My Alternate Alter-Ego Plays Photon
Before I get into the Photon part of my story I should explain how I ended up with an alternate alter-ego in the first place, which is new as of last night at the laser tag arena. If you are reading this, odds are you are already into laser tag enough to know everyone plays with a code name and I go by Tivia. However, in the last two weekends of playing Laserforce I have found that playing as Tivia has had its ups and downs in certain scenarios, particularly in terms of practicing as a level six player, which I realize I need to do...but not at the expense of my average. On the off chance Mike ever updates the scoreboard (just kidding...sort of) I want to be in the mix and I would hate to have my average obliterated because by chance circumstance I haven't had enough level six players to practice with and have found myself in scenarios where I just had to accept the three shot handicap against hyperactive level ones. Believe me, I'd much rather be playing it out and sharpening my skills against higher level players, but for whatever reason (and Mitch can blame me for it) the last two Fridays have been kind of quiet. So...what I realized is that I could do one of the following things:
1. Sign in as Tivia and play as a level six, but likely squelch my average in the process
2. Not sign in at all and play as a level one, which does not really help me improve my skills
3. Sign in with an alternate name as a permanent level six so that I don't have to care about the numbers, just the benefits of practicing and improving my abilities
So, I went the route of a second membership and an alternate alter-ego...
And my first game playing with my new code name was ironically the very thing that inspired it (D = Duria) as I got to use it to play a round of Photon emulation. However, there's a story behind how this option even ended up on the table. It goes back to a week ago.
It was a VERY quiet evening and by the end of the night last Friday so we were mixing up game formats just because. That's when I suggested playing some Photon. Mitch was up for it, there were a couple others around and Lenny, the game master, who ended up becoming a Photon convert. So fast forward to this week.
Mike was the game master this time out and Mitch speaks up saying "Let's play Photon!" I loudly agreed (even though most of the other players in the room didn't have the foggiest idea what we were talking about). Now, Mike clearly wants to play Photon even less than Lenny originally did, so what resulted was pretty much him caving in under duress, but nonetheless, it was decided that we would play some Photon tonight...yay! This format may be very old school, but it was brand new to the majority of players in the room, so a tutorial demonstration was given (which was unintentionally funny when one guy failed to get a demo shot off the other to even show everyone the shot speed, which is significantly slower than normal play - 1.8 seconds?). Then we got to go in and play some Photon!
I'm not going to pretend I played well...I didn't. I love it in general and I will fight for it any time the opportunity comes up, but I am not actually any good at Photon. However, I was still ahead of half the field, three of whom ended up in serious negative score territory, so I will call this an acceptable outcome.
Regardless, just being able to play it is pretty cool. Guys, you made this old lady very happy by letting things go retro for awhile! The next game we played was supercharge, described to the group as "the complete opposite of Photon". Well, that may be, but just remember that without Photon none of the rest of this laser tag industry that we love would even exist. The light still shines! :)
And speaking of loving laser tag, I want to give a shout out to the Syracuse Laser Tag National Team and wish them well as they compete in the International Laser Tag Laser Force Tournament in Colorado. If you want to support the Syracuse team you can show them your support through their GoFundMe campaign at https://www.gofundme.com/rq2vzk/.
If you have comments or questions please visit my websites at www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com or email me at tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com.
