

Apparently, the LARPers started causing a commotion and disrupting campus, and so the administration cracked down and forbade the player from using the great foam defense. They were allowed to fight of the zombies with socks and marshmallows, but this limitation still upset the participants. This has caused a bit of controversy on campus, and the LARPers are rallying to get their weapons back. The story continues with more interesting twists, including a relative who worked at Nerf coming to pay a visit to campus.

I am very interested in the phenomena of LARPing and Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG’s), and so, as these forms of entertainment become more pervasive, I am sure there will be more conflicts as we see play continue to spill over into the real world.

- click here to read the piece from the Bowling Green newspaper

(story via slashdot.com)

(image courtesy of Horrordvds.com)