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Getting Pixelated at Members Night

tiviachick
12 minutes ago
3 min read

My home laser tag site just got a new game in the arcade, so I made two trips out to The Fun Warehouse in Syracuse this weekend for the chance to be among the first at our site to play Pixel. The unveiling of this new attraction coincided perfectly with my primary reason for being there, which was meeting up with some of my teammates for members night.

We had another monthly members party scheduled, which is a chance for the more serious players to get together to play against one another other in a wider variety of game formats than we get to play on a regular public night. I was pleased to see the excellent turnout for this night because we not only had members coming from quite a distance away (as far as Rochester, Buffalo and even Dave from Canada), but this event also drew some of the newest members who have just recently joined. It was a packed party for sure!

Axman took the lead on this event, showing up with a list of game formats so we could vote with some democracy on which special games we wanted to play. I love that Photon emulation got the second highest number of votes (yes, I nudged hard for that when people were coming up to vote) just behind Z-Game (another favorite of mine) and it was interesting to see how the choices were reflected in the vote.

I was a bit surprised to see Color Conquest and Challenge Royale tie for third in the vote, only because those are games we play frequently on regular weekends. I always feel like these nights are better suited to be opportunities to experience games that are a little more out of the box, but people like what they like, so we played those formats next, followed by Megabase, Team Supercharge (another surprising vote), Laser Ball and Domination.

I found Laser Ball particularly enjoyable this time as a result of the true teamwork being evidenced. Now, of course that’s how you would hope it works all the time, but sometimes it is just clearer to see the passing, the assists and the successes coming from actually working together as opposed to having a strong player just barreling through (no further comment needed, but we all know what that’s like). My two personal favorite moments weren’t even from scoring myself (though I did enjoy making a clean run through the arena to get my goal), but rather clearing a path along the way to Slayer scoring and then being there to guard when O-Man got his second goal ever. He was over the moon about that and this was a game to document for posterity as a result.

Domination is another format where without teamwork you can’t really succeed, so getting to play these kind of games with members, either at or ascending to a higher level, was far more interesting than the average night…even though I did enjoy playing a regular tag night on Friday as well.

Why was I here on Friday? As I said, I showed up for an extra night just so I could be among the first at this site to have the Pixel game experience. Trying it at trade shows is one thing, but now that we have it in Syracuse, I want to try to do it well. Check out how that first night went and tell me how far I have to go, lol!

The next night I invited my friends to join me and we all got Pixelated playing the simpler game modes to start (I think Mama Bear selected the kids mode for us, but we’ll keep that our little secret) and after a couple of rounds we decided that we are much better at tag, but we had fun with this new attraction in between our laser tag games. :)

Several of us are playing in the Armageddon laser tag tournament soon, so nights like this are important, not only for keeping up chops on the different systems, but also for the camaraderie that keeps us together in between those spread out tournament times. With all of us scattered geographically, it was awesome to get to spend a night visiting, doing what we love and laser tagging together.