Game Report: The Return of Club Z13!

Author’s edit: as it has been pointed out to me, while we may have been operating under the notion of “we’re all vaccinated here, so masks are optional”, the Covid-19 delta variant (as well as delta plus) are quickly becoming the dominant strains workdwide, with the possibility of affecting vaccinated individuals. Please use caution in all public settings, and maintain vigilance when it comes to mask wearing and social distancing. Seems I need to not let my guard down so much, especially as there are plenty of unvaccinated out there I could still inadvertently affect.

The pandemic (and subsequent closure of Detroit Dart Club) left the local Humans v Zombies scene on life support over the past year. However, with life picking back up, and all attendees actually being vaccinated, games are back and more fun than ever – this time at a rented-out laser tag facility. I got the chance to drive up and play on June 19th, and it was as much fun as I remembered!

Game Types

Club Z13 rarely does pure Humans v Zombies; the indoor arena format lends itself to “Human objective that happens to have zombies” instead. For example, Zombie Deathmatch is simply a PvP round, one life each, and getting tagged out just means you’ll respawn 30 seconds later as a zombie (without any allegiance to your former team).

Other objective rounds appear, such as a VIP escort (get the doctor to safety), BFZ (find the pieces to the ultimate weapon while and unstoppable (but slowable) zombie boss and minions chase you, demolition (plant and wire up 4 charges, and get out, all while outnumbered), and more. Of course, over three hours, not every game type gets played.

Being full of short rounds played back to back, Club Z13 also makes for a good opportunity to test blasters and loadouts, both against human opponents and zombies. This time around, I used the Ryan’s World Dart Tag blasters, as well as my homemade Vortex blaster (post coming soon, I promise!).

And Peeps. Why throw sock bombs when you can throw cute little plush chicks instead? I may or may not be obsessed…

Loadouts, etc.

Being an HvZ event, 130fps is the blaster velocity cap. As such, stock and lightly modded blasters are the most common. Even so, you still see odd things here and there, especially if high fps wars are later in the day. Dual stage FDL, anyone? Tuned down Taffy Skewers? Nerf Hyper Rush 40s with hop up tabs and pump action? Yep, saw those, too.

Of course, the guys running around with Hammershots, Sentinels, and other blasters did just fine, too!

Big thanks to Revolution Laser Tag for being gracious hosts!