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Survival Guide Basic Information PRICE AND GAME LENGTH A game is $5 for 15 minutes of action, 20 to 25 total time. THE ARENA You will encounter a maze-like arena with many barrels and walls to use for cover. The arenas has the option of producing FOG to intensify the experience when you play the game. And, to top it off, we play a variety of loud techno music which adds a lot of adrenaline to the game. Also in the arena is a SCOREBOARD to keep track of the score and the time remaining during the game on either team. You will be rewarded or penalized for various actions that you perform. (See SCORING POINTS below) THE TEAM COLORS You will be assigned a team color which will be either RED or GREEN. They are very bright as to be able to distinguish the opposite team VERY easily. RULES IN THE ARENA (VERY IMPORTANT) This section is by far the most important section when it comes to playing the game because if people do not follow the rules, injuries can and will happen so please read the following: 1. ABSOLUTELY NO RUNNING! It is well known with players that have played Q-Zar before that there is absolutely NO running in the arena. If you are running then you can easily come around a corner and slam into another person and most likely injure them. If you must get away from someone quickly then take a brisk walk but do NOT run! You can get away from your opponent quick enough by walking. 2. KEEP TWO HANDS ON THE GUN AT ALL TIMES! This is another very important rule that is enforced at almost all Q-Zars. When you have two hands on the gun you have better control and better aiming capability (this isn't a pistol, it's more like a rifle . . ever fire a rifle with one hand??). The possibility of injury is much greater with only one hand on the gun because you can lose control and hit someone in the face with it. 3. DO NOT CLIMB ON THE OBSTACLES! Our arena has obstacles (barrels, walls, etc) that you COULD climb over to get to a strategic location faster. Don't you think those obstacles were put there for a reason? You must NOT climb on any obstacle for most of them will NOT support your weight and WILL collapse! 4. NO PHYSICAL CONTACT! This is a laser-tag game, not a football game! Under no circumstances in a Q-Zar game should you make purposeful physical contact. Bumps and accidental shoves are to be expected but do not put yourself in a situation where you are going to purposefully invoke physical contact with another player whether it be a bump, push, shove, kick or anything of the sort. This is a NO PHYSICAL CONTACT game! This rule is so important that most Q-Zars will throw you out of the game (with NO refund) if they see it happen so be very careful! 5. NO BAD LANGUAGE! This is a game for the whole family.
THE PACK The pack is designed to fit snuggly over the body with waist straps to adjust so that the vest will hold on securely during your game. There is also a strap for your gun which is to be looped once around your neck so it hangs from your neck. This is to ensure that you will not lose control of your gun during the game. The packs themselves are actually VERY durable and can take a lot of abuse but please try and be careful so that other players can enjoy the packs when they play. The pack is one size fits most, children under 5 years generally get tired about half way through the game. INFORMATION ON THE GUN AND PACK Once you grab your pack and gun you will notice information displayed on your gun. The top number is your number for that game. If you have a red pack and the number is 4 then you are RED 4. The bottom number, when you first get your un energized pack, will display a -U which means that it is un energized. Once you energize your pack (see below under ENERGIZERS) the numbers will change. The top number will now reflect how many lives you have and the bottom number will change to reflect how many shots you have per life (See below for info on SHOTS AND LIVES). The pack will also change on the FRONT sensor panel. The front panel will display a number which is your team number. If you pick up a red pack and the number flashes '4' then you are RED 4. The number on your gun BEFORE you energize is going to be the same number on your FRONT sensor AFTER you energize. THE SENSOR AREAS The pack has FIVE main sensor areas - the FRONT sensor (which, by the way, is bigger than the back one so you know which ones goes in front when you put it on), the BACK sensor (which is smaller than the FRONT), the two sides of the gun itself and down the barrel. So, here's what you have: 1. FRONT BEING TAGGED You can be TAGGED in any of these five areas (listed above). When you are tagged in any of these areas, your pack will go through a series of changes: First and foremost the pack will vibrate momentarily and you will hear a 'hit' noise , Second, lights all over your vest will flash faster than normal for a brief second, and thirdly, and most importantly, your pack will talk with you. Let's go over the effect of 'being tagged' first: 1. VEST WILL VIBRATE AFTER YOU ARE TAGGED Your pack, after you are tagged, will now speak to you. First, it will go through a phase called your DEFENSE SHIELD phase where your gun will talk to you. On a standard game, you will hear "DEFENSE SHIELD! ACTIVE! ACTIVE!" coming from your gun. During this phase you CAN NOT be tagged and you CAN NOT shoot at anyone. This phase is to protect you and give you time to recuperate from being hit and allow yourself time to get into a more defensive location (hence the name 'Defense shield'). After the DEFENSE SHIELD period is over, your pack will go through another phase called the WARNING phase. During this phase, your pack will say "WARNING!" a few times. During this period, you CAN be shot but you CAN NOT shoot back so it is VERY important during this period to protect yourself and move away from opponents coming close to you because they CAN hit you but you CAN NOT hit them back during this phase!! Once your gun has stopped speaking to you then you are cleared to shoot again as you wish. If you are shot again, you pack will go through the same changes. A general good rule of thumb for beginners to the game is if your gun is talking to you, you cannot shoot so as long as you gun speaks to you, you must find a place to take cover. LIVES AND SHOTS At the start of a STANDARD Q-Zar game you will have 4 lives with 20 shots per life. Once you have used up all your lives you gun will talk to you saying "RETURN TO ENERGIZER" at which time you return to your TEAM COLORED (If you're RED then go to the RED energizer as opposed to the GREEN energizer) energizer to regain your lives. You get 20 shots per life. The shot information is a little tricky to explain - You get 20 shots before you lose a life. If, during these 20 shots, you hit another player, your counter resets back to 20. If you do NOT hit another player during these 20 shots you will LOSE one life. Your gun with warn you once you get to 3 shots left by saying "WARNING! LOW ON SHOTS!" in which time you either hit someone on the opposite team within 3 shots or go back to an energizer to get 20 more shots. If you don't do either one by the time you reach 0 shots, you will lose a life. THE REFLEX SHOT One of the most important aspects that is overlooked by beginning players in a Q-Zar game is what is called the REFLEX SHOT. After you have been shot by an opposite colored player then you have 1 second in which to fire back before you pack goes through its DEFENSE SHIELD and WARNING phases. This REFLEX SHOT is very valuable to you and you should take full advantage of it. THE ENERGIZERS The energizer is simply that: allows you to place your gun on a sensor pad and wait for your pack to energize. To energize your pack at the beginning of the game you must energize at an energizer. Once you have energized you will be given 4 lives and 20 shots. Remember that when you run out of lives you must come back to your own team-colored energizer to get 4 more lives to continue the game. The pack will continually say "RETURN TO ENERGIZER" once you have run out of lives to remind you. And remember, you must return to your own TEAM COLORED energizer to energize. If you are RED you must go through a RED energizer to energize. The GREEN energizer will NOT energize you if you are RED. THE HEADQUARTERS The headquarters in most games is the focus of the game. You score the most points by hitting the headquarters and in a lot of arenas it takes a lot of skill to do this. For all headquarters you must shoot up into the cylinder (or cylinder hole) once, which will produce a beam of light to indicate that you hit it for the first time, then wait a specified amount of time for the second shot then shoot again. Once you do this successfully then lights will flash and a loud siren will sound. When this happens it means that you have successfully deactivated the opposite team's headquarters. (see SCORING POINTS below) SCORING POINTS There are two main types of game scoring methods. One is called the 'Classic Scoring' method and the other is called the 'Hi-Scoring' Method. I will go over the 'Classic Scoring' Method first: CLASSIC SCORING TAGGING OPPONENT: +2/+200 HI-SCORING TAGGING OPPONENT: +1/+100 THE END OF THE GAME At the end of a game your pack will make some final sounds and tell you one last time saying "GAME OVER, RETURN TO ENERGIZER". At this point you must return to one of the energizers and download your laser (send the information to the master computer to get a scorecard) When you have successfully downloaded your pack you gun will talk to you one last time by saying "THANK YOU FOR PLAYING Q-ZAR" - this is how you can tell if you have successfully downloaded. Any other response from the gun means that you did not download successfully. Intermediate Information on playing Q-Zar This section is mainly for players that have played the game 10 or more times and really like it and/or feel very comfortable with the general aspects of the game and want to learn more. If you'd like to know how to become better then please read on!
VARIOUS TYPES OF GAMES There are a few types of games that can be played that are all apart of Q-Zar: 1. ENERGIZE A game which is entitled ENERGIZE is a STANDARD game. No modifications are in this game unless stated (see VARIATIONS). It can be called ENERGIZE 4, ENERGIZE 6, ENERGIZE 20 or whatever. The number signifies how many lives you get before you must energize to get more lives. A game which is entitled SUPERCHARGE has variations
built into the game, instead of being able to tag the headquarters many many
times during a standard game, you have to ACHIEVE this honor. A game which is entitled BATTLEFIELD is VASTLY different than any other game played. In a BATTLEFIELD game, a number of packs, both GREEN and RED, are placed in strategic locations in the arena and will act as MINES! These packs can tag you as opponents can during the game so it is best to avoid them! If you must go near a pack then watch the lights on the pack . . if they start to blink then shot the pack. Every 10 seconds a pack will blink. The blinking is a warning that the pack will fire shots off in the next second or two. When a pack fires it shoots out tags in all directions and if you are in its range, you WILL be hit and be subtracted points as if you were hit by an opponent with the exception that no points will be awarded to the other team! The battlefield packs can be set in a variety of ways: MINE DISABLED - This simply means that the pack/mine is
not part of the game and disabled. A game which is entitled SOLO has a simple variation. Regardless of what color pack you have on, there are *NO* teams! It's a 'free-for-all' in the arena. If something moves shoot it! You are your own team! There are no TEAM points. Only PERSONAL points during this game. A game which is entitled ELIMINATOR is by far the most difficult of all the games at Q-Zar. An ELIMINATOR game can be called ELIMINATOR 4, ELIMINATOR 6, ELIMINATOR 20 or ANY number after the game type. The number simply specifies the amount of lives you get at the beginning of the game. An ELIMINATOR game is different in that the number of lives you start out with at the beginning of the game is ALL of the lives you will have for the game. So, if you are playing an ELIMINATOR 10 game, you will have a total of 10 lives. Once you are tagged 10 times (in this instance) then you are out of the game and the game is over for you. No re-energizing to get lives. 10 is all you have. Remember please that you are given only ONE life at a time so after you expend a life by being tagged you MUST go back to your energizer to acquire another life. The only way that you can GET additional lives is by shooting the opposite team players. If you successfully shoot an opposite team member in an ELIMINATOR game and you haven't lost any of your lives and you are NOT hit by a reflex shot then you will be GIVEN A LIFE. You will now have 1 more life than you started with. If you want to know how many lives you have left at any point in the game, simply look down at your gun and the top number will reflect how many lives you have left. A game entitled STUN is a game that doesn't use energizers. You energize at the beginning of the game but you have INFINITE lives so you never have to re-energize. In my opinion, this type of game requires a lot less strategy than a normal energize game. With that in mind you can see why this game is normally played with beginning players. VARIATIONS ON THE TYPES OF GAMES Experienced players will notice the combinations of various games, but there are a few options that are more subtle that are put into games to make it more interesting: 1. NO REFLEX SHOT A game with the option of NO REFLEX SHOT will simply not allow you to shoot back after you have been shot. You must go through the entire DEFENSE SHIELD/WARNING phase of the pack to shoot again. This makes for a very interesting game cuz you cannot rely on hitting them after they hit you, you MUST hit them first! A game with 1 SHOT PER SECOND is a standard game. No matter how many times you pull the trigger it will NOT allow you to shoot more than once per second. A game with 2 SHOTS PER SECOND will only allow you to shoot a maximum of 2 SHOTS PER SECOND regardless of how many times you pull the trigger. A game with the option of NO DEFENSE SHIELDS is a very fast paced and difficult game. Simply put, a game with this option will not go through the DEFENSE SHIELD/WARNING phase of the packs. Once you are shot, you immediately revert to being able to shoot and be shot IMMEDIATELY! So, in this game, if someone is trying to get away from you, you can pound on him with the only restriction being the amount of lives he has! A game with the option of RAPID FIRE simply allows you to fire as fast as you can pull the trigger! These types of games are usually reserved for beginning players in order to give them an even playing field when playing with more experienced players. To put experienced players on 1 or 2 SHOTS PER SECOND while putting beginners on RAPID FIRE makes for more interesting games. A game with the option of LETHAL ENERGIZERS is somewhat misleading. The energizers are not the ones that are 'lethal'. It is the HEADQUARTERS that you need to look out for. The headquarters, after it is disabled (shot twice) will fire tags in all directions for 30 seconds after it is disabled. Stay clear of this! A game with the option of SPIES is a very fun game! During the game at random intervals, someone on a specified team will be 'chosen' to be a SPY. When you are a SPY you gun will flash double UU and when you pull the trigger it will make a high pitched sound. In this mode you can hit your teammates for +4/+400 points. You will be a SPY for 2 minutes after the start of your spy-dom OR until you get shot which will end you being a SPY. A game with the option of SMART BOMBS means that team members will be given a specified amount of SMART BOMBS for the game. To utilize these bombs you must hold down the trigger for approximately 2 seconds while aiming at your opponent. If this is done correctly then your gun will shoot out infrared tags in all directions to tag MULTIPLE opponents. COMBINATIONS OF GAMES Playing more often in Q-Zar you will encounter different types of games with all sorts of variations such as: SUPERCHARGE 1, NO REFLEX - Simply put, this game is a STANDARD SUPERCHARGE game with only one life. Once you expend that life, you must re-energize. On top of that, you get no reflex shot. If you are shot, you are dead. The game is MOST difficult and only the most experienced players are able to hit the headquarters even once! ENERGIZE 6, NO DEFENSE SHIELDS, NO REFLEX - Another option is a standard game with 6 lives starting out with NO DEFENSE SHIELDS (see above) and without the ability to REFLEX shoot the other player once hit. TIME LEFT? Difficult to see the scoreboard from where you are standing in the arena? Want to know how much time you have left without getting into a position where you can be hit while looking at the scoreboard? Hold down the trigger on your gun for a few seconds without letting go. After a few seconds your gun will say "TIME LEFT" and the time will be displayed on your panel. TEAMWORK AND TEAM PLAY Once you have played several times, you might want to actually get a GOOD game going. To get a really good standard game going, you're going to need teamwork. You need to cover your teammates so if they get shot you can take over or back them up. TEAM PLAY should be fairly easy once you get to know some people and have played with them a number of times. Communication is very important in team play . . there's no rule about informing other teammates of opposing teammates closing in or about to hit the headquarters . . shouts across the arena can become helpful in bringing your other teammates to your rescue in times of need! A NOTE ON RAPID FIRE I have found out through a lot of play time that there is a big difference between 1/2 shots per second and RAPID FIRE when it comes to 'sensitivity' in the sensors. A person that has been energized with RAPID FIRE must be a LOT more precise with his shot/shots to actually 'hit' you. They may be able to fire VERY fast but the shots are not as powerful as the shots of 1/2 shots per second. Please keep this in mind while playing. You can use this to your advantage. ACCURACY WITH THE LASER The lasers themselves do not need a great deal of aiming to hit a target. You can hit someone without aiming too precisely on them just be sure that you're in the general area. But please keep in mind that as the distance increases it is more difficult to hit your opponent because the infrared beam that comes out of your gun fans out. Your gun is most affective at a medium range. A NOTE ABOUT THE TAGGING AND THE GUN After playing several games you might have known that your gun will speak to you yet another time and that's when you hit an opponent. Except, the problem is, your gun doesn't always talk when you hit an opponent. Whenever the SEND portion of you gun sends the tag information out and successfully TAGS the opponent *AND* RECEIVES the information back to your gun THEN the gun talks to you saying "GOOD SHOT". Please note that in a SUPERCHARGE game in order to get SUPERCHARGED you MUST get 5 GOOD SHOTS - There have been many an instance where I have hit MORE than 5 people and NOT gotten SUPERCHARGED. The key is to get the "GOOD SHOT" from your gun and ultimately the "GOOD SHOT, WELL PLAYED" to be SUPERCHARGED. STAYING OUT OF THE LASER BEAM! Do not make yourself an open target. Keep down and make sure your sensors are not showing especially your gun! One of the most common mistakes of every new player is thinking that their gun is invulnerable by aiming it like a sniper would. They forget that their gun has MOST of the sensors on it!!! Make the most of this and also keep in mind not to make the same mistake! MAKING THE MOST OF THE REFLEX SHOT Keep alert and always aware of who is around you. If you are hit from what seems to be 'out of nowhere' then chances are 99% of the time that it's not true . . someone DID hit you who probably still hasn't had the chance to escape yet. . make the most of that ONE second that you do have! Turn around quickly and try to shoot who hit whoever shot you before your one second is up. Heck, if you can't find the person who shot you, find another opposite colored player and tag him! Points are points! One second may not seem like a lot of time but you'd be surprised what you can do in that length of time!! HEADQUARTER DELAYS Some specifics on headquarter delays: The maximum delay setting for a headquarters is 10 seconds between the two shots and the minimum is 1 second. The headquarters will actually talk when it goes through varies cycles: "WARNING, REPEAT TO DEACTIVATE" - This will sound after
you have fired your first shot to deactivate the HQ. 'CLEARING' YOUR TEAMMATES One of the first things that we found out about when playing is that when your teammate has been hit and is going into his WARNING stage, if a teammate shoots and hits this person then it makes a loud BONG sound. You do lose points for this action but what this does is it 'clears' your teammate from going on through the WARNING stage and he goes immediately into a state of being able to fire. There is a cost, as I stated, but when you're playing close quarters it can be VERY helpful when defending or attacking.
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