Since 2006, the Midwest Laser Tag Association (formerly Omaha Laser Challenge Association) has hosted weekly games during the summer months called the "Fight Night". 15 weeks, 15 games, tons of fun! For the past 8 seasons, we've held games at
Mission Park West. For Season 9, there's a lot of changes in store!
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For starters, we're changing locations to a new park that's right behind my home that I purchased in August of 2013. We've already played a couple of games at the new park to test it out, including our
Halloween Game, and things really went great! There's also a
Spring Game coming up this weekend that'll also make use of our new surroundings before we start up Season 9 in May.
The park is ideal for a couple of reasons. Having a home that backs up to the playing field gives us a couple of advantages. You don't have to walk half a mile to use a bathroom, there's a nice place to chill out and wait for the next game to begin, there's access to my workshop for quick repairs if needed, the list goes on and on. Plus, the park offers a unique dynamic of easily being able to be split in different ways to change up the playing field. There are technically two parks there (you can see it in the map to the left), so we can use the top park, bottom park, or blend the two together depending on what we want to do.
Next on the docket for Season 9 is
finally having accessories available for the popular LTAR (
Lazer Tag Augmented Reality) blasters that are on store shelves now. We've been working on adapters that will allow players to easily add on popular enhancements for these blasters. There's a
Lens Adapter that serves as an excellent platform for adding on long-range lens assemblies. We're also developing a weaver-rail adapter and stock adapter that will be able to mount a
Nerf N-Strike Removable Stock. Players are always asking veteran players to build a blaster for them, but we rarely have time to fill these requests. With these easy add-on accessories, players will be able to customize their LTAR they way they want to without making a complicated mess of things. Making modifications accessible to newer players is a key component to getting folks hooked on this game. It's one thing to show up, borrow a blaster, and go home when it's all said and done. However, if you OWN a blaster, and you build it to suit your needs, you're more likely to want to get out there and put it to the test week after week.
Lastly, with the new park location, we'll have the opportunity to reach out to a new community, too. At the few games we've had, there are already local kids joining our ranks and using their park like they never have before! Since our first two games at the new park, my neighbors have been asking "when is the next game? We want to come play again!" so it's exciting to hear that.
Between the new park, new players, and new gear, there's a lot to get excited about for Season 9! I'm working with our players to figure out our schedule for the summer, but it's great to have so many things to look forward to this summer!
