On May 2nd, I played a game called Manhunt Vancouver. According to the Facebook group :
BASIC MANHUNT RULES:
Manhunt is a hide-and-seek variant. The game starts out with one person, known as the MANHUNTER, who is “it”. After the manhunter has been selected, the FUGITIVES have 120 seconds to hide.
If a FUGITIVE is tagged by a MANHUNTER, she or he is BRAINWASHED and forced to join the side of the MANHUNTERS. At the end of the designated time limit, all FUGITIVES who have not been arrested are declared the winners.
Play occurs within predetermined boundaries. If a FUGITIVE exits these boundaries for any reason, she/he joins the MANHUNTERS. Players are identified as being distinct from the general civilian population by means of a HIGHLY-VISIBLE ARMBAND.
This is a picture of the organisers explaining the rules before the game began. It was my first time playing and it was really tons of fun. In the beginning I hung out with another guy as we kept a lookout for other people with white badges. The other person stated that I should stay 10 feet behind him in order to better watch for others. It was a useful strategy until I decided to venture off on my own and was subsequently caught by two others.
Officially they chased me for a few blocks through alleys and over parked cars until they tagged me when I stopped to put on my Spider-Man suit to fight crime. Unofficially, I walked into the two girls that tagged me due to my lack of complete understanding of the rules.
After I got caught I thought about how this game could be played better or smarter. Mobile phones should be utilised. After being captured I roamed in a herd with 2 others in order to find people to tag. We had the opportunity to capture another person but one of my partners ran at him from too great a distance and didn’t give me enough time to block off their escape route. If we could have communicated with mobile phones, I believe we would have captured him.
I look forward to playing again later in the summer.
Relevance: It is always cool to hack public space through game play.