Q-ZAR

Like other laser tag games, Q-ZAR is played with a gun (or "phaser") that fires harmless beams of infrared light that are detected by equipment worn by the players.

Upon being tagged, the pack vibrates, makes an explosion noise and the player who has been tagged has a window of around one second to fire off a "reflex" shot (providing no shot was fired in the previous second) before the penalty sequence starts.

Q-ZAR missed the first interest payment for a $30-million bridge loan in October 1997 and was forced into bankruptcy by the lender on November 5, 1997.

[1] In 1995, a company called Q-Support sprung up, run by a past manager of several Q-ZAR centers, Zac Adams.

Adams offered support and parts to existing Q-ZAR centers, greatly undercutting its corporate offices.

Q-Support closed in 1999 due to dwindling numbers of centers still being operated and a narrow vertical market.

Low claimed ownership of the Q-ZAR trademark, but failed in a class-action lawsuit to force existing centers to pay a license fee to him.

In 2009 Quasar Manufacturing started testing Mark VII Wireless Q-Zar equipment.

The original system used a strap based vest, metal housed front and back sensor areas and a hand-held pistol.

A major revision was the Mark IIIB system which moved most of the electronics into a larger and heavier two handled gun.

The speaker, battery, display and CPU were all moved to the gun, leaving the front and back as sensor only areas.

Prior to the international launch of Quasar as Q-ZAR the vests were redesigned again (Mark IV).

In addition, Quasar Elite changed the green equipment to blue to assist those with color blindness.

Branding & Advertising Creative Director of Youth specialist Ad agency The Leisure Process, John Carver, led the pitch to launch Quasar in the UK.

There are active tournament scenes in many countries across the world, including the USA, UK, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Sweden and Ecuador.

Italy runs a national tournament once per year, and have a Q-Zar season when teams travel to play each other home and away.