Free laser tag night at Northern Air on Thursday night. Photos by Jennifer Friese/The Dakota Student.

The Northern Air Family Fun Center revealed its new laser tag arena on Thursday. To break in the new facility, it offered free sessions at their location east of Hugo’s on 32nd Ave South.

Located upstairs adjacent to the arcade center and the already popular trampoline park, the laser tag area was still in the process of being setup. In a few months, once everything is running smoothly, it will look a lot better.

Once I arrived there, I went upstairs to the event area and waited in the holding area, a place where people who are waiting to play can watch the people who are already playing and see the layout of the arena.

Once the round is over, the players gather in a room where the laser tag phasers are and learn about the game from an instructional video as the employees will guide players through the process.

The instructional video guides you through the general rules of the game, which includes no running, no contact with the others players and when firing the phaser, use it no less than five feet away.

The phaser mechanics work by placing your non-firing hand under the barrel to activate the weapon and to fire the weapon. The target areas are the chest, the back, the shoulders and two sensors on the phaser, one on the barrel and one in direct line of the laser beam.

Once assigned either a red or blue color, the red team gathers within the arena to hide or to plan a strategy.  Soon after the red team enters, the blue team does.  The gold team is the employees and are denoted by the yellow lights adorning their vest and the phaser.

Once in the arena, players have roughly 15 minutes to acquire as many points as possible for their team.  Also, there is a central base where players can shoot at it momentarily within the match and acquire either points or powerups; these powerups include either a rapid fire or a point increase per target.

The player also has a shield attached to them which has a health of 100. Each time the player is shot, it will reduce by a set amount. Once the shield is depleted, it will grant the player temporary immunity for around ten seconds.

Once the round is over, players exit the arena and hang up their equipment to be recharged.  They will also see their scores based on their teams and different statistics such as, most accurate player, most trigger happy player and best player, out of all three teams.

The laser tag will be a great addition to the already awesome trampoline park, which is fun for all ages for the years to come.

Colin Johnson is a staff writer for the Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].