The end of the year game could not have gone any better thanks to our amazing members.
Due to slow pickup times with the field and my prediction that it would be busy, I was so glad I brought a minivan to do pickups and collected almost all members to bring them to the field. The donations made, primarily went towards the costs of the vehicle rental, which is essential for charter games, due to the sheer amount of equipment we need to bring to run games as well as rental gear for new players.
In addition to this was the second stage testing of the bombs, while the programming worked flawlessly, the only issue I found afterwards was the single channel relay (module to activate high power output devices) needs a slightly higher voltage input to make the sound produced more noticeable. Other than that and perhaps a battery upgrade to use an 11.1v LiPo battery instead of 12v battery bank. Once upgraded, things will be much smoother next time.
In addition, this also made the perfect opportunity to test the game timer. This is a new device that I made to act as a signal to start and stop games. While it is still in the testing phase, I have found the programming works flawlessly, but for the horn, it does need a much more powerful battery, which I will begin making during the holidays and working on upgrades to the power system.
Now for the important part of this event, you guys and girls.
Thank you to everyone who could make it. We know the end of year is busy for everyone, and that it is also flu season. But it was a great turn around. Thanks to everyone's participation, we had a much more relaxed and enjoyable time with you all and it gave me, for one, some time to actually socialise and chat with many of you, rather than panicking to reload, prepare the next game, do the announcements etc.
Without all of your support, we could not have come this far in such a short time. Being able to charter games every other month is something I did not imagine happening this early into AOJ's creation. It is because of your dedication to joining us, being guinea pigs in our new game modes, getting essential feedback and you bringing people with you has helped us to improve on what we do as well as garnering more members every month.
Just yesterday, I got 3 messages from Japanese players from Battle, who asked to join our next charter game after seeing all of you in action generated interest and moved us another step forward. With progression like this, we could soon be moving to being able to host monthly charter games, adding more activities as well as expanding the community.
Another aspect that really surprised me was how well the flea market went. In the morning the area garnered much interest from Japanese players on the regular field and lunch time became a sales bonanza with a small horde of people buying various items from balaclavas and gloves to scopes, sights, helmets and even guns bring sold. The success of this flea market means it is something we will most certainly do again and encourage more people to bring items they want to sell.
The game modes we had were focused primarily on Juggernauts, and since these were somewhat new for us, the feedback we got on the day as well as from the feedback form we emailed helps us to perfect and simplify game modes. I cannot speak for my team, but my personal favourite is the bomb game, while the team I lead won it with Defrowe's great idea to flank and surprise attack the enemies at their destination, while Dan caused chaos for them near their spawn, it aided us in preventing the yellow team from planting the bomb. However, the tables did turn when the yellow team did similar to us and held us off just mere metres from the bomb's destination.
The layout of the field was perfect for the game modes we utilised. In the future, I am thinking to return to Camp Devgru for another charter, only this time, if we have more than 30 people again, we have three teams instead of two to really change things up as for the size of the field it would be perfect.
Once again, thank you to all participants and we hope to see you January 21st for the next game and again in February for a charter. Our photographer, Josh is still just polishing the 200+ photos we took from the day and they will be uploaded here by the end of the week.
Our next charter game will be on February 18th. I hope we can book SGF No.9, but this depends on getting 20 confirmed persons before someone else books the slot.
This was a really fun chartered game! The only annoying thing was in the morning when the field staff was trying to round us up to explain to us in Japanese when our own chartered group was already going over our rules. This was a bit redudant, annoying and unnecessary on the field's part as our chartered game had some of our own rules and interrupting us when we were also briefing our members just made it exasperating. Love the timed Fog Horn to signal start and end of the game was great! I hope you get it working!