New Krazy Axes VIP (Plus Next Generation of Software and Hardware - Version 3.0)
Introduction
When we started developing our first Axe Throwing attraction, our main focus was on how to make it as safe as possible for our guests to play and our staff to operate it. Our second goal was to create a variety of fun and easy-to-play games using a high-quality laser projector.?
While our Axe lane designs were going to be much safer, our first design attempts were not 10x or even 2x better than the best of what was already being done. In fact, they were similar and that is NEVER our goal.?
As always, our goal is to provide our guests, as well as our clients’ guests, with 10x Social Gaming experiences - ones that can be proprietary, exclusive, and far exceed what our competitors can offer their guests in the communities we serve.?
It’s important to point out that we are the only manufacturer of Social Gaming experiences that offers a long-term radius protection when a client purchases 8 or more units of our Social Gaming experiences. As we develop and offer new Social Gaming experiences, the value of our radius protections will grow significantly. Operators who already have one or more of our Social Gaming experiences will get the first opportunity to purchase these new Social Gaming experiences.?
Important note: We are currently in the late stages of creating two new Social Gaming experiences. The first will be up and running in our Rochester, NY entertainment venue by the end of January and the second will appear in our Buffalo, NY venue in February.?
Evolution of our Axe Throwing Experience
Below is a brief outline of the evolution of our Axe Throwing attraction over the last 4 years.
Axe Throwing Version 1.0
We opened with our first version of Axe Throwing using a high-quality laser projector to project Axe Throwing targets on the target area along with a large scoreboard above the target area.?
We utilized a touch screen display which allowed players to enter their names or codenames, gave them a choice of taking their own photos or using avatars, as well as the ability to select and play multiple games. During a game, the touch screen also showed the player who was currently throwing and who was up next. In addition, the screen allowed players to enter their individual scores which were then automatically totaled into their team scores.?
We also added LED lighting and speakers to upscale the experience with event driven lighting, sound effects, announcements, and much more.?
We thought our first Axe Throwing version was pretty advanced especially when compared to the Axe Throwing venues that existed at the time. Most Axe Throwing venues were simply painting targets on their boards. They kept track of each player’s score using a chalkboard and a piece of chalk. In fact, many Axe Throwing venues still paint targets on their boards today.
But, it doesn’t matter how things were done yesterday or even today. What matters is what’s the next thing! What is that thing that IS going to make Axe Throwing the best it can be for our guests tomorrow and beyond!?
A few years ago we learned that Automatic Axe scoring was being developed by another company. We knew that this feature was likely to be a key improvement for Axe Throwing. So, we added another task to our to-do list and began developing our own version of automatic scoring.?
Axe Throwing Version 2.0
While change is almost always painful, it’s usually worth the price if the change improves the attraction experience for our guests.?
For our automatic axe scoring system, we went down a different path than our two other competitors. We decided to use a different approach, which meant we were developing our own version of automatic scoring.?
We believed our method of automatic scoring would ultimately be more accurate. Plus it would enable us to add more and better features in the future. We also knew it was likely to work well for several other Social Gaming concepts that we already had on the drawing board.
It took about a year to fully develop our automatic scoring system and once completed it became our Axe Throwing Version 2.0.
Krazy Axes VIP Version 3.0
The main design goal for Krazy Axes VIP was to create the best possible Axe Throwing experience that fully maximizes the gaming experience and especially the Social Part. The goal is to ensure that even the guests who are NOT participating have a great time - even if they are just hanging out with and watching their friends, family, or coworkers who are participating.
Below is a more detailed description of how our Axe Throwing experience evolved into Krazy Axes VIP.?
Key Learnings and Design Philosophy
Our manufacturing company has created a wide variety of attractions over the last 36+ years and every time we create something new, we learn a ton going through the development process. Then, we learn 10 tons from actually operating them in our own venues.?
This ongoing iterative process of creating, operating, learning, and constantly improving our Social Gaming and Attraction experiences has enabled us to discover new and better ways to upgrade all that we do and to do it more quickly.
For example, the knowledge we gained from creating and operating our Axe Throwing attraction enabled us to dramatically speed up the design process for our next Social Gaming experience, which was Krazy Darts (see below photo of Krazy Darts Version 2)
The learning curve we went through from developing and operating our Axe Throwing attraction enabled us to identify a dozen ways to make Krazy Darts a much better Social Gaming experience and that’s exactly what we did. In fact, step one was developing a far more advanced hardware and software operating system for Krazy Darts.
After only operating Krazy Darts for about 9 months, we realized we had to go back and create a dramatically better version of our Axe Throwing attraction. By using our new Krazy Darts’ gaming platform, we were able to develop the new VIP Axe Throwing prototype in less than 3 months.?
Krazy Axes VIP is by far our best version of Axe Throwing to date. It’s designed to provide our guests as well as our clients’ guests with a high-end, VIP Axe Throwing experience - one that significantly elevates both the Social and the Axe Throwing playing experience.?
Our new Krazy Axes VIP Version 3.0 gaming platform gives our guests the ability to customize each game to their group’s desired skill level. For example, the ability to adjust the target sizes within each game, speed of moving targets or choose targets that don’t move, number of axes thrown per player turn, preferred game announcers, and much more!
Our goal with Krazy Axes VIP Version 3.0 was to dramatically upscale the entire Axe Throwing experience by providing our guests as well as our clients’ guests with a much better group experience. That’s why it’s 2 feet wider per lane. This small amount of additional width gives up to 8 guests their own reserved seating and gathering space as well as their own private entry into their private VIP Axe throwing lane.?
领英推荐
The extra room just outside the axe throwing area creates a campfire effect that enables each group to gather together in their own exclusive space. The campfire effect enables guests to see each other's facial expressions while socializing and cheering on their friends, family, or coworkers when they take their turn at throwing and sticking the Axe.?
Note that it’s not about requiring everyone to play, it’s about maximizing social engagement and the opportunity for our guests to truly bond with their friends, family, and coworkers and just hang out together.
LASERTRON’s Turnkey Krazy Axes VIP dramatically surpasses the best of what is currently being offered by any supplier or operator of Axe Throwing. And, our ability to create more and better games is only just beginning!
We have already installed the first pre-production model of Krazy Axes VIP in our Buffalo entertainment venue. This will speed up the development and testing of new games as well as the updating of our previous axe games to work with our new gaming platform.?
By the end of October, Krazy Axes VIP will be ready for prime time, which means our guests will be able to start reserving it for their group and we can begin to get real world feedback to see what IS WORKING and what still needs to be tweaked to make it even better.?
It’s important to understand that it’s the combination of the FUN and SOCIAL parts that enable Axe Throwing, Krazy Darts, or any other good Social Gaming experiences to make a solid, long-term profit. This key combination also means we can’t make any design or operational decisions that restrict the maximization of the FUN and SOCIAL PARTS.??
A good indication that we are operating a great Social Gaming or Attraction experience is when it’s able to grow its revenues in the second, third, and even fourth year of being introduced into an existing entertainment venue. That’s not an easy goal to achieve - especially if an operator FAILS to operate it at a high level not to mention there are lots of other external factors that can inhibit it from being able to achieve that goal.
Self Inflicted Wounds: The biggest game design failures happen when Social Gaming or Attraction experiences are wedged into spaces that are too small. Manufacturers, Suppliers, Designers, Consultants, and Operators have to understand that they can easily turn a proven entertainment experience or a new entertainment concept into a mediocre one by assuming it can be magically right-sized (i.e. “down-sized”).?
Down-sizing or shrinking a Social Gaming or Attraction experience is almost always a bad idea - if you don’t have the space, resources, or population to do a Social Gaming or Attraction experience the right way, just don’t do it!
Lucky Discoveries and Tweaks along the Way
With our very first Axe Throwing design, our goal was to figure out how to make the entire back of the lane and target area as easy to maintain as possible. It took multiple redesigns to get it to a decent level and we continue to test new ways to make it even better.?
It’s important to note that our target area is 2.5x to 3x bigger than what any other supplier or operator is providing. Why up to 3x bigger? We wanted our target boards to cover the entire width of each Axe lane, because the entire area gets hit by lots of axes anyways due to errant axe throws. This larger target area is designed so that any board can be easily replaced when needed and keeps the axe lane looking good.
The lucky design benefit was that our game designers were able to use nearly the entire width and height of this target board area. This allowed us to create significantly larger axe throwing targets, add more targets to the target area, as well as create a wider variety of target sizes.?
Most importantly, it allowed us to create better, more fun, and easier to play games for the participants of our Axe Throwing experience. It also makes our target area and scoreboard look dramatically more impressive than what our competitors are offering.
The other benefit of having a significantly bigger target area is that we change our boards far less often because the damage is spread out over a much larger target area.?
Most of our guests have never thrown an axe before or they tried it somewhere else and they weren’t very good at it.?
First time and novice Axe Throwers who “just want to have fun” make up at least 90% of our participants. These players are what we call “Casual Players”. They are ultimately the ones who pay the vast majority of our bills and enable us to make a profit, but only if we design our Social Gaming experiences for them.
Each of our Social Gaming experiences has software that keeps track of which games get played the most. The games that do get selected the most are the ones our guests typically recognize or look familiar to them, and are EASY to PLAY.?
Our guests don’t want to learn how to play a new and unfamiliar game, especially when their primary goal is to de-stress, relax, and have a little fun while socializing with their friends, family, or fellow coworkers.?
Based on the user data we obtain, we focus 99% of our efforts on creating fun games that are recognizable or at least look very familiar and, most importantly, are super fun and easy to play!?
We basically create a variety of familiar looking perennial games that have already stood the test of time. We do update the games and add simple twists that make them unique and even more fun to play. But, again, it’s the simple and fun games that get played the most - so that’s where we focus our attention when it comes to designing new games.
Considerations for Operators
Axe Throwing Requires a Higher-Level of Commitment
Axe Throwing is a much more difficult Social Gaming experience to operate, which means it’s not going to work in entertainment venues that aren’t willing to spend the time and resources required to make it successful.
For example,?
On the flip side, when Axe Throwing is done right, it’s one of the few attractions that can set our entertainment venues far apart from our competitors who can’t operate them at a higher level.?
Conclusion:
As a manufacturer of Krazy Axes VIP, the success of our entertainment venues as well as our Clients’ venues depends on us making Krazy Axes VIP not only better, but 10x better than what our competitors can offer. By making Krazy Axes VIP 10x better, it ensures that we provide our guests (and your’s) with the very best Axe Throwing experience within the communities we serve.?
Our next newsletter will be about our “actual” year end numbers for our Social Gaming experiences in our Rochester, NY venue (our year end was August 31st). In that newsletter, we will also describe a different way to price our Social Gaming and Attraction experiences by using Credits instead of Dollars.?
Thanks for reading!
Jim Kessler
Chief Operating Officer specializing in Process Development, New Concept Opening, Project Management, Operations, Financial Performance, Creative Leadership, KPIs, Culture Advancement, Team Development, Marketing
5 个月Hold up Jim, what game is that showing on this image and do I have it? ??