Yikes! Zombies!
lumpley:
We played Eero's zombie game, whose official English title I can't remember. I'm going to call it Yikes! Zombies! even though I'm absolutely certain that's incorrect.
Emily led us in the game. It was her, me, Meg, Julia. We set it in a hospital (I work in a hospital, and Julia's in non-hospital health care), on the night when there was an accident involving two buses full of Japanese high school goth kid tourists.
It was zany. My character was Matt, a resident in the emergency room, on hour 30 of a 36-hour shift, with a speed habit and lots of satanic tattoos (his nickname was "resident evil"). Julia's character was the surgeon on call (and, coincidentally, a terrorist). The game made a fun understory for lots of health care jokes between Julia and me. Here's my favorite:
Me: I say 'nurse, clean up in aisle two.' She punches me in the throat.
Here's my second-favorite:
Me: <pantomiming scrubbing my hands>
Julia: Your ring?
Me: <taking off my ring, wondering what to do with it, popping it into my mouth>
Me: <finishing scrubbing, putting on gloves, taking my ring out of my mouth and putting it in my pocket>
Ha ha! Attendings, residents and nurses! THAT's comedy.
My guy survived. Meg's died first, then Em's, then Julia's. There was one moment I found scary - when Meg's character got it, in fact, in the darkened hospital cafeteria - and the rest was just fun and funny.
-Vincent
Christoph Boeckle:
Hi Vincent,
What did your zombies look like? How did your group's successive revelations about the zombies influence the fun and vice-versa?
I've had quite some comedy with this game, usually it has to do with "desecrating" stuff everybody knows (last time we made a complete mess of my home town's administrative service for all things vehicle-related, another time it was a famous Parisian cathedral). As if the zombie appearance meant that all the norms of society suddenly ceased to exist and that we had clearance to bash any authority figure. I'm wondering if this is relevant in your hospital humour as well.
Eero Tuovinen:
The game's going to be called Zombies at the Door! in English as well as Finnish, I guess. I haven't managed a better name, yet. Yikes! Zombies! has charm, but it's too comedic - while the game seems to drive people to comedy for some reason, that's not the sole indented purpose.
Did you get to interact with the mechanical stuff? Specifically, did the game feature sacrifice? Ties with the dice? Interesting maneuvers with dice loans and allying? Did anybody skip their turn to frame? When characters died, did the players of the dead characters side with the zombies or the living people? How long did the game last?
lumpley:
In order: No sacrifices. Yes ties. The allying was straightforward, I didn't know about loans. Nobody skipped their turn, but I'll tell you about framing. The zombies. Around two hours.
About framing: with just a couple of exceptions, we played in one long single shot. The camera took turns following us, like. The order was Em, Julia, me, Meg. So the camera starts on Em's character. Her character and Meg's are talking, they draw mine in, we roll dice, Julia's character comes in at the end of it. It's Julia's turn, so the camera follows her character away from that conversation. Her character and mine get in a fight, we roll dice, and then it's my turn next, so the camera follows my character away from the fight. I go try to get Emily's character to calm everybody down, everybody including Meg's character who's there freaking out. We roll dice, and they keep freaking out, and since it's Meg's turn next the camera follows HER freaking-out character away. Like passing a baton, and the baton was our attention.
There were a couple of cut-scenes when the camera had to jump to keep turn order, but mostly nobody framed scenes. I'd love to see a movie shot that way. It'd be stylish and fun. I should go watch Rope again.
-Vincent
lumpley:
Christoph, hospital humor is hard to explain. It's a distinct genre, very gallows. It's not that the zombies opened it up for us, it's that it's already suited to zombies. It's more like, playing the game gave me a captive audience, so I let loose.
Julia's character: Do you ... do you really worship Satan?
My character: Ironically. Does that count?
By the time the zombies were all over the place, they looked like teenage high-fashion Japanese goth kids, only more smudged. The zombie thing started with one guy in the morgue, we never knew why.
-Vincent
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