Tag 4 A Cause is a Success at Armageddon 2023

THANK YOU to everyone who participated in our first Tag 4 A Cause at Armageddon! 

The tournament players really demonstrated tremendous generosity with their donations to Ninjas Fighting Lymphedema Foundation and helped out a wonderful cause. I want to thank all the participants so much for your support!

When we arrived at The Laser Mill at The Works in Wyomissing, PA for the final portion of the competition I set up a little table space to promote the special challenge to take place during our practice game.

Anyone who donated to the cause received a medal and also had their practice game scores in the running for a special high score trophy.

While the players headed into the arena, I stayed in the lobby and talked with George Raptis on the twitch stream as we watched the practice round on the monitors along with the viewing audience.

Above us the action could be seen through the observation window as well.

As soon as the final game score flashed on the scoreboard we had a new high score winner!

Congratulations to Chris “Cookie” Cook for winning the Tag 4 A Cause high score trophy! He earned a top score in our special game of 54,980!

I was delighted to present Cookie with his award and celebrate the success of holding a Tag 4 A Cause challenge at this event.

The next day I received a weekend total from the Ninjas Fighting Lymphedema Foundation. Armageddon players alone raised over $534 for them this weekend through Tag 4 A Cause! Thank you again to all the participants for your generosity and for showing that laser tag can be a vehicle for making a positive difference while we enjoy fun, fitness and fundraising!

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

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

Armageddon Day Three: The Results

I was really looking forward to returning to Ultrazone Bensalem for the Zone portion of the tournament. Having just been here a couple of weeks ago for Zone Nats I felt quite comfortable with this arena and looked forward to going into these games with my team.

This was the only three team format being played in this year’s tournament. Therefore, when I tell you that our team took second place in every game it was a fair representation showing some decent point victories over the other teams in six games (more games than we played in any other format due to balancing three teams per game). I snapped a team pic inside the base, rolling my eyes that this was not permitted at the last tournament I played here.

For some players on our squad this was old hat, but others were new to the system, so what you might not immediately notice if you are not a Zone player is that these Helios Pro packs are modified.

Rather than buckling in the front, they have been converted with a box where the phaser connects added to the front, which necessitates putting the pack on over your head.

I felt we played well all the way through this system, seemingly with a closer margin between first and second place than between second and third. During our last game we were apparently in first place all throughout the game until the last 15 seconds where one base would have made the difference. We had one player who needed a base and apparently the other team took a base in those final seconds, which flip-flopped exactly that number of points, so it was a kicker to have come so close, but it’s also more interesting when games are that tight. This system was a great start to the final day and before we left we took our team picture. We also wanted a full combined team photo since our squad evolved out of Plausible Deniability and when not in competition against each other, we support all our players like one big family.

From there we proceeded to the final destination, The Works in Wyomissing, PA where Lasertron would be played. Here we hosted a special Tag 4 A Cause event, which I will share info about in a separate post.

Not In Charge is a very Tron-heavy team. Somehow I have found myself on the Tron team every year (which most people who know me will understand is ironic) and ever since my first Armageddon I have opted to play all games in the other systems in order to have the necessary game count to be able to sit the Tron system when possible. This is a deliberate strategy of my own choosing so that my teammates can go in with the strongest possible Tron line-up, as I am well aware that this system is my Achilles heel. However, last year we had a sick player so I got called in to play for him then and this year Woz suffered an in-game injury, so once again I was called in to play.

Ok, I’m in it now!

I went in with my team and just tried to pull points by sniping from the right side of the lower level. I had not anticipated playing, so I had not walked the field ahead of time, but it all worked out and we won this game. In fact, our team won every Tron game except the one during which Woz was injured. 

Once the Tron games were done it was time to celebrate the completion of the tournament.

Awards time!

First, congratulations go to the top placing teams:

1st: Depends How We Finish

2nd: The Consultants

3rd: COLONS

Incidentally, Not in Charge took 4th, but we were quite close to third, missing by only a small margin of less than three points in the final standings, so we just needed a couple of things to have gone differently to have closed that gap. Plausible Deniability took 5th.

Then it was time for player-voted awards. I appreciate having won the “Biggest Fan” Spirit Award for the second year in a row. It’s a little like being the Miss Congeniality of laser tag. :)

Time for props:

Scuba (aka the captain and only one “In Charge” in any way!) - Thank you for sharing so much enthusiasm for the game - any game, any time!

Ski Patrol - My side quest companion no matter what crazy idea I suggest. If we had played the Day 2 format you would have still been ready to go with me for even more tag and I love that!

Woz - You say you are my biggest fan, but I am yours too because you remind me so much of myself when I was first learning how much tag there is out there. It’s always fun to play with you!

Cookie - Congrats on your Tag 4 A Cause win. I had a feeling from the start that you were going to pull that off!

ShadowDragon - It is always great to tag with you and watch you do your Tron thing while I cheer from the sidelines (mostly)

Havoc - I enjoyed first meeting you at practice and now it is great to have gone through a full tournament with you as well!

SandmanRD - Think you can get rid of me that easy, lol? Let’s do this again!

Ricky - It’s funny how things work out. When you asked me to be on your team last year I was already committed to this group, but hoped we’d eventually play together and look at that…we did!

And thanks to everyone on the Plausible Deniability squad for being one big extended family, regardless of who is or is “Not In Charge”!

Armageddon was a wonderful time with a lot of amazingly competitive laser tag and I am glad it all came together for us to enjoy another tournament together.

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

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

Armageddon Day Two: Tivageddon

Day two of Armageddon was…weird. This year I was once again driving myself rather than riding the bus, which is a key factor in my being able to salvage the night with some independent laser tag stops, which I jokingly referred to as “Tivageddon”.

I will not get into the whole thing, but the bottom line is we were not able to play the system intended for day two of the tournament. Only after the bus had traveled about five hours from Long Island into central Pennsylvania and multiple hands were in the mix did this determination get made. Since most people had left their cars behind in Long Island, they just re-boarded the bus and continued on to the night two hotel in Bensalem. Meanwhile, I regrouped and found some teammates were interested in joining me for my “side quests”.

Playing more tag in the tournament off hours is nothing new for me. I do this almost every time. Grumpy and I both had vehicles with us and I had already plotted out a few arenas in the area, as is what I typically do. There were four laser tag arenas located between our starting point and the hotel. So we took as many people as we could fit to ride along and join in these four stops, meaning a group of seven of us made a caravan to each location.

The first location was Go N Bananas Family Fun Center in Lancaster, PA.

I was excited to have the chance to play some older Helios here. Before we played our game we added stickers to the map to indicate from where we were all traveling.

Then we got ready to enter their “Urban Quest” laser tag arena.

Then we suited up in the vesting room and got ready to play.

This was a nice, double level arena and after what had already been a long day it was nice to just tag for fun with my friends.

What a nice way to start this side trip!

From there we continued on to Rocky Springs Entertainment, also in Lancaster.

This facility was awesome to us, from being flexible to accommodate us in the first place to then treating us all to an extra game on the house. Initially, we were told they didn’t have the staff available for laser tag when we arrived, but when I explained a bit about why we were there (and that we could easily ref ourselves) they made it happen for us and it was a memorable stop. With the benefit of hindsight, this could have been an excellent stop to pick up CyberBlast as a system for the tournament.

This was a cool arena themed like an abandoned amusement park, complete with a raised platform merry-go-round to tag through in the center.

The walls provided an eerie atmosphere and there were bases in opposite corners guarded by creepy clowns.

A roller coaster, fun house and other abandoned attractions completed the field.

We finished our first game and discovered that I had earned the high score of the month!

Then we enjoyed our complimentary bonus game and thanked them as we continued on.

We were cutting it close, but after calling ahead to Grand Slam USA in Malvern, PA they were kind enough to stay open for us to get into one final game of the night right as they were about to close.

Everyone was pretty pleased to play some Lasertron LT-11 here.

This was a lot of fun! It’s a nice little arena and the game was a great time.

And for our final stop we ventured over to Our Town Alley in East Norriton, PA.

We enjoyed dinner in their restaurant before doing a three game session of Lasertron.

This was a very nice, new-looking single level arena with a couple of raised platform areas on each side.

I enjoyed the first game, but knowing that I was planning to sit out the system the next day in competition, I just played lightly for the subsequent games and sporadically took photos as my teammates used this time for practice.

So even though the day had started strangely and we did not play the intended tournament games, this turned out to be a pretty great way to salvage the evening with some fun when we all REALLY needed to play some laser tag. 

I didn’t find out until afterwards that other players would have been interested in this (and of course the bus being the primary mode of transport made this a hindsight kind of revelation anyway), but next year I’ll make my personal route known to the group in case anyone else wants to play even more laser tag between tournament hours and join in the kind of adventures I have, now and forever to be called “Tivageddon”.

Comments or Questions? 

Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com 

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