Review: Tensile style Skytent

I love tents and I love hammocks, and I've expressed a desire for one of the Tentsile aerial tents for a long time, but they are quite expensive. Not wanting to miss out forever, I kept an eye out and checked out AliExpress, where real things go to be replicated. For Giftmas I bought myself the one-person equivalent. I always feel a bit bad buying knock-offs but at the very least, its getting the very innovative concept out there.

So, given my ongoing stroke recovery and my work situation, we haven't ben able to go away camping, so I hadn't been able to tryout my aerial tent. Australia Day came around and we were invited to BBQ in a park, sounded like the perfect opportunity to try it out. I took some extra webbing strapping, in case we had trouble finding tree's to sling it on, but as it turned out the picnic table we picked was close to three gum trees. I unrolled the skytent from its stuff-sack bag and took stock.

The contents included the triangular base, made from webbing reinforced ripstop with a low (70D) Cordura number and (high quality silicon coating to give it a waterproof index of 2000-3000 mm) the base, which is about 4m a side, had built in reinforced eyelets for the two sets of shock-cord threaded anodised aluminium alloy poles and a light, waterproofed (to 1500-2000 mm)fly sheet to connect to.

It also came with three sets of 6m (19') loop-ended webbing, and shackles to for it to the base. At one end a ratcheting system for increasing the tension was supplied.

The base triangle comes with a breathable B3 bug-screen net with twin zippers. Built into the "roof" are two sleeves to feed the poles through to keep the roof in place and add stability when setting it up and to drape the fly over.

Once set up, which took a bit of doing (pro-tip; set the tent part up on the ground in the middle of your space, then string your straps. I rigged my straps with a truckers hitch. Getting partial tension on the tent to set it at a good height was just matter of sliding the webbing up to the right height, one tree at a time and tightening the truckers hitches once they were even. PRO-TIP 2: get the three corners as evenly high as possible. this will stop you sliding "downhill" on the slick ripstop nylon.

Once set up, the remaining slack can be eaten up with the ratchet, but this takes some doing. I'm glad we weren't setting it up in the rain. Once fully tensioned which it really needs to be, we put the fly on, which  had nylon hook hardware and shock-cords. The 240D fly has a single up-and-down zipper which coupled with the wide door in the flyscreen, makes a nicely framed entry/exit and window when pegged back. with its attached toggles.

The interior is spacious, the 4m sided equilateral triangle provide  almost 7m². of floorspace, with 1.2m (the almost 4') of loft, with its quite steep sides, there is  a lot of real-estate.

The wide webbing reinforcements throughout the base distribute weight nicely. I'm 192cm (6'4") and weigh 90kg (200lbs).  Laying right down the middle, legs splayed to the bottom corners, I was very comfortably supported.

This skytent is rated to carry 400kg (880lbs) and the heavy-duty ratchets buckles have a staggering 2.5 ton minimum breaking strength. Even so, the makers recommend only stringing it at a maximum 1.2m / 4' from the ground. As a good rule of thumb, you shouldn't set a hammock up from higher than you would want to fall from. Or climb into.

The supporting poles that give the skytent its vertical structure are seated in these washer equipped eyelets, and with the shaped ends of the poles, they seat securely and remain in place even with the rambunctious efforts of Tactical Baby. The seams are all also all double stitched. The whole tent is well finished.  I had had worries about the quality, given it was a knock-off, but it's been well made and put together.

All packed down, the tent weighs3.0kg or so, including the included webbing and the ratchet. and packs down into a stuff sack measuring 50cm x 20cm x 20cm. It's not too bulky nor heavy and would make an excellent addition to a backpack for a camping trip.

Internally as I've said it is spacious, but good set-up is key. if any one point of the triangle is higher or lower than the others the effect is a slow and steady slide to the lowest point.

I took it camping off to a full-emersion live action roleplaying weekend, "After The Fall" .

So I found myself three trees and set myself up. As with most tents, second time was much quicker and easier, and i'd had my lessons learned from my first attempt so it was pretty quick.  I even slung a second hammock along side, for lounging in when I was in my full tyre-armour kit. TO somewhat disguise the bright green of my tent and its fly sheet  I draped the whole thing in some scrim. One thing I didn't want was anyone tripping and falling onto me as I slept, so I put it a little higher than previously.

So high in fact I needed to step up onto one of my tactical milk-crates that I pack my camping gear into. I also stowed my kit under the hammock, off to one side from the Skytent, in case I did have a fall.

Inside at one of the three apexes was a pocket system which worked quite nicely with a jumper stuffed in it as a pillow. I used the zipper as an attachment point for my night-light as there weren't any internal loop hangers.


All in all I am both impressed by and happy with my SkyTent, and would heartily recommend you al lgo check out the original design at TENTSILE - Stingray

After an afternoons romping by Tactical Baby, and perhaps more roughhousing than was necessary, one of the poles has been warped and now adds an uneven curve to the dome, but no real issue there.  Certainly no fault in manufacture. I've managed to straighten it out a little but eventually  I might either replace it or run it through a pipe bender in reverse.

The Skytent handled nicely when occupied by two. even if one was little and bouncy and the other big and lumpy. Alas, I haven't tried it with two adults, but they are rated for it.

I put  a yoga mat in it when I camped, just as insulation, it was plenty comfortable to lay in in warm weather but any breeze below will chill you right down. Setting up an under-quilt like those made by the Go-Outfitters would work  a treat, but you'd need a triangular one.   

One thing I found was that the fly lifted and flapped about a bit, so I lashed it down underneath with some handy paracord.


All in all and excellent product and not just a gimmicky concept. all the benefits of a hammock and tent combined.


Pro-tip #3: set your doorway at chest height if you-re expecting friends to pop by. Nicer conversations for everyone when you can be eye-to-eye.

Events: After the Fall: New Hill City

I went to a Live Action Roleplay event not too long ago,  which went over three days and two nights. it was an immersive post-apocalyptic themed event, which was perfect for me.

 

This was billed as a resource and group survival driven event, with three distinct factions, which meant we had to depend on each other, and fend the other off, as the situation required.   

We were to delve into the world of After the Fall.

This LRP group is based in  Melbourne and aimed to have a high degree of costume, set dressing and role playing at this event.

The setting was this:
The year is 2030 and things have changed. The world that we will be playing in is a dystopian American future where corporations have accumulated so much power and influence that the government has been made redundant. There hasn't been a president for 5 years and nobody has really cared. Most of the USA has been reduced to a wasteland as laws are not enforced and infrastructure not supported.  

There are fortified cities that are run by corporations and wealthy individuals but they are few and far apart.

Different parts of the country will have unique dangers. There are irradiated areas and parts where chemical waste has caused nasty side effects. 

https://www.facebook.com/waghorn.photography

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I signed up as a PC (Player Character) for the game so I was to choose to be a member of one of the 3 factions. We couldn't play as an independent character. This was a story of how groups of people survive and interact in this setting. 

There were a small number of NPC's (Non Player Characters) who swaped roles from time to time in order to provide some plot based encounters for the players to interact with but the intent was that a lot of the roleplaying and conflict will be within or  between the factions.
Due to the violent and dangerous nature of the game setting it was recommended that we considered multiple character ideas in case our first characters died or was taken out of play for whatever reason. Sickness, radiation and chemical poisoning as well as a reasonable injury recovery period was expected. 

The internal combat system was with un-enhanced NERF-type weapons (decoration was however required) and LRP approved foam close combat weapons. Generally, unless you had representative armour props, two hits would kill. LRP events are based on an honour system, and the system worked pretty well. Brutally so.

Especially when we consider the resources aspect. I'll get to that. 

The three Major Factions:
The town of New Hill City
Slowly the groups found each other, banding together for survival. People who wanted to make a future for themselves and not just live in the violence of the present. In their travels they found an abandoned town in Kansas, Hill City. 

Taking over some of the buildings they have begun a new life. It is a difficult life on the frontier of chaos but they work hard to make it succeed.
  
The Soldiers of the True Americas:
Born out of an anti-government militia from before the fall, STA has been trying to gather resources and personnel to bring back the good old USA to its previous glory. They are
ruthless and accept that not everyone will have a place in the new world.


The Legion of Steel
Nobody remembers who founded the LOS but they have been terrorising the roads and highways of the Midwest for several years now. Due to their violent lifestyle they have an incredibly high turnover. But there are always more people wanting to join and rampage across the country. They take what they want and kill anyone who gets in their way.


I  opted for the STA, because I like trying out my kit, have a bunch of it already, and wanted to have a couple of different layouts to run about in, and generally like to see how it works in stressful situations.

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I set up as "Ronin" who was heavily supplied, armed and armoured. I also set up as "Coyote" who was lightly kitted, armoured and armed.

The real kicker was the ammunition situation. Even the STA faction, which was military based, had so little ammo that we were rationed only three NERF rounds each. This was a dire situation to be in, especially when you consider the range and hitting power they have, as well as outdoor windage. Fortunately we all had melee weapons as well. I had a dagger and a machete as my backups, as well as a pistol I never bothered to load, along with the NERF rifle I had. I had a scope on it (more to save carrying binoculars than to actually be useful with a NERF gun) and a light at the muzzle end. I took both off when I swapped to my "Coyote" persona.

I wore ATACS-AU as "Ronin" and MultiCam as "Coyote" and I'll talk about that in a future article.

We also all brought gas-masks. I have to say, fighting in a gas-mask is really, really hard. If you have a mask, and intend to use it in the event of a disaster, get it out, and PRACTICE. My "Ronin" character was killed in a bottleneck when blindsided by marauders.


The three factions set up in widely different areas of our site; the STA set up in a wide flat grassland, a circle of tents within a ring of faux-barbed wire, (I camped in my SMr Nube hammock slightly away from the main circle), slightly hidden, because I'm paranoid like that. I wasn't really happy with the wide-open setup we had, but, I wasn't in command ....

The LOS set up in a far distant corner of the site, enclosed by trees and shrubs, and then they build a stockade from pallets and the like, they decorated their area in classic "cannibal ganger" fashion, and it looked a treat. Well done to all of their hard work getting it on-theme.

The New Hill City Townies had the on-site cabins, and rec-hall set up as their town, and tavern, and the difference between cabin-dwellers and tenting-nomads was really apparent. Made for a great feel to the game.


The main push of the game was both survival and resource gathering. This was covered in two ways. Each group was issued "rations" in the form of in-game medical suplies (anti-chem, anti-rad and "healing" meds), random cans of food (beans, spaghetti, stew, fruit-salad) and "non-contaminated water", we even had a jar of Vegemite ). as both our food supplies for the weekend, but also as trade goods. There were also "non-consumable" supplies we were supplied as props.

We could eat well, or be rich, our call.

Caption by Michael Brady

Then there was the ammunition situation. We were one of the most heavily armed factions, but literally had 2-3 rounds each at deployment.

There were in-game mechanics for raiding each other's camps, and also "random dropped items" to be found around the site by the organisers.

Caption by Michael Brady

There was also looting! we routinely looted the bodies of the fallen, (within reason) to collect those in-game resources (no fair stealing other peoples kit), and this also extended to that food and water ration we all had. We also traded for resources, both goods for goods, and goods for service and information.

It was a really fun opportunity both for characterization, but also for negotiation skills.

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We also had a number of people with personal trade items (and skills and services) on offer, to add to the whole experience. I had a collection of KFC moist towelettes and sauce sachets that I traded for some eggs in town, for the STA.

We had some in-game hazards as well, from areas of radiation contamination, including water supplies, which made our characters "debilitatingly sick"

Raiders, chem-clouds, a bio-engineered nanite plague and just human nature all played a part in making this not only a challenge, but a struggle for survival.

In the end, we all had a good time, got to run around as cannibal savages or misfit soldiers, camp and cook beans like real post apocalyptic survivors...

I had a really good time, and will be back for more when their second event comes out later this year. I think I will work more on my loadouts, and also my gas-mask operation too, before the event, as well as trying to get a more cohesive feel between my faction members and small unit tactics in the field.

Events: OzApocalypse - Zombie Apocalypse

I had the opportunity to go and run through the Oz Apocalypse Zombie Experience over the weekend, and wanted to give you my thoughts on it.

There has been quite a bit of controversy around the event, primarily as it changed hands very late in the piece and there was quite a disparity between what the original promoters/organisers (IRL Shooter, who ran Patient 0 in 2013) and the Zombie Apocalypse Survival Experience: LAZARUS event being put on by OzApocalypse and Horror Corp Entertainment. This mostly stems from OzApocalypse "buying up" the Pozible Campaign that for whatever reason IRL Shooter found itself unable to present.

This was NOT the sequel that IRL Shooter had promised, this was an event put on by OzApocalypse that drew on that event, its fanbase, and premise. I think that in several aspects it was not as impressive as IRL Shooter's Patient 0 (it wasn't nearly as large or sprawling, and didn't have the embedded story).

However, it was also superior in several ways. The technology for one, I felt was significantly better.

The irM4's from iCombat sync wirelessly to the smart bandoleer we all wore, which recorded shot data, accuracy, and more.  The irM4's were fitted with a 150 round SmartMag and additional magazine kits can be purchased. If a player is eliminated, their gun shuts off for a period of time preventing cheating! The best thing about the new weapons were that they had CO2 powered sound and recoil. you could feel every shot, hear every rapport.

I knew if my teammates were firing, even over the din of the event space, and that was  a crucial improvement in the experience.

The bandoleers were tied to our irM4's wirelessly, and reported back to a central computer, and more importantly, they tied into the headbands worn by the Zombies, these were similar to the bandoleers we wore, and acted as emitters to make proximity to the zombies damaging. Get too close, and they "bite".

Shoot the sensors and they flash and go solid with a kill, and the actors dropped. All this data was fed back through to the behind-the scenes control and scored were generated, and passed against the membership cards we were given at registration, giving you reciprocal rights at other iCombat sites, and the ability to accrue rank in the network.

The OzApocalypse website made mention that there was the ability to customise your irM4, but this is a bit of a misnomer, in that there were a second set of weapons, the short barreled, and Picatinny rail mounted short barreled "Commando" irM4's in their armory, fitted with vertical grips, there wasn't really the facility during the Zombie Apocalypse event to do any customization other than adjusting the buttstock and in my case, fitting my own sling, the trusty 215Gear sling.

Other than this it replicates one of the most known assault rifles in the world, the M16/M4, and is used by law enforcement and militaries all over the world.


It has the same form, fit, and function as the real thing and brings the word realism up to a whole new level. I really enjoyed the "Tap, Rack, Bang" functionality. Removable clips, internal sensors and fully functional parts, from mag-release to selector switches . The weapons and sensors made the event for me. No more reload button or hard to hear electronic sounds. You hear and feel every round, in a longer engagement, if you were kitted out with spare mags you could drop your mag and slam a new one home. They bypassed this by assigning everyone a cylume glowstick, and had a reloading station where we were restocked by a technician, but you can see how it could be easily enough facilitated in a more longterm event.

And that's all before we even get to set dressing, gameplay and the actors! I was really happy with what we faced when we passed through the containment doorways.

 When OzApocalypse took the event over, they brought on Horror Corp Entertainment from the US, engineers who specialized in Haunted House and Zombie Apocalypse Experience "in real life" gaming environments. They have three decades of experience in visual, sound, event and multimedia production, creating theatrically-based, interactive horror and genre projects. The event at the Melbourne Showgrounds takes place in a blackened-out, light-controlled battle zone, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is,  – players will step into an ominous world to fight ravenous zombies. The Prop and Set Designers as well as Makeup Artists create a film set style environment that immerses players in the Zombie Apocalypse survival experience.

Combinations of lighting, (and lack of lighting), selected use of smoke, as well as a really harrowing and oppressive sound-scape really put pressure on the player as they navigate a maze or debris and horrific scenes.

I had the good fortune to get to go backstage and saw the interconnected passageways the actors could take to move from area to area, where they would emerge and lay in wait for the passing players, in and around the sets. The hospital area bugged me the most, as I work in them, and have done the graveyard shift...

The maze was a CQB nightmare, with blind corners, concealed alcoves and all manner of cover for the zombies to lurch from and come at us. Importantly though, for all its twists and turns, it was a "safe" environment, from an OH&S perspective and you could easily cope with the 6-8 person teams recommended. We ran it in a team of three, and were like a well oiled machine. I didn't have to worry about anyone actually getting hurt for real during even an intense simulated combat.

We weren't rushed along as we had been in the Patient 0 event, and even though the maze was relatively small, much more in line with a Haunted House event rather than the sprawling warehouse/factory sit utilised for Patient 0, and we went through the maze twice, as a part of the gameplay, I certainly didn't feel any less fearful of my life when zombies came at us from dark corners, or rattled on us from behind chainlink walls as we faced more direct threats.

Back in the registration area, the stark lighting, clean floors and all too living other players was a more jarring experience. I wanted back in to my comforting darkness, screaming and sirens. The one upside of the "real-world" was that I got to fool around with both the Glock training weapons. The Glocks had the same "real features" as the irM4's, removable clips, wireless targeting and scoring, and ammo-counts. Unfortunately due to limited battery capacity, and high accuracy, they weren't really suited to the spray-and-pray zombie hoard threats the game presented with.


A regrettable technical difficulty, but one the organisers preferred to keep it out of the game, but available for range use! I also got to use the notorious pain-belt! It was a really, really unpleasant experience and I heartily recommend it for all gamers. Again, it apparently was not suited to use in the zombie game, but us perfect for PvP shooting. I tried it on the low setting, which was startling and also all the way up at high, which was curse-making, but didn't hamper me as soon as it stopped. Incentive not to get shot, for sure.

So, all in all I was really pleased with the OzApocalypse Zombie Apocalypse event. I was a Pozible campaign ticket holder, and I feel it was pretty amazing that they would offer to honour the IRL Shooter LAZARUS ticket holders at all, which was super generous. It certainly is NOT a sequel to the Patient 0 game, and its really hard to compare the two events as apples and apples. I really enjoyed it, and really look forwards to going back for more.

The Zombie Apocalypse Experience is running for two more weekends, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays while weekdays and weeknights give those who love games like Call of Duty the chance to combat team vs team combat in the BATTLE APOCALYPSE arena, which is the same area as the Zombie Apocalypse event, but with the connecting areas opened up, some walls opened up, and more personal threats, with pain belts available on request, I believe. I'd really recommend you get along and enjoy it, in either its Zombie Apocalypse, Battle Apocalypse or even the kid-friendly FAMILY versions, before it finishes.

AND, thanks to the organisers, I can offer all my readers a whopping 35% discount with the code "COYOTE0415" (thats charlie-oscar-yankee-oscar-tango-echo-zero-four-one-five).

TICKETS: Lazarus www.flavorus.com/ozapocalypse
Battle Apocalypse www.flavorus.com/battleapocalypse
Group Bookings (minimum of eight players) email tickets@ozapocalypse.com

Facebook and Twitter OzApocalypse
Instagram ozapocalypse.com.au

Events: IRL Shooter - Patient Zero

I was fortunate enough to manage to get a team together to do the full immersion Lasertag LRP event by IRL Shooter before the season closed. I had originally been booked in for the week that I found myself hospitalised, and missed out.

I really enjoyed the event, and thought I would give you all a heads up on what was all about, how it ran, how it worked and most importantly how it tested me.

Before going in, I met up with my team and laid out several sets of vests, webbing and plate carrier sets. Five sets in all, in various levels of hooah, to give them all a chance to suit up in "the real gear" so we all matched and looked like a unit, of sorts. My collection of coyote-brown and khaki gear really would have looked good, but all but one of them opted out. So much for my dreams of a bad-assed looking team of operators. I wore a heavily de-tooled version of my Apocalypse Equipped loadout, as IRL Shooter have a strict no-weapon/lights/electronics rule. (yes, I know... I'm the mayor of POG central ...)


Arriving at the facility we were greeted by a cheerfully brusque NCO in Grey Area Protective Services (GAPS) blacks, and signed us in. Prior to the event each member of our six person team had been mailed a RFID card, and documentation regarding our mission and service duties. We signed in with the NCO, I stepped up as the team leader, and we were shuttled into the main facility. we were asked if we wanted the PG language version or the R-rated, extra salty. We unanimously chose extra-salty, much to the delight of all the GAPS staff. Sr Drill Instructor Hartman would have been proud of the creative use of language.

We were greeted by a second, far less cheerful NCO, who gave us all a fairly resounding chewing out for being late, and called out one of us for being the latest, with a "drop and give me 10" pushup penalty. They were, at least, impressed with my rig, and the rig the other guy wore. Yelling.

We were loudly ushered through the comms-hut, where several workstations of controllers sat, with multiple low-light security camera feeds and communication boards were set up. Frog-marched through this area to the armory, we were fitted out with helmets, and standard black-SWAT vests for those who didn't have them already. I had booked in to have a helmet cam, so my helmet had a mounted Contour cam. More yelling.

Through to the armory proper, we were issued with our lasertaggers, very realistic M4/M203 mockups. These pieces were movie-prop quality, and each weighed around 4kg. The M203 barrel housed the lens system, much like the ones we use for Stargate LRP, but had a built in single/auto selector switch included on the electrics housing, built into the right side of the M203. A reload button was indicated, and the speaker was built in to the left side. Holographic red/green sights were minuted and we were instructed in reload, fire selection and sight lighting settings. The M4s also had a weapon light mounted. More yelling and "how to shoot and clear rooms" instruction. Being team leader I was fitted with the teams single push-to-talk Motorola, which I mounted in one of my many pouches. Always good to have the right tool for the job... Likewise, I put my own sling on my M4, which came in very handy later on. We were told we had 30 round magazines, with "unlimited reloads" so to go to town. I opted for single fire anyways.

We were instructed in the correct anti-zombie safety: we take damage incrementally if within 3m of the zombies, from a mixture of toxins and contagion. Head shots are the only true stoppers. Just because they go down doesn't mean they will stay down. Then came the safety briefing. No touching the actors. No hand-to-hand. No breaking down doors or walls. No using the M4's as pry-bars or sledgehammers.

The mission was simple: kill all the zombies we found, find the missing "Team Alpha" (we were "Team Delta") and determine what had become of the mad scientist responsible for the outbreak in the first place, in the labyrinthine medical-research facility that had been sealed off. More yelling, on the ready line, and..... GO!

The facility used for the game was a disused boot factory complex in one of the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, only a couple of streets away from my partner Anastasia's place. The weather had been quite hot, although a cool change had come through, but it was still hot on Australia Day as we entered a dark, smokey, noisy and destroyed facility. The set dressings were really good. We passed through infirmaries with rows of curtained beds, cafeterias, kitchens, toilet and office blocks, or multiple floors and levels.

The radio connection to the comms center provided instruction as to our route, local objectives and always, always "hurry-up, hurry-up". Every radio signal was expect to be followed up with a reply, and produced a sense of constant pressure. Each order needed to be relayed to my team, whilst we encountered random zombies, reanimating bodies, blinking, flashing and swinging debris to work through and around and all the while, in poor lighting. It was great.

Photo swiped from the website

I broke our six person team into three 2-person fire teams, and we swept-and-cleared with quote good efficiency for a scratch team who had never really worked together in this fashion (two of the people were work colleagues from IT, one was one of the guys I did my first Tough Mudder with, a friend from kendo, and their friend. That last team-mate was the only one of us with actual military experience, but at least all of us had some some kind of Lasertag, paintballing or actual shooting. We kept pretty good communication up between us, and the fairly linear nature of "Patient Zero" made it easy for us, as "go forwards, consider anyone you come across to be infected, kill all the zombies" is a pretty easy SOP and Rule of Engagement to follow. I bolster that with an additional proviso, in that as there was the suggestion that there might be a second , hostile organisation present, we would "kill everything we found, unless otherwise ordered" this led to a couple of "I wasn't finished with that survivor yet" moments, but all in all we made a ruthless, efficient and effective sweep-team.

The RFID cards opened doors along the way, (plot allowing) and the radio worked (even if the storyline was occasionally verbose, but totally entertaining). Technically, a couple of elements I found might need a little work. The M4's lacked any force-feedback, but that would be a cherry on the cake of an otherwise excellent prop, but it was the gun-lights and speakers that I would recommending improving. The gunshot-sound effect, and health feedback grunts were quite soft, especially over the ambient sound effects and radio calls. This meant knowing how many shots were going off around you, your own shots, injuries to yourself and team-mates was difficult. Even of distorted, volume over quality would have been an improvement. I understand the need not to blind the actors too, so a 600Lumen tactical light from SureFire mighty overkill, but the lights we had were very hard to pick up on the helmet camera. Perhaps a compromise of boosting the levels on the camera might suffice. Again, the darkness was great for the atmosphere.
 

From an operations point of view, I was pleased how I managed my team, we were a surprisingly cohesive force, I think most of my instructions were easily understood and tactically sound (even the part where we went "off map" by pushing through some cardboard boxes to get to a door I spotted through a barricade). We achieved our mission objective of locating the missing Alpha Team, interrogating them (but perhaps being to thorough with our "kill everyone" policy, before all information could be extracted, due to some motivated trigger fingers in our team. I located and collected the "origin virus" sample, and although my secret contact had been killed, (yes, ere are secrets between teams and Command) was able to successfully pass this on.

The gameplay was fast and frenetic, the game world was rich and wide (check out the masses of in-game web links to parent, competitor and whistle blowing entities related to GAPS). Here is a lot more to this than "shoot the zombies" Lasertag. The prosthesis on the actors were awesome, they looks the part, for sure, and all had creepy mannerisms to really bring the fear. The biggest issue we had was the intricate "all or nothing" booking, which was difficult to navigate and coordinate, but in the end, totally worthwhile.

I found it really challenging, enjoyable and certainly a test of nerves under pressure. I'll be back for more, for sure!

Stay tuned to http://irlshooter.com/ their FB page http://www.facebook.com/IrlShooter and twitter @irlshooter for details of the upcoming season.