Fill your CO2 tank, load your hopper and switch that safety off. If that made sense, it’s because you have played paintball before, and if you are in the Bryan-College Station area like me, then you’re likely at Zoomz.
Established in 2010, Zoomz is the family business of Bryan natives Ryan and Taylor Thompson, giving community members of BCS a place to safely play paintball.
“We always wanted to do a family business,” Ryan said.
Paintball’s potential for life-altering injuries, one even being responsible for a California woman’s death, leave many doubtful of its safety. Yet at its peak, nearly 5.5 million Americans played nationwide and there’s only one way to form an opinion.
Donning my baggiest joggers and combat-appropriate boots, I traveled 11 minutes from campus to visit Zoomz. There, I was greeted with rental weapons, paintballs and a safety mask that covered my entire face — most importantly, my eyes, easing any worries I had. Legend has it the winner of the first game of paintball never even fired a shot — this wasn’t a strategy I sought to follow.
Zoomz employs rules on minimum shooting distances, gun safety etiquette and surrender. The company’s “3-strike policy” ensures repeat violators of these rules are banned for the day.
Each of Zoomz’s six courses had their own fun gimmick. I found myself stalking enemy teams in the woods and then hiding in a saloon style room taking fire from a second-story window across the street. I was hiding behind industrial spools one game and sprinting through shipping containers the next. Heck, there was even a school bus. The games were equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. I often got jitters before the games even started. Paired with the intricacy and creativity of the courses, Zoomz is ahead of other parks I have visited and it’s definitely one of the most intense full-body workouts I have ever done.
On the other hand, there were a couple times where I wasn’t sure if my ankle was gonna land at a 90-degree angle due to pretty hazardous terrain. Wasps, thorns and some eager-to-clothesline tree branches were constant issues throughout the day.
Running through the initial 500 paintballs that come with the $38 rental is easy. I would say a bag of 500 paintballs buys you about 1 hour of paintball. How many paintball bags you buy really determines your time at the
park, starting at $20 a bag. I felt even less guilty learning paintballs are fully biodegradable, using dyed potato starch and gelatin casings for easy clean-up.
Seeing someone from every age group during my time at Zoomz highlighted the inclusivity of the paintball community in Aggieland and it is one of the few events where no one has to be left out on their phones.
“It’s a great fun, outdoor entertainment experience, that there’s nothing like it in the county,” Ryan said. “You’re gonna get exhausted, you’re gonna get a workout and then you’re gonna get a thrill that you can’t really experience indoors.”
So if you have a coworker you don’t like, or want to really get back at, Jason from your student organization for wasting your time and don’t mind a few welts, don’t hesitate and head out to Zoomz for some one-of-a-kind fun.
RULES AND SAFETY
Paintball is fun, but injuries happen. Several safety measures are taken at the park to avoid projectile injuries. Standard gun safety features are built-in to the guns like a safety-lock and a barrel-clearing slide. “Barrel socks,” as they were referred to at Zoomz, are plugs that prevent paintballs from shooting out due to a misfire. These are worn when in the public areas of the park. When your opponent is less than 20 feet away from you, the phrase, “bang bang!” can be used as a way to avoid a painful elimination which can be accepted or declined. Tag elimination is also a way to defeat an opponent, tagging them with the barrel of the gun.