A different battlefield
11.17.06 3:00 AM


By RRLevering
TopCoder Member

I'm holding a gun in my hands, pinning down the enemy while a man from the NSA watches my back. Some of the smartest programmers in the world are counting on me to defend this position, so I crouch down and keep shooting. Suddenly a group makes a break toward my position and I step out to take them all down. But at the same time, a gun sneaks out from around the corner and I see a laser sight coming my way. My last thought as I crash to the ground is...thank god I'm Catwoman and Magneto around the corner doesn't have a real gun. As luck would have it, Catwoman doesn't have nine lives, she has 26 - and I use them all to take out 51 of the enemy in this particular battle.

I was lucky enough to be part of "Team One," the dominating force in the AOL sponsored Laser Tag event.

All of the participating competitors, bloggers, sponsors, and staff were invited on a bus trip from the hotel over to an "UltraZone", a large laser tag center. The place had been rented out and there was a combination of many rounds of laser tag with a picnic buffet dinner. Teams were set by the tables in which we sat, though there was some small attempt at randomizing the tables. Teams were set at somewhere around 9-10 players, each of which was given a color and placed in a maze-like arena, with obstacles and black lights and full of opponents hiding in corners waiting to take you out.

Truth be told, it was rigged...but not on purpose. John Dethridge and myself sat down at the wrong assigned table and as luck would have it, John was pro. Maybe he never earned money for it, but he definitely changed the course of the night by not only netting consistently stunning performances, but also being a rallying force to focus our team into sticking together, something that enabled us to hold positions most of the other teams could only dream of and nab the points for base destruction and therefore team wins.

That's not to say there weren't some stellar performances by other TopCoder members, but the only one who beat John in a single point total was mathijs in round 4. He performed consistently well throughout the event, but was also part of our team. There were some great individual performances from other teams... and here feel free to brag on the forum... I only could give pseudonyms of the individual rounds, I don't know who was behind the name. However, the difference was that we stuck together to insure that even our lowest scoring team members got the points they needed. Individuals without team members around and without mad skills were quickly overwhelmed (usually by snipers in the rafters... grr). In our defense, we also had one less player than most teams, which makes the victories a little sweeter.

My blood is still pounding from the event, so I'll try to wrap up my blog and not go on about the important strategies and interesting things I learned about laser tag. However, needless to say, it was quite an experience to be playing on a different sort of field against amazing programmers. I think this was a common impression, not just amongst the winners. And if I ever need to defend the world against an alien threat, I know John Dethridge, mathijs, and reid will be on the top of my list.