Light Strike 2: The Strikening

Spent a couple evenings playing with the Light Strike gear in the last couple weeks - small games with the kids.  With four little boys in the house, I don't even need to phone friends or plan ahead to get a good pick-up game going.

The first evening, everyone just kind of ran around the property shooting at each other.  That was fun, but I knew that eventually we'd have to do something a little more substantial to keep everyone interested, even though every twenty minutes for the next week one of the four-year-olds kept asking "Can we play with those guns?"

So, for our second round, I set up some stuff to make things more interesting.  Out in one corner of the property we have a zip-line, and there's a two-story fort/swing set set up underneath it.  I tied some twine in three locations on the fort and hung a Light Strike target on each one.

Almost 100 yards away, near the house, there is a picnic table.  I set our LED lantern out on that.  Then, halfway in between, I tied another bit of twine to a tree and hung a target on it.  The rules of the game for the evening were as such:

• Whichever team color the targets on the fort are is the team that controls the "base."  To capture the base, the opposing team must change all three targets to their color.  Once this happens, "losers walk" - the team previously occupying the fort has to hoof it to the picnic table before coming back accross the playing field to try to take back the fort.
• When you are "dead" you must return to your "base" before respawning.  If your team does not control the fort, this means the picnic table with the lantern on it.
• The target in the middle of the field is a "check point" - if it is your team's color, you may use it as your respawn point instead of going all the way to your base.

This created a great flow to the game - one team was always trying to take the fort and the other was always trying to defend it.  With only five players, it was a fantastic way to keep the game moving.  Even the two four-year-olds were capable of understanding what was going on and participating, and everyone had a blast.  We played for nearly two hours this way.

So this is a game type we will definitely be playing in the future.  I'm also going to build a second fort, as well as determining some other points on the field that could be set up as "check points."  This will allow for some other game ideas, such as Take and Hold - Timed rounds, with whichever team controls the most targets at the end of the round being the winner.  Another idea - with the two ITS systems I have, they could be set up in Bomb Mode in the bases, and the first team to detonate the bomb in the opposing team's base wins.  Working on ideas for how to play a Capture the Flag game, as well - though the traditional idea of dropping the flag when you're "Killed" probably doesn't need too much tampering.  It would be cool to come up with an electronic way of carrying the flag, though.

I have a few ideas for "classes" as well, sort of "Team Fortress" style... I read an idea over at Rich Whiffen's blog about possibly capturing the ITS' medic pulses with a universal remote and it gave me the idea of doing just that and building the remote in to a "medipack" that a "medic" could carry with them.  Equipment loadout ideas for the basic classes would look something like this:

• Sniper - Assault Striker with scope attachment
• Heavy Weapons - Assault Striker with Refractor Launch System (grenade launcher) or Rapid Fire System
• Soldier - Assault Striker
• Medic - Striker and Medipack

Beyond this, I'm exploring a couple of ideas for building some additional Light Strike gear, using the decodes that Rich Whiffen and Brad have gotten out of the gear so far.  Aside from still trying to think up how I'd do an electronic flag, and developing some kind of a medikit, the two major ideas I've had are making some "grenades" and "directional mines."  These would add a great dimension to gameplay, and perhaps could be part of the equipment loadout for one of the classes - the Soldier, perhaps, or even a Demolitions class.

Additionally, we have some of the NERF N-Force weapons - fiberglass core foam swords, and shields.  I've been thinking a Scout class could carry a Striker and a shield, though I haven't determined if the shield would badly imbalance gameplay by giving the Scout something to hide their Striker behind.  Along similar lines, an Assassin/Ninja class could wear a sensor vest and carry just a sword - if they hit someone with the sword, they are effectively "dead" and must go to a respawn point.  Since neither of these ideas integrate fully in to the games electronic system though, I'm still working out whether or not they are viable... and whether or not I can think up ways to add electronics to them if necessary.