Holland worked closely with Matt Wagner , a friend of his from the LARPing community . Wagner created a number of highly-interactive props to utilize for missions including puzzle boxes comprised of multiple layers and locks . The first was opened by a set of keys that had been permanently mounted to crate across the field . The crate itself was a 2-man carry that would have to be secured and lugged back to the respective teams ’ command tent in order to use the key .
There were multiple other layers that had to be solved . The final of which was a word combination lock , and Christmas-themed words were used .
“ The blue team hammered flags and focused on field control , and about an hour into the game , they didn ’ t understand why they weren ’ t winning ,” Holland said . He had to explain to them that they had to do the missions . The red team , on the other hand , had pushed hard on missions , so according to Holland , Team Frosty played catch up most of the day .
To further handicap the blue team , many of their players opted out of investing into more paint . Magfed players by nature of their play style use paint more conservatively than speedballers . Once those round ball players blew through their BYO paint , they left , and the Red team won the battle of attrition here .
044 paintball . media magazine