After defining the playing area (use the full gym if inside, and make the game as big as you want if you are outside), split it in half by marking the full center line with cones (or with a big tug-of-war rope).
Each side will be a mirror image of the other.
On each side, use the cones to mark off an area that will be the prison (a circle that has a diameter of about 8 to 10 feet).
On each side, use the cones to mark off an area that will house the flag (usually a 5-foot by 5-foot circle). Place the flag in the middle of this circle.
The object of the game is to steal the other team’s flag and bring it over the center line to your side without getting tagged.
Anyone who is on the other team’s side, and is tagged by a member of that team, MUST go immediately to prison.
To be saved from prison, someone from your team must make it all the way to you without being tagged, and then must walk you back (holding onto your clothing, hand, linking elbows…etc.), to your own side.
You can only save one person from prison at a time, and both saver and “savee” must walk back to their own side before re-joining the game (no breaking away to steal the flag!).
You are only allowed to have one person in the flag safe zone at a time, and that person can stay in the safe zone for as long as they want.
If someone else enters the safe zone while you are in there, then you both go to prison.
You cannot pass/throw the flag to another member of your team.
If someone tries to steal the flag, and is caught before crossing the center line, then that person goes to prison and the flag goes back inside the safe zone.
If you want to, you can challenge someone to a “Tug-of-War.” This happens when two opposing team members face off at the center line, links hands, and try and pull each other onto the other’s side. If you are pulled across the line, then you go to prison.
Each time a team successfully steals the flag, have the teams switch sides.
