Digital Flag

The digital flag is one of the most popular developments of our company, which turns any operator’s set of laser tag equipment into a fully-featured commercial tool and workhorse and allows operator to significantly diversify game scenarios available to them as well as their number.

It bears reminding that one of the main advantages of a laser tag game is that, unlike paintball and airsoft, all confirmations about a player being hit or their interaction with gaming devices are made by electronics and not a human. Therefore, developing a sort of universal device that would pinpoint the time of capturing a certain zone of battlefield, count just how long it has been held for, keep track of hits, and carrying out a huge number of various gameplay functions was just a matter of time.

The digital flag is the first device in our product line that can interact with the player who shot and ‘hit’ it and able to send the info about such actions to the game server.

Previously, our smart control points were such a devices, but they were not equipped with Wi-Fi modules, so they were used mainly in the 9th generation where offline scoring is only downloaded after the game ends.

When developing this device, we achieved several milestones:

• it is visible in any conditions and environments, including tall grass,
• the sound of the device is heard at a reasonable distance,
• the battery capacity is enough for a non-stop around-the-clock gameplay without charging,
• It interacts with a scoring system,
• It can end the game scenario when certain conditions for that are met,
• It interacts with the player-held devices,
• and of course, it features appearance that is unique to the Laserwar’s newest devices.

What make the digital flag so distinct from other devices being produced by the laser tag industry companies is that it is the only one that really allows operator to run one of the most popular sport/video game scenarios – ”Capture the Flag.”

The CTF scenario here can be played in two main ways:

 - in the first mode, the game master installs two Digital Flag Devices at the bases of the opposite teams. In this scenario, the player who manages to get to the enemy base needs to shoot the enemy’s device. If the player succeeds, then the device interacts with the player and sends a signal to his headband or a vest that the player has captured a virtual flag. This player's headband will light up and flash, indicating to other players that this player now bears the flag. Now the goal of this player is to bring this virtual flag back to their team base, and shoot at the Digital Flag Device located at their team base. With this action, the player confirms that they brought the virtual flag to their own base. If they succeed, then their team wins.

Obviously, during this whole process, the team must protect the flag bearer, and the enemy team, from whom the flag was stolen, has to prevent it from being brought to the enemy base by eliminating the flag bearers.

If the player carrying the flag is ‘killed’, then they lose the flag, and all actions must be started from the very beginning.

Now, the real kicker in this scenario is that several independent players can try to steal flag from the enemy base at the same time, however just one player is enough to pull this off.

The time when the round ends can be set not at the moment when the very first flag is brought to one of the teams' base, but also for a certain amount of minutes. In this mode, the game ends after the time limit is reached and the team, which won more flags wins in the end.

The use of this Digital Flag device eliminates the main disadvantages of playing with conventional flags:

• unsafe running around holding a stick with a flag;
• constant disputes about whether a ‘living’ player actually carried a flag and for how more feet and inches they had run while holding a flag after getting ‘killed’ supposedly cheating in favor of their team by doing so;
• difficulties when playing with more than two flag locations;
• inability to capture the enemy flag from the base if another player has already taken it,
• and so on.

Our digital flag device fixes all these shortcomings with its functionality.

Appearance

Like most of our newest devices, we design the Digital Flag in the general X-style design unique to our company trend.

This device is made of shock-resistant plastic, which allows a laser tag business owner not to be afraid of minor bumps, unintentional falls, and other accidents that tend to happen with rental equipment quite often.

The Digital Flag device legs are made of polycarbonate and equipped with bright colored LED displays that are visible under any conditions, even in tall grass, on a bright day, and vice versa in foggy weather, and show players the status of the device, the current state of a particular team, and which one holds the digital flag at the moment.

On the top panel of the device, there is a display, additional light strips on all four sides, auxiliary icons, and buttons that allow the game manager to set up the device without connecting it to a Wi-Fi network.

Since we doing our best to introduce a professional approach when designing our outdoor laser tag equipment, we also made sure that this device can be used in almost any weather, so the operator can organize games using our digital flag in high humidity or even in light rain conditions.

Certainly, such a powerful light and sound indication for a long period led us to use a high-capacity battery, and we had to allocate more space for it. That is why this device is equipped with 8 amp hour batteries, which will allow operator to conduct up to 12-hours-long games without further charging.

In addition, this device can withstand extreme cold and heat, and you can use it within a temperature range from -20 °F to +120 °F (-30 °C to +50 °C), which is much more than what most players can usually put up with.

For such a device, it is also necessary that the players are able to hear it well from a sufficiently large distance, especially in open spaces. That's why we equipped the digital flag with a 3-watt amplifier and speaker, which makes it possible to produce sound comparable to digital MP3 files. Of course, the device comes its own set of loud sounds preinstalled.

For the first time on devices of such type, we used a new display that has an extremely wide viewing angle and stays visible from almost any angle, and the most important is this display does not glare in the bright daytime, so playing with this device is convenient even in bright sunshine. The high-resolution display of 128x128 pixels shows icons and a large enough settings menu.

We got rid of bulky mechanical buttons in this device and utilized a touch panel that should withstand much more pressings and serve operator for many years. According to our estimations, if players press the main touch screen button 50 times a day, the button should last for over 30 years.

As with the rest of our devices designed for capturing by a certain team, this device can only be captured by shooting it from above, which means that the player needs to be a few feet from the device for the shot to be registered. Also, the player must be ‘alive’ at the very moment of the shot and their gun must be above the device. This particularity eliminates unfair play and cheesy captures of the flag by players.

Digital flag settings can be adjusted in two ways, and this can be done either directly in the field using the buttons and display on the top device panel, or using our online configurator PC application if the operator uses X-generation or AlphaTag equipment.

We highly recommend using this device both if you have AlphaTag and X-generation generations, and if you use the 9th generation of laser tag equipment. We really believe that this device fully reveals the capabilities of the latest generations of our laser tag equipment that we have been developing for many years.

Built-in game scenarios.

1. Capture-The-Flag

Starting stage
At the beginning of the game, each team has its own Digital Flag device at their respective bases that are colored in the color of the teams.

Game idea
The goal of each team is to bring the enemy’s team flag to their own base while preventing the enemy team from stealing their flag and bringing it to the enemy base.

Gameplay
To bring enemy’s virtual flag to their own base, a player must come close to the opposite team Digital Flag Device, shoot it from above and thus get a virtual flag, reach their own base while staying alive, shoot their own Digital Flag, and thus score that the virtual flag has been brought by their team.

Notes
Several players can steal flags from the enemy base and try to take them to their own base at the same time.
Players who carry virtual flags cannot shoot anyone and their taggers are disabled for the duration of their ‘flag-bearing’ dash.
If the player carrying the flag is ’killed‘, they lose the flag and need to start the process from the beginning, that is, they need to go to the enemy base and try to capture the flag again.

Result
The team, that first brings a certain number of enemy virtual flags to their own base, wins.

Settings Tips
To determine the number of virtual flags to be brought upon reaching which the game is won by either team, in X-Gen and AlphaTag, select the «End game conditions» item in the configurator application then select "Stop by device script". After adding a flag to the game in the «game lobby» of configurator application, check the box "End the game according to the condition of the device" in the pop-up window, and then enter a number (the number of captured flags after which the game finishes).
If you want to determine the winning team only by the number of captured virtual flags, set zero score points for hitting, killing, and such in the scenario settings, and set score.

2. DOMINATION

This is hand down the most popular scenario favored by many that has been played since the very first checkpoint device made its appearance in the laser tag industry.

Starting stage
One or more Digital Flag devices are placed in the middle of the game location, at the same distance or with the equal accessibility for the opposing teams. In this case, the Digital Flags initially glow with a neutral white color.

Game idea
Each team must capture and hold a Digital Flag device longer than the other team within a certain time or hold it for a preset period of time.

Gameplay
To capture a digital flag, a team player must shoot it from above from a close distance. After being shot the Digital Flag starts glowing with the color of the team that captured it, and also starts counting hold time. If the enemy player manages to recapture the flag the same way by shooting it from above, the flag lights up with the color of the other team, the hold time of the first team is interrupted and the device starts counting the hold time of the opposing team. If the player of the first team captures the flag back, the flag continues to count the hold time of the first team and so on.
Thus, the flag works like a chess clock that adds capture time after actions made by players.

Result
The team, that holds the flag for longer than the time limit set for the round, wins.

Setting Tips
If the operator selects the standard round end by time, the flag will show the victory of the team that has held the device longer than the opponent has.  However, the scoring application will define the winning team by score points, so if operator wants to award the victory just by the amount of hold time, they need to set "zero" points for hitting, killing and such in the game scenario settings.

If the operator wants to define the winner according to the classic domination scenario (that is, not the team that held the point longer than others during the round, but the team that first scored a certain number of points for a cumulative hold time which is more reasonable in terms of players’ motivation factor), then the operator needs to select «End of the round by device condition» in the scenario settings.

Then while distributing Devices in the game lobby of the PC application, operator needs to select "end the game by device condition" and set the hold time, after reaching which the Device will cease being interactive, quit the game, and stop the round. This option is used when playing with just one flag.

If the operator runs the game using several Digital Flag devices, then when distributing in the lobby, game master needs to enable the lowest checkbox (wait for the game to end signal from all devices of the same type). In this case, the round will stop when the last Digital Flag Device quits the game.

3. CONFRONTATION

Starting stage
In the way similar to the previous scenario, the device or a number of devices are installed in the center of a location, or in a place where all teams have approximately the same possibility to reach it/them. The LED of the Digital Flag Device legs are equally divided with the colors of the participating teams.

Game idea
Hold digital flag longer than other teams

Gameplay
To capture the flag, the team must shoot it from above. In this case, the Digital Flag device starts counting the hold time of this team and the number of LEDs located on the legs of the Flag, glowing in the color of this team, begins to grow. If another team intercepts the Flag, then the number of LEDs, colored in the color of the new team on the legs of the Device, begins to grow too for as long as the team holds the device.

Result
The team, that holds the flag longer than others, wins.

4. MILITARY BASE

In this scenario, Digital Flag Devices are used as the base for each team.

Starting stage
Each team has its own base designated by a Digital Flag device, which lights up with the color of the respective team.

Game idea
To destroy enemy’s base as many times as possible and protect your own from being destroyed by the players of the enemy team(s).

Gameplay
The players of the opposing teams are trying to destroy each other’s’ bases that have certain health points preset by the operator. The base of each team, if it is not destroyed, has the ability to revive its players, and if it is destroyed, then gets automatically restored after a certain time, which is also configured by the operator.

Result
The team, that destroys the enemy base more times than the other teams, wins.

Setting Tips
If the operator wants the round to be stopped at the moment when one of the teams destroys another base for the first time, then they can select the «end of the game according to the condition of the device» in the scenario settings and enter the number 1 (single base destruction). In this case, when either of the bases gets destroyed, the device will immediately quit the game and finish the match.

5. OUTPOST

This scenario is similar to the domination scenario, but differs in that the opposing teams must not just shoot the Digital Flag device once to capture it, but completely destroy it by shooting it multiple times, depending on the preset Device health points.

Starting stage
The digital flag set in the middle of the location and is colored in a neutral color, the opposing teams are located on the opposite sides of the location.

Game idea
To destroy the Digital Flag devise (Outpost) located in the middle, then guard it and prevent the enemy team from destroying it.

Gameplay
The opposing teams are fighting for Outpost installed in the middle of the location, which must be destroyed first, and then guarded and not allowed to be destroyed by the opposite team. At the same time, the Outpost can respawn the players of the team that owns it (keeps it destroyed) at the given moment.

Result
The team, that holds the Outpost longer than the others, wins.

6. HOSPITAL

The scenario is similar to the domination scenario, except for that in this case, the Digital Flag device heals (i.e. does not respawn the ‘dead players’, but rather just heals the ‘wounded’ ones) the players of the team that holds it at the given moment.

Starting stage
The Digital Flag device (Hospital) is placed in the center of location or in the place where there is an equal access for the opposing teams.  Hospital is colored in a neutral color.

Gameplay
Teams capture and intercept the device from each other the same way as in the Control Point Scenario, and Hospital counts the time of holding by each team. As in the Control Points Scenario, the Hospital is captured with a single shot made from above, but unlike this scenario, Hospital heals (not revives) the players of the team that holds it.

Result
The team, that holds the hospital longer than the others, wins.

7. ARSENAL

The scenario assumes that the device is installed in the middle of the location and is used as an arsenal replenishing players’ ammo.

Starting stage
The game operator places the Digital Flag device (Arsenal) in the middle of the game location, i.e. in a place that is equally accessible to all teams participating in the game. Initially, it does not belong to anyone and is colored with a neutral color.

Gameplay
Teams fight for the central Arsenal, which replenishes their ammo supplies. The Arsenal can be captured with a single shot made from above, after which it lights up in the color of the team that has captured it and then it starts counting the hold time of the Arsenal and replenishing the ammunition of the team players within it range. If a player of the other team intercepts the Arsenal, then it is recolored in the color of the other team and begins to count the hold time for that team, as well as replenishes their ammo.

Notes
We recommend significantly limiting players' ammo for this scenario, and ’distribute’, for example, 20 rounds in a mag and limit them to just 1-3 magazines, to incentivize opposing teams to capture the central Arsenal.

Result
The team, that holds the arsenal longer than the others, wins.

Read more in Digital Flag Manual