FAQ: When you say athletic ability doesn’t matter what do you mean?

Posted on February 25, 2013 by admin

We often see raised eyebrows when we say that laser tag is very accessible and that age, disabilities, and other infirmity have no impact on whether you can be a good player, so we’d like to explain ourselves just a bit more. In short, the guns shoot literally at the speed of light, 100% accurately, for hundreds of feet at a time. This makes an accurately-aimed shot impossible to dodge. Also, there’s no way you can simply outrun the range of the guns; if you’re in range now and someone sees you you’ll still be in range when they fire, all you can do is jump behind cover. With that said, you might almost ask if physical prowess gives you any advantages at all! Continue reading →

Game Summaries for Players: Bomb the Base

Posted on January 18, 2009 by admin

A variation on Zone Control and Base Assault, in Bomb the Base games your job is to bring a bomb to the defenders’ base, start the timer and then prevent the bomb from being defused before it can go off! Multiple bombs and plant sites inside of each team’s base can make this insane with larger teams or go with the classic single bomb attacker/defender game. Imagine the challenge if you have to scout out the defending base, too, because you don’t know where the plant site is or you have to find the bomb components scattered across the battlefield!

Strategy and Tactics:

DO NOT under any circumstances lose control of the bomb! Even if the other team is not allowed to touch the bomb they can camp right on top of it and prevent your team from reacquiring it.
The most challenging aspect of this game is controlling the bomb location until the bomb actually goes off. Before you actually set the bomb figure out how you’re going to defend the location. If some of your fellow defenders are low on hit points it might be wise to retreat slightly, let them run out to get killed (and then respawn with full health), and THEN set the bomb.
If you are on defense and you hear that the bomb has been planted you must get to the plant site as fast as possible, but don’t attack until you can assault the location with a fire team. Attacking alone will leave you severely outgunned. Defense of a location is always easier than attacking it, so make sure you have help if you’re going to manage to eliminate the bomb’s defenders.

Game Summaries for Players: Sniper

Posted on January 18, 2009 by admin

One-quarter of the players use longer guns and are sent out on bolt-action mode and given time to hide. The rest of the players become hunters with full auto and only 1 hit point but unlimited respawns. The hunters need to flush out the snipers before too many of the hunters are eliminated. At times this game can be slow because some snipers will hole up and hide. Successful snipers will hunt out the hunters and look for opportunities to pick them off when it’s hard for the hunters to retaliate.

Strategy and Tactics:

It can not be overstated: the snipers will almost certainly win or lose this game within the first 5 minutes. How? Preparation. Snipers MUST work as a team to be successful in this game. Hide yourselves near each other but so that you have at least a 90° difference in your attack angles to the trail. Do not attack players as they come down the trail. Shoot people in the back as the group passes or pick them off from a long distance when you’re way off on the side. The moment the group sees you they’ll start firing, so you have to do everything you can to kill the hunters but not be seen.
Snipers who successfully kill a few players and then have a moment where the hunters retreat and regroup would be very wise to MOVE. Find a new ambush point or, even better, find alternate ambush points while you are getting set up before the hunters get to start looking for you. As soon as you’ve shot someone they’ll have a general idea where you are, so don’t be there when they come back.
Hunters should ALWAYS walk in groups of at least 3-4 players. Do NOT let more than 2 people walk in a single line. Most of your hunters should be off the path so that you don’t have a sniper hitting your whole squad with a single shot. Once the firing starts make sure you communicate the snipers’ positions to the other members of your team or they might just start spraying where they think you’re shooting, which only tells the sniper where to shoot next.

Game Summaries for Players: Intel

Posted on January 18, 2009 by admin

Note that Intel codes and instructions slide in from the side and are behind an actual "screen" so they can't fly away accidentally like the older laptop allowed.

We like to say that Intel is “a game with few rules but many complications.” It’s got a lot going for players to juggle.

A laptop is hidden somewhere within the game boundaries. The laptop has an encoded message on it. Both teams have a codebreaker on their team. The codebreaker’s job is to decode the message and report it back to HQ (or the referee at their base). The catch: if your codebreaker dies they can’t be respawned until the other team’s codebreaker dies. The game is a frantic mix of search-hunt-defend and is especially crazy if you only have 3-4 people on your team but works great with larger groups or more than two teams.

Strategy and Tactics:

Obviously, you need to protect your codebreaker. This takes lots of space and coordination, however. If you’re standing within 20 feet of the codebreaker then any opponents will just shoot the codebreaker. Remember: the range on the laser tag guns is extreme! You need to create a very wide perimeter around your codebreaker (most likely with a radius of at least 50′) if you’re going to keep him/her safe.
Pick a codebreaker who is clever or really good with puzzles and, ideally, has ice in their veins. The codes are meant to be tricky to solve and you might be under fire from the other team while your codebreaker is sweating out the solution. Expect the decryption to take a minute or two, which is like an eternity if your team is in a gunfight.
One of your primary tasks should be to determine who on the other team is the codebreaker and where they’re hiding. Target them as much as you can. Another should be to send scouts to find the laptop so when you move your codebreaker you can move them as quickly as possible to the laptop site.
Never underestimate the potential value of misdirection in a game of Intel. The other team expects your codebreaker to be well-protected, so they won’t assume that you’ve got your codebreaker hiding alone somewhere. If you believe the other team knows who your codebreaker is then consider having them swap some clothes with someone else on the team if you can find the time.