Speaking of Tournaments...

On the heels of having ANOTHER tournament canceled (yes, I'm rolling my eyes at you Syracuse) I made a resolution to find more competitive opportunities at other centers in 2017. Twenty minutes later I saw a post online and literally had this thought...

"Oh, a New Year's Day laser tag tournament in Ocean City, Maryland? I could drive 6 1/2 hours in the snow on my last day off and make it back on time for work the next day...(sees the pic), but it's Tron. Never mind."

Lol. But in all seriousness I want to wish a very merry Christmas to all of my tag family, both in New York and in other states. Let's practice hard and get ready to make a good showing at events in the new year. Here are some of my favorite laser tag and tournament memories of 2016.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Timing Is Everything

I can't believe it has been over a month since my last visit to play tag in Albany. After they got the Helios Pro system installed I totally expected to be spending a lot more time there because I really look forward to getting the groove of that system down solid. Although playing with Rift/Nexus feels more natural to me, playing with Helios Pro is the direction things are going and I feel lucky that this is now an option for me locally and fortunately with the holiday I had a chance to get two good days of practice in this week. When I went on Wednesday night I felt like I was reacquainting myself with the rhythm. Zone is absolutely a game where timing is everything and in my opinion is even more important here than accuracy of your target. There is definitely a margin of splay with the beam and during one game I enjoyed a moment where I took out four college aged guys with one single shot and in unison they all shouted "What?!" like a moment right out of a sitcom. I smile at that as both my timing and targeting were spot on and the beam did the rest. However, I also had a rather humbling moment when my timing was way off. There was a girl who was not exactly playing the game, but hiding behind a wall just chit-chatting with the game master, Dominick, who earlier in the evening had commented to the group that I am "like a professional". That's why this was all the more embarrassing, but it really illustrates my point. I figured that I'd just get the easy points while passing by so I peeked around the wall and not only did I miss a really easy close range shot, but I gave up the window for her to shoot and deactivate me. Ouch! Just a reminder that to keep sharp, especially since I rotate between systems, that I need to invest the time in practicing not just at any one arena, but at all of them.

When I returned to Zero Gravity two days later I resolved myself to pay better attention to getting my timing down and this was a really good day for that. I got my best practice playing against a teen player who had already established his reputation with the group using the pack called "Shazam". He had a very good aim and consistently was making every shot against most of the players. While he didn't have the movements like an experienced player, he certainly brought plenty of skill. He was also clearly accustomed to winning. I like that because this presented me with a good challenge. I honed my timing during the first game when I had to swap out packs. From then on I felt very much on my game and like the rhythm of the game had gelled. It's tough to describe it, but when you play a game where you can time things correctly and, for lack of a better term "cycle" the shot rotation it feels like everything is in sync and that made for a really great time playing.

Before I left the manager Donnie hooked me up with my membership card a little early. Actually, they won't even be ready to activate the cards until tomorrow, but I wanted to have the first player membership card, so now technically I do. And getting it activated just gives me one more reason to return again soon.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

My 75th Laser Tag Arena

I ended my day trip with a visit to what would become my 75th laser tag arena, Roseland Bowl in Canandaigua. Even though I am still a Finger Lakes chick at heart and this is relatively close by (only about two hours from home) I had not had an occasion to get out to this arena before now. So after playing a few rounds in Rochester I detoured this way to see what this arena had to offer.

I had caught them on a quiet Saturday and nobody was signed up to play when I arrived, so I asked if there was an employee available for a one on one. The manager sent in Max, who gave me a good game. I think I took him by surprise. He asked if I had been briefed...I told him I know how to play (it was Helios) so we entered the arena and he took off. That was a good sign that he was going to play seriously. 

It was a smaller arena, but a good use of space and maze with walls that I thought were really cool. The walls almost reminded me of a stereo design and I was told they were hand painted. I think that makes a huge difference to developing a unique atmosphere that doesn't just look the same as every other laser tag arena. 

We played a very solid one on one round and the manager wondered who got the high score. Max told her it was me and complemented my playing by saying "she is like (insert top player's name) times three!" The manager jabbed at him about his score against me saying "and you want to be on my Zombie team?" to which Max said "She should be one of our Zombies". Apparently they select top player employees to give the public a challenge as "zombies" around Halloween. I'll have to keep that in mind next year. ;)

By this point a group had shown up so there was a reasonable number of people to play a more typical round. I had a good time playing with them and it was an enjoyable way to round out this Saturday night. I'd certainly return to this arena another time and I think this was a good choice to play for number 75!

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

The End of an Era...Farewell Laser Quest Rochester

I realize that if you look back on this blog you will find a post titled "Why I'm Just Not Wild About Quest", but I must say over time my appreciation for it grew and I am saddened to know the Rochester Quest will be closing their doors in two weeks.

So I made the trip out to play here one last time...or two because they are running a special to thank their customers.

The staff at "mission control" we're really appreciative when I told them how far I drove to play my farewell games here.

I haven't been here in probably about six months so my status as number 1 ranked member has dropped to 10 in my absence and inactivity. I wonder if I can do enough to boost it while I'm here? :)

So I took my game cards and got ready to head into the briefing room and play the arena for one final night.

And I had a great final time in the arena. After playing just one game my rank had jumped from 10 back to 1. (...and don't get me wrong, I still know my place when I play with REAL Quest players ala Potomac Mills...if there were serious members here the place wouldn't be closing)

Seems like a good place to leave things. :)

After my second game played against a rowdy group of college aged players who definitely thought they owned the game and were eyeing me when they saw what happened I enjoyed being called in first place again while the radio played Aretha Franklin's "Respect". :)

It was well worth the trip to have the chance to remember the good times I have enjoyed playing here in the past. I am sorry to see the Rochester location close, but I will look forward to the next time I play some Quest elsewhere.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Really Not Worth The Time Out of My Day

After deciding to drive to Rochester to play one last time at the Laser Quest that is closing it's doors in two weeks I figured I'd make the trip even more worthwhile and visit two more arenas in Western NY to experience what they had to offer and check them off as my 74th and 75th arenas played. So, before heading to Quest I called ahead to Horizon FX a few miles to the north and asked what times tag was available for walk-ins. I was told that it was open for tag all day and thought I'd go there first.

I try not to be negative about the places I visit for the first time, but in this case here is a little bit about why I will NOT be returning to this place anytime soon (and it has nothing to do with Lazer Runner). I went to the counter and paid for a single game and asked when it would run. I was told as soon as they fill it, probably 20-25 minutes. So I headed over to the snack bar and a short time later (maybe 15 minutes) I heard them call for a laser tag game. When I walked over the attendant said this was a party group going in and my game would not be going in for an hour to an hour and a half. What?! That's not what they told me when I paid. And I do not have the time to spend waiting this out. I remembered the last time I tried to play here and was told they were sold out of games for a couple of hours and I would have to come back. If this place is so popular (and no doubt their skating rink is the main reason), then good for them. They obviously don't need me to play tag there. When I went back to the counter to question what I was told the same girl who sold me the pass changed her tune and said, "yeah, probably at least an hour" and unenthusiastically offered me my money back. The problem is that an hour isn't enough time for me to go anywhere else and if I wanted to play here (even once just to speak intelligently about it and not walk out for a second time) I had to acquiesce.

To their credit, after I made a small fuss over the time discrepancy they did get me into a  game faster. I appreciate that. We watched what looked to be a homemade briefing video explaining Lazer Runner. The referee then created (and corrected) two really unbalanced teams out of the 21 players in the game. While the entry and the briefing room looked more impressive than I would have expected, I wondered what the arena would bring. They have a combined briefing/vesting area and I had a feeling there would be chaos when the current game ended and ours was to vest up.

Arena? Cool aesthetic, but small. Game? Even for Runner, this was no challenge. Rather than try to shoot players like a big baddie I just shot the largely undefended base repeatedly. And I know that alone was enough to win on points...not that you would know who won because there was NO SCOREBOARD and no printouts. So if you want to play laser tag like it's tee ball with four year olds and the score is just fun vs fun then this does the trick. However, as laser tag goes I am not surprised that this spot has never been spoken of in my tag circle.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

I'm Not Here For Pizza

It had been awhile since I'd played tag at the small center in Oneonta that runs Lasertron basically as a side activity along with their all you can skate night. When I bought my wristband for the night they tried to hype it up by letting me know it would also get me unlimited pizza and soda. And while it's a good value for the dollar, I'm really not interested in skating or pizza.

I was there ready to tag at the start of the night, but once again tag didn't get underway for about half an hour and once it did the first game out was rather light. There were enough young adults there that could have made for some good competition, but most were preoccupied with skating (or maybe the pizza was a bigger draw than I thought).

By the third game of the night a larger and more appropriate group of players went in so I joined them. Now this was a more worthwhile endeavor. I played eight consecutive games of Tron without a break and actually enjoyed it, although public games like this are a completely different animal from the Tron I still dislike in tournament play. Here I was dominating the game instead (I played as JeanGrey).

For the record, this game was played solely for tags with no active bases.

So some casual Friday night Tron can be a good time every now and then and a good kickoff for what I have decided will be a full weekend of tag.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Happy Halloween...(aka Supergirl Shoots at Harley Quinn)

I went out for some laser tag over the Halloween weekend and arrived dressed as I typically am when I play tag...t-shirt, jeans, sneakers and my signature Photon cap. And when I walked in there was a big crowd of people who were wearing regular street clothes. Then in walked Harley Quinn...no, not Kevin Smith's daughter (lol), but a teenager dressed as the comic character. I give this girl props for two reasons...one, it takes guts to walk into a room and be the only person in costume (there was intended to be a costume contest that night, but it didn't take hold with the majority of the players) and two, in a head to toe red and black velvet bodysuit she must have been sweating bullets to wear that while playing. Well, we played a few games and the thought occurs to me that I actually have a costume of my own in my car. So, in the middle of the evening I decide to throw on my Supergirl costume and chase Harley Quinn around the arena in full Halloween spirit.

To be honest I only stayed in my costume for one game (I was dying from the heat!) before I changed back into street clothes, but it was fun to get into the Halloween mood by dressing up.

Alex showed up in monster make-up that would have been even more impressive if he hadn't sweat most of it off (the practicality of wearing a full costume for tag is a little bit lacking).

And no sooner had I changed out of my costume did someone else put on (for all of about five minutes) an inflatable Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man costume. They held a really casual contest which the Marshmallow Man won, but I must say Harley probably equally deserved simply for surviving playing tag all night in her outfit. Well, all the runner-ups got treated to a free slushie, which was good enough for me!

I had no sights on even being in a costume contest, but what I did want to do was make sure I played rotating all my membership cards, which I did. Why? To make sure to keep my averages up and my status active on them all. You see, the top ten board was updated since the last time I was there. Although I am still on it I did drop a couple of spots, so I guess I need to make a more conscious effort of playing smartly with my accounts.

But that gives me something to strive for next time around. This night was just about playing for fun...and if these photos don't say "fun time at tag" I don't know what else would!

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Testing a New Way to Play Laser Tag

When George Carter III, the inventor of the original laser tag (Photon) ended his interview with me in July 2015 by saying "Stay tuned, I'm working on a new way to play laser tag and you'll hear about it next year. I'll put you on the press release list" you can bet I was intrigued. I've been keeping my eye on his TZUUM project all summer so of course I was excited to receive this message in my email...

"Congratulations! You have been selected to join the TZUUM closed beta! You can be playing by this weekend."

I'm not sure I should say too much about the game itself at this point other than to tell you that it is a blast to play using just my cell phone and I feel really privileged to get to be a beta tester for this new game. Since getting my access code I have had a chance to test it out with one of my coworkers throughout my office (the footage from the security cameras must have been interesting!) and across a pretty good distance on the grounds outside. Look in the distance and you can see how far we tested it.

I am really loving this and can't wait to try it out further with some of my other tag friends!

If you want to learn more about this latest innovation in laser tag check out www.tzuum.com.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Photon Authority? I'll Take It. :)

While visiting the Laser Tag Museum's website (www.lasertagmuseum.com) I recently found something rather flattering. It was a reference to the interview and video I had made a couple months back with the museum curator, Erik Guthrie.

http://www.lasertagmuseum.com/laser-tag-news/2016-news/entry/2016/08/06/laser-tag-museum-interview-with-tivia-chick

You could have knocked me over when I saw this! What I find really cool about this is reading in print that someone actually considers me "the world's authority on the Photon television series". Over the last couple of years I have been working hard to document and preserve this facet of the laser tag history and it's quite nice to be recognized like this in a blog article (or should that be "ARRticle"...lol) for the museum. I feel very fortunate that so many of the people involved with Photon have agreed to talk with me and share their memories so that this element inspired by the original laser tag can be remembered nostalgically over thirty years after the fact. I am constantly trying to add to the collection of Photon history that I have been amassing. Here are a few of the latest gems that will soon be added to www.photonforever.com.

And if you missed the video the first time around you can check it out here. It's a tour of the Laser Tag Museum's spectacular collection. Enjoy!

Comments or questions?
Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com
Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Partners Tournament

Last night was the Partners Tournament in Syracuse and it made for a really good night of tag. I think competition can be a really healthy way of making people step it up...even though in Syracuse it seems that simply showing up is half the battle!

Razz and I were the first team partnered up about a month ago, so we were solid going in. In typical fashion some of the other teams were forming at the last minute, but that didn't negate the quality of the performance they brought. I was glad there was decent competition. I was also glad that we were keeping the lead as we pulled first place all the way through the preliminary games. Three teams of two players each went in each round. Out of five prelims that we played we came in first four times and second only once. It was enough to keep us in first as the top seeded team going into finals. It was also a good ego boost to earn some respect for that as one of the other teams commented that they really underestimated us. Smile at that. :)

The finals came down to one game played among the top three teams. Going in as the top seed we opted to play green knowing that the next team was likely to pick red to keep the final team on blue for the main purpose of keeping them from cycling on center. Frankly I think this game simply boiled down to stamina. Cody was as "hyper" as ever (that's a joke...go back in this blog and during my first tourney before I knew people's names I nicknamed the players of one team Tall, Hyper and Crankypants) so he was an energy force to be reckoned with. Honestly I didn't feel like I was seeing enough of the other players in the arena to pull enough hits for the points we needed. I know Razz felt like he ran out of steam mid-round too, so it wasn't our best game of the night. Really, that's the kicker since we had been so "on" for the whole night up until that point. So we ended up taking second place in the finals in what turned out to be a very last moment turnover for that spot. Congrats to Ass and Nate for taking first. Meanwhile, the fight for second was close and came down to this...

Two shots in the final seconds of the game are what determined our placement in this tournament. I got one last blaze of glory shot off on Cody. Then his partner inadvertently shot him as well! Those two shots flipped the placement between second and third making this a really close game in that respect.

Well, second place is still a respectable standing and again, I congratulate the winners and all the other teams we played against. And it was a cash tournament so we basically covered our investment while having a good time, so it's all good!

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Hello Helios Pro!

Last night I went out to Albany to support Zero Gravity with their first weekend operating with the Helios Pro equipment. Although it's bittersweet because I do have a soft spot in my heart for Infusion, this is a big step forward and I was excited to play a few rounds. I said I would only play moderately to save my full force for the next day's tournament...ha! Well, I really didn't go full out, but I did play about 10 back to back games and had a blast with the various players who came out to experience the new system.

I haven't gotten to play a tremendous amount of Helios Pro games in public matches...actually most of my experience with it came during last year's Philly Invites, so this was a night of learning and experimenting. They have installed gems throughout the arena for power-ups. At one point I decided to wait to get my base until I had the "multiply score" come up...however it didn't actually multiply my base score...well, good to find out now, so I don't waste effort trying to make that happen. I enjoyed getting my shot timing down and felt like I had pretty much gotten the rhythm after the first game.

The evening ended with a round of free for all. I hadn't intended to keep going that long...but who could resist.

Then it was back home early (relatively) for a Saturday night at tag. Had to return to check in on my new pet. I just adopted a baby gecko and I have named him Leon. A few of you might understand the laser tag symbolism in that. If not, maybe this photo will make it more evident...

Can't wait to get back to Albany again. Had a great time and I look forward to seeing what they do to grow their member base and competitive scene now.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Starting the Party

This weekend I got to play party host to about 70+ friends from out of state as we had a weekend long celebration in Albany. For the ones who came in a night early I wanted to showcase some of my favorite things to do in the city. So of course I took them out to play some laser tag at Zero Gravity!

Besides being a chance for us all to catch up and chill before things really got underway on Friday, it was also a final opportunity for me to play some Infusion. You see, next week Zero Gravity is upgrading to Helios Pro! I will certainly miss Infusion because it is the laser tag that I cut my teeth on years ago, but I do look forward to having the latest Zone equipment right in my backyard to get practice for tournaments and join in with a new player base that I am certain will develop as they begin setting up memberships and events. The only problem I see is how to balance my time between all my favorite laser tag facilities! Seriously though, I am really glad they are taking this step. And I'm also glad I had time to enjoy a final few rounds alongside my friends.

So thanks to Zero Gravity for hosting us and giving us a party room where we could chill and socialize during our outrageous time out in Albany!

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com