Zombie Game

The reveal of the title of the Main Match.

**Zombie Game** is a Main Match game that appeared in the fourth episode of The Genius: Rules of the Game.

## Rules and Layout

* The 2 zombies will be determined by drawing lots, while the 8 other players will be humans. Each player will know whether he or she is a zombie or a human, but each player will start out not knowing what other players are.

* The game will consist of 3 thirty-minute rounds. Each round, each player will have to touch with at least one other player. If humans do not touch with anyone during the entire round, they will become zombies once the round concludes. Also, throughout every round, you may not touch a player that you have already touched.

* A touch is carried out by both players putting their hand on the prepared table.
* There are 3 scenarios after a touch:
	+ When two zombies touch, nothing happens.
	+ When a human touches a zombie, the human turns into a zombie.
	+ When two humans touch, they each get a point.

* When each round ends, the number of zombies and humans will be revealed to all the players. However, the identities of the zombies and humans will not be revealed, nor the point totals of the players will be revealed.

* Each of the players has one cure. Cures may be taken if a human believes they have touched with a zombie and wish to remain human. However, a limitation of the cure is that a player may only turn back into a human if it is taken within 10 minutes of turning into a zombie. Additional cures may be purchased for 5 garnets each.
* When the third round ends, the game will be determined:
	+ If everyone turns into a zombie, the initial zombies win. They may pick an elimination candidate for the Death Match, and will receive 3 garnets apiece.
	+ If there are surviving human players, the player with the most points is the winner and the player with the least points is the loser. The winner will also receive one garnet for every point he or she earned.
	+ If all the surviving humans have equal points, they become joint winners and are able to pick any zombie to be the elimination candidate. The winners will also each receive one garnet for every point he or she earned.

## Tips and Tricks

* Observing everyone's behaviors is essential for trying to determine who the zombies are. Changes in behavior or sudden personality quirks can all lead to suggest that someone is a zombie.
* Humans would most likely be better positioned if they took their cures in secret so that the zombies would not be aware of that fact and continue to believe they had already infected that human, up until at least the Human and Zombie tally reveal.

## Reward

* If everyone turns into a zombie, the initial zombies win. They may pick an elimination candidate for the Death Match, and will receive 3 garnets apiece.
* If there are surviving human players, the player with the most points is the winner and the player with the least points is the loser. The winner will also receive one garnet for every point he or she earned.
* If all the surviving humans have equal points, they become joint winners and are able to pick any zombie to be the elimination candidate. The winners will also each receive one garnet for every point he or she earned.

**WARNING:** The rest of the page below may contain spoilers on the events of the entire episode. Read at your own discretion.

## Strategies

### For Humans

* **Human VS Person Strategy:** If a player is unsure whether another player is a human or a zombie, one strategy they can employ is to ask the other player whether they are "a human or a person". Since the human card contains the text "You are a human", and only the humans know about the information on the card, it could be a way to identify who is a zombie and who is not.
	+ For future seasons of The Genius, this line of thinking was eliminated as all players were shown the text of all the options.

* **4 Human Alliance Strategy:** If an alliance of 4 humans can be successfully formed, if each player gets one touch each round, they'll get a total of three points. Since there is an initial count of 8 humans and 2 zombies, it'll be impossible to gain more points than this alliance since touching with zombies can't give you points and there are only 4 other humans left excluded from the alliance, meaning at best they would tie with the 4 human alliance.

* **Zombie Touch Strategy:** Continuing off from the 4 Human Alliance Strategy, if the alliance wishes to bring in more humans for a joint win, they can use the following strategy to level the points and make sure each person has the same number of points. If some of the humans are behind or ahead in points, the humans with the higher points need to forfeit any point-grabbing so that the humans behind in points can catch up. However, the humans are required to touch another player each round. A solution to this is to touch a zombie and take your cure, as you will not gain points by touching with a zombie while still remaining human.
* **Self-Inducing Zombie Strategy:** In contrast to the Zombie Touch Strategy, if a human is far behind in points and can neither catch up nor be accepted into the alliance, the best option is for that human to immediately touch with a zombie, since the human in last place will become the automatic elimination candidate.

### For Zombies

* **Cure Swap Strategy:** If a human and a zombie agree to team up, they may touch in a certain round. The human can then drink the cure when no one except the partnered zombie is watching, and swap cures with the zombie. This way, the human remains a human, and it would appear to others that the zombie may be a human since the human player appeared to have not taken a cure and remained a human.
* **Fake Cure Strategy:** A zombie can fill an empty cure bottle with water and give it to a human to give them a false sense of security, in the scenario where the human feels confident touching with the zombie since he supposedly has another cure.
* **Zombie Sellout Strategy:** Since it is likely that the initial zombies will be found out due to human error and the human joint win will happen, it might be optimal for an initial zombie to expose his or her identity to the other humans and give the humans his or her cure so that the humans at the end won't pick that initial zombie as the elimination candidate.