Now for an overdue post... but luckily not
that much overdue. Last week (not this week that just ended but the past one) we had a teambuilding event for the whole of Tetra software team. It was a half-day event; we had a buffet lunch at Eastin Hotel (which I think everyone agreed did not taste that good) and then proceeded to Queensbay Mall (which is walking distance from Eastin) for games of laser tag and escape mission.
We were split up into eight teams, with four teams going for laser tag first, and the other four going for the escape mission first (the places in question could not fit everyone in at the same time...)
My team ended up playing laser tag first. This seems to be quite a new "thing", as I first heard of one opening at 1st Avenue recently, then at Gurney (not sure whether it's the Plaza or Paragon), and now at Queensbay. It is basically a game of paintball (because everyone knows paintball by now, right?) without the pain(t). (It's been a long time since I made a pun... hehe) Players wear a vest which has a few targets on it. By shooting at different targets, you gain different amounts of points.
So this was our team! (the one wearing white is my manager, by the way... we happened to be in the same team. Err...no comment. :| )
You can see the targets on the vests... the ones on the shoulder are worth 50 points if not mistaken, and those on the torso are 200 points (I remember this because those are the highest points). There is also a target on the top of the gun (actually they call the gun a phasor; I know that because when we get shot, there's a display on the top of the gun that tells us where we've been shot. I took a while to figure that out though, because at first you just look around you rather than at the display) which is worth 100 points I think (or 50, I can't remember), and another big one on your back which is worth 100 points. And every time you are shot, you sort of "freeze" for six seconds, as in you cannot shoot and cannot be shot during that time.
From the photo you can see that the targets on our vests are flashing
red (you can only see the shoulder targets flashing, but when the game
starts, the other targets start flashing properly as well). There are
blue and green for the other teams, but we only had two teams playing at a time, so we
never used the green ones.
So... we go inside and it is rather dark (I suppose it's so you can see the targets flashing), and the place is quite a maze actually. There are so many walls that you can't really see people unless if you run into them. I guess this is their way of making the game fun... but some of those who had played it before, somewhere else - they said that playing in an open space was more fun (it was an open space, but had some obstacles or things that you could hide behind. So they said... since I've never played elsewhere before).
There is also a small "viewing deck" above the game area, where we can go and watch people playing. But you can't really see much going on... it's just fun to look at your friends running around shouting :P
We played three games of laser tag, with each game lasting 10 minutes. Since there were four teams playing at a time, we played against every other team. (there was only one game area, so we had to take turns) The first game was just counting points, seeing how many times we could hit the opposing team. No friendly fire, meaning that there was no effect if you shoot your own teammate.
In the second game, it was similar to the first except that each player had only ten lives. After those lives were used up, you couldn't shoot any more and had to go out of the game area. I don't know how they count the lives though... not sure whether each life was counted by a certain number of points or if you could get shot a hundred times in the shoulder and not lose any lives :P
And the third game... suddenly friendly fire counts! (just when I had gotten used to shooting anyone I saw...) The colours of the targets all change to yellow when the game starts, so you have to recognise your own teammates instead of relying on the colour. Life was unlimited, but you got points deducted for shooting your own teammate. (
and your teammate freezes... so double penalty for your team there) Most teams received negative points in this round... only one team ended up with positive points... and they won the teambuilding event. (the points from the escape mission were added to the laser tag ones)
After the three games we went for the escape mission...which was just a few doors down from the laser tag in the mall. The escape mission has been around for some time in Georgetown... I think there are already two places doing that. The one in Queensbay is called Mission Q, and I think it opened rather recently.
They had five different rooms, so we drew lots to select our room. There were puzzles in the room that we had to solve... being a puzzle-lover it was quite fun for me. They laid down the rules to count the points (I think these rules are specially for teambuilding activities, not for when you go there yourself to play): You had a certain number of points to begin with (60, I think), and with every minute earlier than the hour that you managed to escape from the room, you received an extra point. If you didn't manage to escape within the hour, they would deduct ten points for every puzzle that was left unsolved in the room. And they gave you hints that you could request whenever you wanted (the number of hints depends on the difficulty of the room; 3-star difficulty means you get 3 hints, and 4-star means 4 hints). Unused hints would translate to extra points (10 points per hint, if not mistaken).
We got a 4-star room, and managed to escape in 53 minutes. Which was quite good I guess, because we had time to have fun. (coming out too soon would have been kinda a waste, in that sense) The only thing I didn't like was that we were constrained to an hour
(not by the escape mission itself, because the teambuilding event
couldn't last that long... people wanted to go home!), so sometimes we had to ask for a hint instead of spending more time to think about the puzzle. (we used up all four hints, by the way)
One funny thing happened when we were doing the escape mission. While working on the first puzzle, we suddenly discovered that we could push the room wall. When we pushed, the room would move to one side. The person in charge told us to push it back because that wasn't the solution to our puzzle! But later on we found that pushing the wall was supposed to be done after solving yet another puzzle... So basically, we went ahead of ourselves. If we hadn't gone back to the first puzzle and solved each one properly, we would have missed something along the way and gotten stuck later on. They have cameras in the room, so I guess someone will monitor what you are doing and come to let you know if you're doing something you shouldn't, like solving something in the wrong order!
When everyone was done, we gathered at the laser tag location again for announcement of the results and an obligatory team photo (though some people had already gone home... :/ )
We even received certificates for our "outstanding achievement" in corporate laser battle... I guess simply participating (and not leaving after lunch, like some people did) is an outstanding achievement in itself! I would take a photo of the cert and post it here... but I left it in the office (and don't really plan on bringing it back home :P )
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