We recently learned Freeze Tag from Cypher over at Spec Ops Live Play in Modesto, CA. It’s actually based on a game we occasionally play (and originally taught Cypher!) called Ears. Freeze Tag is by far the superior version between the two laser tag games, though, and you’re much more likely to see it on the field.
More than in most laser tag games, try to find a relatively safe place where you can lay down a firing lane to deny that space to the opposing team.
Basically, Freeze Tag is a standard Team Deathmatch laser tag game with a twist: when you’re tagged out, instead of running back to your base to be respawned you have to stay in exactly the spot where you died. You may remain standing and you can (and probably should) tell your team where you are, but you can’t talk about where the other team’s players are. You stay in place until a teammate of yours touches you. Once they tag your hand, arm, etc. you can run back to your base, get respawned, and then return to play. The game is played with a time limit, but teams can only win by managing to freeze everyone on the opposing team. This is really tough! Laser tag games of Freeze Tag are hard-fought and fast-paced.
Strategy and Tactics:
- Have someone on the far end of the field from you whom you can’t reach? Find a close buddy and have them jump behind cover with you. Then you stand just out of cover so you can be shot. Start blazing away at the other team. They’ll see you and pick you off, but your buddy is right next to you behind cover, so you’ll get tagged to get respawned right away. Then when you respawn, instead of returning to where you were, use the respawn timer to run over near your stranded buddy. Be careful not to let yourself get stuck out there, though!
- Whether you’re an expert or a new player everyone has a LOT to offer in this game. Sprinting to touch dead teammates to let them come back to life is critical in this game, as is locking down parts of the field to keep opponents from tagging their teammates back into the game. Find a task you can do well and make sure your team knows that you’re doing it. Help them find other tasks so that you can all support each other’s efforts.
- If you tag out an opponent, get behind cover and try to find somewhere where you can see the other team’s approach to your target but where they can’t see you until they’re in the line of fire and you can tag them out, too. For example, let’s say you’re near the far right edge of the field and, leaning out the right hand side from behind a wall or tree you manage to take out one of your opponents who has wandered a bit far from his teammates. Great! Shift your line of fire slightly to the left (you may need to creep just slightly further out of cover) and line up on where his teammates will be coming to let him revive. The moment you see someone trying to help open up on them. Once that player is stuck in place, shift slightly again. Ideally, you could end up with a chain of opposing players all a few steps away from each other, stretching from the first person you caught back towards their base.
- Because it is critical to prevent opponents from tagging their defeated teammates back into the game it’s really important to make sure no one can get TO that teammate. If you have to, work with one or even two of your teammates to prevent the other team from reaching dead teammates and reviving them.
Super-tough Variant: for a really, really tough laser tag game with advanced players, if a member of the opposing team can tag you when you’re dead before a teammate can get to you then you’re out of the game! This variant causes everyone to move much slower and more carefully while sticking closer to teammates. The whole thing unravels much more slowly and methodically. It’s an extremely tough challenge, though, and you can end up sitting out for a large chunk of the game, so we only use this with certain groups who are looking for exactly that kind of challenge.