Game shoots to big win

Press, 2 July 1985, Page 1

Game shoots to big win

By LINDA HARRISON Tired of tiddlywinks, find Monopoly monotonous, Scrabble a struggle? Steve Constable has the Ultimate Game for you. Recently back from nine years working in Western Australian mines, Mr Constable has leased about 50ha of Bottle Lake forest, near Spencerville, and set up his game. Players are equipped with camouflage clothing, goggles, a carbon dioxide gun with 10 colour pellets, and a magazine with spare ammunition. After a quick tour round the area they will play in, the players are given twoway walkie-talkie radios and whistles (in case they get lost) and let loose for an hour and a half of stalking and ambush round the forts, foxholes and bunkers. Opposing teams shoot the colour pellets at each other to score a strike. Fortunately the soya bean extract paint washes off easily. “If you get hit in the leg you have to limp, if you get shot in the arm you can’t use that arm, but if you get shot in the head, chest or back you are out of the game,” Mr Constable said. He got the idea for the game from a war magazine and has spent $20,000 setting up his business, Mr Constable had the idea a few months ago and the game opened unofficially last week-end after he had placed one newspaper advertisement and received about 250 replies.

Some people stopped at the site, in Lower Styx Road, to inquire about the game, then returned with friends later in the day ready to play.

Teams to play in the week-end included the Terminators and the Bush Inn Warriors. Mr Constable hopes to encourage families to play, and groups from organisations such as the police, or branches of the Armed Forces.

Teams wanting to play can tell him and he will arrange a team for them to play against. So confident is he of the success of the game, the first of its kind in New Zealand, that he already plans to open other games in Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin within the next six months. The Ultimate Game is open on Saturdays and Sundays, but Mr Constable says he will accommodate teams who want to play “24 hours a day.” A picnic area is planned so that families can come out and play and make an outing of the game. He also plans a fenced-off play area where his wife will look after small children while the rest of the family take part in the Ultimate Game. The game costs $lO a gun, and players must pay 35 cents for each extra colour pellet over the 10 in the gun that they use. The ’carbon dioxide canisters in the gun cost $l.lO. Mr Constable offers the guns at $5 each to families, youth groups and the Y.M.C.A.

He chose the site, close to Spencer Park, after camping there himself and observing that young people spent most of their time doing wheelies with their vehicles and playing around, while adults drank alcohol and got red in the sun. He thinks there is room for something a bit more adventurous.

He also offers a pick-up and drop-off service to and from Cathedral Square.