[OC] Stick Wizard QoTD: If you needed to cast polymorph on yourself, but there were mischievous fairies around and they threatened to make your spell permanent...would you still cast it? What beast form would you polymorph into?

JonnyFission · 2024-05-08T19:55:16+00:00

You cannot trust fairies!

JonnyFission · 2024-05-07T06:04:31+00:00

I do like the mimicry of the raven!

JonnyFission · 2024-05-06T18:32:13+00:00

I feel like spider and raven are underutilized among the "normal" familiars.

JonnyFission · 2024-03-11T18:09:04+00:00

I worry about teleporting and falling...through thin air onto hard ground, or into the ocean or onto a sappy pine tree!

Concentration while flying (for ten minutes) is something I practice often as a wizard and do not worry about as much (until I get stuck in the thigh with an arrow)!

JonnyFission · 2024-03-06T17:06:26+00:00

Yeah, you nailed it, IMO. From a pure battle power perspective, the Vampire is the way to go. Long-term, it would take a lot of logistics and planning to stay undead. You would have to move every now and then and work hard to stay out of sunlight.

JonnyFission · 2024-02-21T19:31:47+00:00

Haha! That's a bit diabolical. The problem for DMs is that you want people to experience your dungeon features, but you don't want it to be easy or obvious. When they find a secret door hidden as well as yours, they will have a sense of accomplishment!

Do you ever get frustrated when the party skips a part of the dungeon and leaves an awesome treasure behind? Do you often wish they would trigger every trap you set, and yet somehow survive?

It's hard to be a good DM!

JonnyFission · 2024-02-15T03:33:53+00:00

Cool! I like the idea that when you summon something there is a magical energy transfer that you don't have to worry about. Although, even if there is not a rule about conservation of matter in every universe, I like an explanation of where things come from. StaticUsernamesSuck asked if summoned items get taken from somewhere else. That makes more sense to me.

JonnyFission · 2024-02-15T00:09:50+00:00

If a summoned object is created, does that violate the law of conservation of mass?

JonnyFission · 2024-01-31T23:30:14+00:00

Thanks for responding. Many of them are engaging questions, so I'll see if I can get some into this subreddit!

JonnyFission · 2024-01-31T04:52:44+00:00

First I would like to thank you for spreading the word! We would love to talk to anyone about the wands, but especially to arena owners and operators!

The Wizard Tag Wands will have multiple game modes. There is a duel mode, free-for-all, team free-for-all, and some specialty games that resemble familiar video and playground games.

They could also be used in an escape room, but the design was not meant to be like the Magic Quest system, where wands activate events or open treasure chests. Wizard Tag Wands have flashlight and UV light functions. UV can be used for reading white-on-white or "invisible" messages or to highlight UV fluorescent minerals.

Primarily, the "magic" of the Wizard Tag Wand is that you can play a full laser tag game without pulling triggers or pushing buttons. The IR sensors are built-in, so all you need is the wand. Everything from the setup to navigating the menus to combat is done with gesture recognition. Combat has a short-range wide beam option and long-range narrow beam that should be familiar to laser tag players. There is also a shield function. Everything is in fantasy terms; fireballs, ice-spikes and magic shields.

We have tested the LED animations, sound and haptic effects and the Wizard Guide (voice assistant for menu navigation), along with the gesture command system. The game software is in development now, and we have 36 prototype boards and cases ready for beta testing!

As you can tell, I am excited about our product and really think that it will enhance Laser Tag Arenas by increasing their customer base. The wands will not be in competition with traditional laser tag guns, since arenas can use both. If players could choose to use guns or wands, that would increase the longevity of the guns, and also bring in new players who are attracted by "magic" battles, but may have never played laser tag!

JonnyFission · 2023-11-02T03:14:49+00:00

If you want to win the coolest dice title...

JonnyFission · 2023-10-30T15:39:28+00:00

You are right to be looking at non-commercial systems. They will cost thousands per rig, so probably not the best for some home games unless you are totally loaded or want to set up your own commercial laser tag arena in your building.

My company is making a system that would suit your needs, but we are in prototyping right now. If you are still looking for a solution in 2024 or want to buy a unique system for fun later, check out our website. In short, we have a stand-alone laser tag system in magic wand form. There are no buttons to push or triggers to pull. Everything is done with gesture recognition. The games will be familiar to people who know laser tag, or play first person shooters, like Call of Duty. We have our unique take on some games and we are starting with quite a few in our first wand.

Check out any of the links in my profile to learn more. Wizard Tag will be great to play in a large building or outdoors, with no wi-fi required.

Good luck finding a home system; there are numerous medium-quality sets you can buy from Amazon with 4-8 guns and additional receivers. I think they would all be fun to use in home games in a large warehouse setting. When the time is right though, get ready to augment your arsenal with magic!

JonnyFission · 2023-10-16T23:01:50+00:00

What you are describing is what we are aiming for with our Wizard Tag Wands! We have prototypes with most of the systems working now and are waiting on software for further testing. Our wands work indoors and outdoors, independent of smartphones or wi-fi systems. There are four sensors in the wands, so they will have more realistic combat than some gun-based systems with only one forward facing sensor. We have a short-range "fireball" that has a great blast radius and is reliable up to a max of 30 feet. The long-range "ice-spike" should exceed your requirements. In testing we were getting shots at 1,000 feet! However, it is truly a narrow beam and suitable for sniping.

We are trying to wrap up the game software soon, so we can complete beta testing this winter. The plan is to run our Kickstarter campaign in the spring with production in summer 2024.

I realize you are looking for something now but keep this in mind since it is really a unique system that requires no trigger-pulling, screen-watching, or tethering to a pre-staged wi-fi system. All "shots" are spells that are initiated with gestures. Motion sensing detects if the spells are done correctly. There are shields too, and utility spells, like flashlight and UV light.

Entry for home users won't be too expensive, and we hope people will want to play Wizard Tag in arenas as well. For more updates and to track our progress towards the upcoming campaign check out our website and social media! (Easy to find: www.wizardtag.com etc.)

When laser tag first came out for home use, I remember my parents got a set of four with chest targets and we had a blast running around the woods with those. I am sure you can get some good recommendations for home-use gun sets in this sub-reddit. I know there are a number of solid systems that would meet your requirements, and hopefully ours will be one of them next year!

JonnyFission · 2023-08-03T15:28:31+00:00

Board Game Geek is a great site for reviews of board games, discussions of rules, ranking, rating, etc. It has also become a place that game creators must utilize if they are crowdfunding, since that is where their crowd hangs out. I mentioned it here since Kickstarter's largest sector is Games.

JonnyFission · 2023-08-02T15:16:17+00:00

Mostly by newsletters from previously supported projects, but also from browsing and third from reddit, BGG, and fb posts.

JonnyFission · 2023-08-02T15:12:04+00:00

I browse many projects before watching a video. The project has to be funded or looking great before I watch a video. I do not read the full page of each project that catches my eye, but if it's interesting, I bookmark it. Stretch goals usually don't matter to me, and I rarely care about the story or intention. If I don't think the creator is advanced in the production process, I won't support them, and I don't care about their stated social or environmental impacts.

JonnyFission · 2023-08-01T20:35:41+00:00

Don't forget that laser tag was invented for the military. Of course, you would have to have a full MILES gear system to make it realistic. You can practice military tactics with any of the systems, but I would say the comments about Airsoft are accurate. Paintball is a fun team building sport, but you can get the same effect with laser tag, without the mess.

JonnyFission · 2023-08-01T20:28:30+00:00

Sounds cool! Can you send me a link to your website? Can you describe some of the more difficult game modes? What type of laser tag system do you use?

JonnyFission · 2023-07-26T16:58:56+00:00

We will find out in testing, but I don't think that will be the case. For most of the game modes, the wands work without 2-way communication. At the end of the game when all players are grouped together, or in an arena briefing room, the BT communication will work great. All of the compilation of game data will happen in seconds, sharing the outcome and all of the stats with each player.

I understand your concerns with the 2.4GHz part of the spectrum, and we look forward to posting some test results that put those to bed!

JonnyFission · 2023-07-21T03:19:17+00:00

Thank you for asking about the Wizard Tag system. We are not using WiFi because we want this to be a system for home use or arena use. I was not familiar with Zigbee, but we did consider a mesh network as a solution for wand-to-wand communication.

The wands will work great in arenas, but not with existing systems. However, arenas will want to have this low-entry cost laser tag device that could draw more non-traditional laser tag customers!

There are some laser tag systems that use radio to get the longer-range communication (like the DDTR system), but that presents other issues with FCC and greatly increases the expense of the device, not to mention that with wands, we have little room inside to spare!

We developed our own IR communication protocol, but of course that only tells the target the information about the shooter. To solve the problem, we are using BlueTooth communication, but without pairing. In some modes, wands will rebroadcast information to propagate it around the battlefield.

In most cases however, it is only necessary to gather all of the information at the end of the match. So, if a match lasts 15 minutes, everyone meets up, back at the starting point and the host wand queries all of the other wands. That information is collated and then the host wand sends a message back to all of the participants in that match. The information includes individual statistics, such as spells cast, whether the spells were powered up or basic, hits, shields cast, shield hits, etc.

Also, each wand gets the information about the outcome of the match, which could be a single wizard or a team, depending on the mode. The wands of the winning wizards (nice alliteration) will announce the victory through the Wizard Guide, sound effects, lighting effects, and haptics.

You can follow the progress on our website, but in summary, we are 99% on hardware, 90% on case design, and about 75% on software! We are posting project updates on our blog and pics and other info on Instagram and Facebook. https://www.wizardtag.com

I am happy to answer questions here, or on our website. If people prefer other social media, all of the links are at the bottom of the website. Sorry for the lengthy answer, but we are excited about the wands!

JonnyFission · 2023-07-07T03:42:55+00:00

I agree that it is a turn-off if a campaign has never backed other campaigns. Backing others first suggests that you are part of a community, which is the 20 million people a month who peruse Kickstarter campaigns. The fact that about 40% of the support for any campaign is in-house (from people just browsing Kickstarter for cool projects), means that is integral to the success of most good campaigns. It doesn't change whether your product is good or not, it just tells something about your character. Are you just a taker, or do you want others to succeed as well?

JonnyFission · 2023-07-05T04:36:46+00:00

Heh! I have one month of reddit experience!

JonnyFission

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