Sixty students came out and played a game of Bongo Ball Sept. 8, in the quad from 1-7 p.m., hosted by the University Programming Board, who paid Cutting Edge Productions to run the event.
“The event was good besides the weather, I’m sweating just from walking around a bit. I slid a little over there int he game and it hurt, but it went on,” Ian Thompson, special education junior, said.
A competitive action game like paintball, in Bongo Ball two teams of five enter a arena of giant inflatable colored obstacles and the opponents shoot each other with air cannons filled with little foam balls. The rules are, “One shot, One Hit,” meaning that once you are hit you are out, no exceptions. They then play until there are only players from one team left and they are announced as the winners.
“It was fun, and I’m probably about to play it again right now, but it is definitely not as fun as paintball,” Timmie Young, computer science sophomore, said after playing his first game of Bongo Ball.
David Tekeste, CEP tech, said the company over the course of two semesters, travels with Bongo Ball to some 50 different college campuses. He said they only do Bongo Ball to college campuses because with the equipment you must be 18 or older to use it.
Besides Bongo Ball, the company, according to Tekeste, also hosts games of Battle Ball where people get in the bubble suits and play a game of soccer.
“I’ve never done this before, but I have done paintball before. I would definitely play this game again because I enjoy that it’s outside activity and getting to shoot people,” Theodore Hughes, mechanical engineer freshman, said.
Juan Mercado, sociology junior, said UPB paid $2,000 to run the event.
“It would have been a lot better with more people, but yeah I would do it. I plan on playing agin here in just a minute. I’m surprised that I was the last one, and honestly I didn’t know because I thought that there was someone else was still behind a barrier,” Ian Graves, mechanical engineer freshman, said.