Adventure group shoot to kill!

Laser Tag was this month’s activity for the Adventure Group. We were told that we would use lightweight, safe infra-red laser ‘guns’ to fire harmless beams at our opponents, scoring points by hitting electronic sensors and we would be doing it inside a genuine decommissioned Cold War Nuclear Bunker!

So we assembled at a huge forbidding looking concrete structure with very thick walls. Inside was a long corridor with a network of numerous rooms leading off it and including two staircases leading to an upper gallery. It was very dusty and dingy and half dark. We had a very brief safety talk – no running or climbing – and then were given our weapons. We each had a headband with a sensor front and back at which our opponents would aim. The gun would speak to us and tell us if we had wounded or killed our opponent and would let us know if we were shooting at someone who was already dead. It would stop shooting once we were killed. We needed to divide into two teams and we opted to plays boys against girls. Each team had a base within the bunker. If we were killed we could return to that base and press a red button and we would be alive again.

Each game lasted for fifteen minutes. In the first it was a straightforward race to make the most kills. It was very exciting dodging round doorways and firing at our opponents. Fortunately the guns would not let you kill your own team mates. Fifteen minutes passed by in a flash and soon we were led back to the main building to get our breath back and hear the results. To our delight we found that the girls had won by twenty three kills to nineteen. We were also able to check our personal statistics on our guns and see how many times we had killed or been killed.

In the next game the supervisor hid a black box. If we shot at it then it would show our team’s colour. We could then defend it until the other team were able to turn it their colour. First we had to find the black box and I certainly felt at a disadvantage here as in the first game I had not ventured very far from our team’s base so had little idea of the layout. Our team quickly made a plan of who would go where and agreed a code so that we could tell each other if we found the box without the other team realising. That proved to be a waste of time as we later discovered that the boys had located the box and defended it for over seven minutes while we were still looking for it! By the end of the fifteen minutes the boys had held it for well over twelve minutes and we for less than two. We had to admit that they had won that one.

So it was all to play for in the third game when there was a box to find and defend and we were also competing for the number of kills. We all got very carried away with shooting each other which was definitely great fun, but we kept forgetting about looking for the box and it was only found about a minute from the end (with a bit of help!). So the overall result came down to the number of kills. It was very close at twenty two to twenty but the girls were the winners!

I think we all enjoyed this afternoon of playing. It is amazing how quickly a group of respectable senior adults can get into the mindset of a shoot to kill battle!

Many thanks are due to Phil as this was the first adventure he had arranged for us. We are sorry you weren’t able to join us on the day but you certainly organised a good one!

Deborah Wallis

(For a longer version of this article please see Deb’s personal blog: What Deb did next)