PR: Funovation Debuts New Gameplay Mode at IAAPA 2014
Funovation is inviting customers and players to GO BUST in their rollicking new gameplay mode – Beam Buster®. Officially launched at the 2014 International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo, this new mode gives players 30 seconds (recommended time) to break as many laser beams as possible. Utilizing the same space and components as the Laser Maze Challenge®, players must engage mission objectives and completes in order to activate more lasers and earn bonus points. Unlike the Laser Maze Challenge, in which the lower the score the better, in Beam Buster, the objective is to achieve the highest score to earn a spot on the top 10 leaderboard.
Since its debut, Beam Buster has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, particularly from players who are young and young at heart. Funovation’s CTO, Ted 
Ziemkowski, explains the inspiration for Beam Buster came from a casual observation made years ago: “One of our Laser Maze installer’s 3-year-old son was playing in the maze while waiting for his dad. He played for what seemed like forever, just running around breaking lasers- not caring that the objective was to avoid them. When we were recently challenged by Chuck E. Cheese’s® to make a gameplay mode more appealing to their target audience of 3-8 year-olds, we instantly thought back to the boy’s delight and started to develop Beam Buster.
As our CEO, John Bonvallet, has often commented, thinking of new games is easy, but creating a new gameplay that is actually fun, challenging and engaging, takes a lot of work. “Beam Buster is the result of many hours of observation, design, testing, and honing to create a gameplay mode which extends the age breadth of our attraction. We believe that the high-energy gameplay and complex scoring algorithm of Beam Buster will appeal to all ages and be a huge asset to all of our customers, both existing and new.”
Funovation is pleased to announce Beam Buster will now be included with the Laser Maze Challenge and will be available as an easy upgrade for existing customers. Funovation anticipates this new gameplay mode will make the Laser Maze Challenge experience more age inclusive than ever before and elevate the attraction’s already impressive throughput and repeat play count. Since the November 18 launch of the new gameplay, Funovation has already received a great deal of industry interest and an unprecedented number of upgrade requests from existing customers.
Original Press Release Date: December 14, 2014