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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Regent chapter.

Every year, Regent has a week-long event called the Campus Games. Captains build their teams and compete in an event every day to attain victory over their competitors (and prizes of course). Last year the theme was Harry Potter and each team was named after a Hogwarts house. This year the theme was video games and each team was named after a video game or video game character. Last year the quidditch match was the most anticipated game. This year, the most anticipated game was the Skyrim house war… which was a hyped up capture the flag.

 

Photo Caption: Our cardboard soldiers readying for battle.

Here’s the breakdown:

  1. Each team has a “jarl” which is like a human flag.

  2. Each team has a ‘zone’ in which their team and jarl reside. The team can leave the zone, the jarl cannot unless he or she is taken by another team.

  3. Players can “kill” other players by hitting the targets on their chest with their “swords” (aka pool noodles with paint on them).

  4. If a player gets all three of their targets hit, they are out. If all the members of a team die, they are eliminated.

  5. The goal is to eliminate all the teams. There was a bonus- if all six jarls are collected, the team gets a bonus for the next game.

So the game began. It took a few minutes for anyone to make a move as teams were either at an impasse or keeping tight defense on their jarls. Soon, a team is cornered and quickly eliminated. After that, the game really took off, there were battles all over the field and paint was flying everywhere. Did I mention there were paintballs involved?

 

Photo Caption: A fallen soldier.

After a long battle, one team- Sonic- won. They managed to attain all the jarls and eliminate the other teams.

As much potential as this game had, I think there were a few things that could have been done better.

However, I’ll start with the things that were done well:

1. It’s a fun and innovative idea: whoever thought this up made a game that is messy and engaging. Let’s not even lie, I saw before the round began that most of the players were solely entertained with pool noodles so…

2. The paint was fun: Mess is great. Colors are great.

3. The idea of “flags” that can move back and forth between teams within a time limit is a good way to keep people on their toes and limit the game to one round.

Now here are the things I didn’t like:

1. It was too difficult to discern whether someone had been hit or if the paint had simply splattered or dripped. Some players may not have been hit, but if a ref called it and the player wanted to make an argument why they weren’t hit, it took a while. Not to mention that sometimes the hits were light taps, so seeing the paint from a distance wasn’t easy.

2. People had a hard time respecting the boundaries of the game. There was a circle of cones, people get into the game and forget about them. There may not have been enough refs to call people on it.

3. The space for the game may have been too large. Considering that as more people were eliminated the space didn’t shrink, it left players without a sense of urgency- there were stalemates that sometimes lasted more than five minutes and that’s really boring to watch. It’s a simple musical chairs concept.

All in all, it was good fun and I look forward to seeing who will emerge on top of this year’s Campus Games.

All photos in article are property of Tiyra McLaughlin

Tiyra is a senior at Regent University studying English with a concentration in communications. No, she does not want to be a teacher. She is a total advertising and marketing geek (she reads Adweek every morning and AdAge every month). She enjoys writing, reading, learning new things, and good music. She is a fan of Korean dramas, they're a lot of fun! If you're looking for her, you can normally find her where the free food is.
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