Tiviachick Loves Laser Tag

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

October Regional Laser Storm Tournament

The October regional tournament held at Skyway Laser Storm was the perfect event to anchor my trip around. Not only was it ideally timed, but it gave me an opportunity to play again with some friends from the Armageddon tournament. That’s why our team (made up of Gumby, Shel, Woz, Cookie and me) was called the United Order of Armageddon.

As several of us are not what you would call “Storm players” on the regular, it was nice to play alongside more experienced system players. Gumby was no doubt the powerhouse from a competitive standpoint, but he really encouraged Shel to step into the captain’s role and I want to thank both of them for coaching this team into a place where we could hold our own against more seasoned Storm competitors at this event.

Six teams participated in the tournament: Duck, SOS, Ibprofin, UOA, Twitch and Collective Punishment.

The map changes for every tournament, which is a feature unique to Laser Storm arenas built on a grid with barriers suspended from the ceiling rather than a constructed maze that can’t be altered (the way many other laser tag arenas are built).

So we took some time before things started to review the map and have a strategy session.

Our first round was against Team Duck, where we played against Clayton, Logan and company. We won our first game right out of the gate, which was an excellent confidence boost.

We faced all the teams in the round robin games.

We had some very close games! At the end of each round we would return to the energizer and check the final results.

During the break before the elimination round we enjoyed checking out some cool history at the site. I was certainly delighted about the Stargate.

And it has been very rewarding to see people taking interest in the traveling museum collection items I brought for a mobile display exhibit)

This Laser Tag Museum Collection display includes many vintage items related to the history of the head game with systems that utilized helmets, headsets and head sensors. This exhibit includes a few traditional laser tag examples from approximately the first the first decade of the game.

I took this as my chance to take a photo with two rarities. Here I am holding the prototype black StarLyte Pro. Getting a photo with both the StarLyte and the Stargate would be an especially rare opportunity!

Due to time, it was decided that we would do a single elimination rather than a double elimination.

We were in the first game and it was incredibly close! Even though this took us out of the finals early, I was really pleased that the score was as close as it was and that we kept so close all throughout this game. If we were going to be eliminated, at least we went out strong!

Final placements were as follows…

1st - Collective Punishment (well earned!)

2nd - Twitch

3rd - Duck/SOS

Third place was a bit of a “who’s left standing?” kind of thing, but I was glad to see the custom awards before I left. Notice a theme developing here?

There were so many really wonderful things that came out of this weekend and the tournament was the final piece of a really fun adventure in Ohio.

I appreciate how welcoming the Laser Storm community has been to me at these events and I look forward to many more!

Comments or Questions?

The Traveling Museum Collection

I have decided that in lieu of having a permanent display location for the Laser Tag Museum Collection at this time, I will take select pieces on the road with me for periodic mobile exhibits to be on display for in-person viewing at various laser tag events. This is what I will refer to going forward as the “Traveling Museum Collection” and I am excited to already have more mobile exhibits in the planning stages.

My second opportunity to set up a traveling museum exhibit occurred at the October regional tournament that took place recently at Skyway Laser Storm in Warren, OH. The theme of this exhibit was “History of the Head Game: Helmets, Headsets and Head Sensors in Traditional Laser Tag from the First Decade of the Game.”

People really appear to be enjoying the opportunities to see these pieces of laser tag history!

A few items that were spotlighted for this display include Photon, the original laser tag game featuring a helmet with sensors as seen on this vintage pod.

Alongside it were examples of phaser shells and the wooden mold that served as the basis for the Photon v4 phaser design.

Although the museum collection does not currently include an example of Lazer Zone, it is important to acknowledge this company whose equipment debuted only about six months following the launch of Photon. Their equipment included a headpiece with target sensors.

Star Laser Force was the third commercial laser tag game developed, opening in Houston in 1985. This system also utilized a helmet.

Vultrek was launched in Australia in 1986 with a helmet and chest piece. A Gen 1 pack with an orange helmet was included in this display.

Laserforce Gen 1 and 2 also featured helmets as part of their first equipment designs.

Headsets were used in the original Laser Storm equipment, which was developed as an evolution from Space Sport.

And (although slightly past the first decade of the game) the Phaser Fun equipment similarly included a headset and battery belt when they launched in 1995.

From the home laser tag market, the Worlds of Wonder Lazer Tag StarLyte hard helmet is an example of another head piece from the history of laser tag and was displayed alongside two rarities from that brand. The black prototype StarLyte Pro Rifle (the last of its kind) and the white StarLyte Pistol salesman’s sample (one of six known to exist) were also showcased as part of this display.

I am so pleased to have had this opportunity to bring a variety of laser tag artifacts to share and display in person for the laser tag players and visitors in attendance at this event. Watch for more upcoming mobile exhibits as I continue to share pieces as part of the Traveling Museum Collection.

Comments or Questions?

Monday, October 28, 2024

Looking Fierce in the Fog

Some of the best photos of the day came from our visit to the Mission to Bantu interactive laser tag arena at Twin Star Lanes in Port Clinton, OH.

We entered the briefing room and suited up with Zone Helios vests prior to the start of the game.

This arena has some cool interactive elements. For example, this spider that is suspended from above.

It may not catch your attention until…

And the stone carving with the wild eyes grabs your attention.

Maybe he’s looking at the wreckage of this interesting contraption!

But the coolest thing we saw in the arena is the volcano.

More specifically, the cool thing was the burst of fog that would sporadically blast up from below the grates of this bridge walkway behind the volcano.

If you were on the other side it would look like the volcano was erupting with smoke. However, it wasn’t long before we all decided to stop playing the game and focus on taking a different kind of shot, snapping lots of cute photo ops on the bridge in the fog and looking fierce like we could be poster models for the game!

Taking photos in the fog turned out to be more fun than actually playing laser tag at this moment. We got some amazing photos out of this experience. This is what happens when in the middle of a game everyone decides that cute photo ops in the fog matter more than points! :)

So much fun! We had the arena to ourselves and this was such a great time.

This is what I will remember most about this final tag stop, wrapping up an awesome day laser tagging with friends before we took a break for dinner and headed back to the hotel to rest up for the regional tournament the next day…because we can never get enough laser tag!

Comments or Questions?