Yesterday, in the Twitter-based tag game of Twitter vs. Zombies (aka, #TvsZ), I was a “human” for only a short time in the morning, then got hit with a #bite that turned me into a zombie. Apparently, being up early, as I often am, was a huge disadvantage because I had no other human friends around because no one could #swipe me and protect me. I become a zombie.
Not that that’s a bad thing. In this game, that is. As a zombie, I spent parts of the day looking for other human players to #bite, and tried to navigate the rules (turns out, I broke the #rules more than a few times and had to retract quite a few #bites, and then I blamed it on my Zombie Brain.) Friends on Twitter noticed my changed avatar — the Zombie me — and were asking, what happened? Is it the end of the school year? Ha. As if …
Need another Zombie to create a Zombie Flowchart for Rules for Me because I can’t seem to remember anything!!!! #TvsZ
— KevinHodgson (@dogtrax) June 21, 2014
As a huge, shifting game of Internet tag, Twitter vs. Zombies is intriguing on many levels, and I have written about this before. But this time, I tried paying attention to how the change in the rules impact the game. Adding elements changed game dynamics every time, and that was important. We all needed something new to hang on, to know that the game would not be static (so, hats off to the organizers).
During the day, I made comics, memes and even hacked the Twitters vs. Zombie website with xRay Goggles, as way to bring some media fun into the mix and add some different literacies into the game.
One of the rules of the day involved sharing images, too, to either add a #bite if you were a zombie or find shelter if you were a human. I ended up using this penguin that my son had turned into a zombie of sorts, posing it throughout the house during the day as my way to get #xtrabite power.
The latest rule change allows zombies to change back into human form, by writing a blog post with the #antidote hashtag. So here I am, ready to resume a rather normal life. Or so I hope. There is still a day ahead of us, although I know I will be away from technology (at ball games) for much of the day. So, who knows what will happen …
Peace (in the game),
Kevin