Capture the flag

Capture the flag is a traditional outdoor game often played by children where two teams have a flag each and the objective is to capture the other team s flag, located at the team s base , and bring it back to their own base. It is also a popular paintball game.

One variation of the game includes a jail area in addition to the flag on each team s territory. If a member of one team gets tagged by a member of the second team in the second team s territory, the tagged person must sit in jail either for a pre-determined time limit, or until an untagged member runs through the jail.

Norwich Rules are typically played with three tennis balls in each base. This game was revolutionized by the famous Mann/Mosenthal team, who altered the rules slightly and drastically improved this game. The jail is set up as in the variation above. There is no time limit, and one person can only carry one tennis ball at a time. To get out of jail, you must be tagged by a member of your team, and you get a free walk back.

=Software/games=

In ) based around the traditional outdoor game.

A similar gameplay, often called CTF, is found in many first-person shooters such as Quake , Unreal Tournament , and Tribes (video game) . Each team has a flag and the players attempt to take the enemy s flag from their base and bring it back to their own flag to score. CTF is most commonly played in multiplayer games.

Possibly the first FPS (and the first computer or video game) to feature CTF was Rise of the Triad, released in 1994. One of the multiplayer modes was called Capture the Triad, and conforms to the objectives stated above for CTF games in first person shooters, with the exception that the items to be captured/defended were triad symbols.

CTF was first introduced as a respectively.

includes two CTF variants: CTF Pro and Invasion. In CTF Pro, both flags need to be at the same location for a score, requiring that a team s flag remain protected in home base. In the Invasion scenario, a team starts with the enemy s flag and must deliver it to the enemy base.

CTF mods are avaliable for multiple first person shooters, and including Wolfenstein, Enemy Territory, which is a free download using the game engine from the popular Retun to Castle Wolfenstein.

Control Monger for the IBM PC clone includes a new type of CTF that combines deathmatch and CTF. This new form of CTF is called Free For All Capture The Flag , This form of game play only has one flag in the middle of the map that everyone fights for in a Death Match Frenzy.

Compared to a deathmatch game, CTF scenarios often feature some sort of transportation tool that can be used to travel faster and to reach areas which the player wouldn t normally be able to reach without this extra aid. Such tools might be a grappling hook (aka ninja rope) or a portable teleporter. In Battlefield 1942 CTF the many vehicles available in the game serve this role, though in ETF the vehicles move slower than the players, and are vulerable objectives in most missions. The usual reason for including such equipment is because it allows players to outmanoeuvre the flag carrier on his way home, as the flag carrier is often not able to use transportation tools. This feature gives the defenders an edge, thus making the game sessions last a bit longer.

There are also CTF variants for more than 2 teams (4 teams most commonly). In that case the scoring system can vary quite greatly.

=Computer security=

In computer security, capture the flag (CTF) is an information warfare game. Each team is given a machine (or small network) to defend on an isolated network. Teams are scored on both their success in defending their assigned machine and on their success in attacking other team s machines. Depending on the nature of the particular CTF game, teams may either be attempting to take an opponent s flag from their machine or teams may be attempting to plant their own flag on their opponent s machine. CTF was popularized by the hacker conference DEF CON.

CTF is often used as an educational exercise to give participants experience in securing a machine, as well as in conducting and reacting to real attacks using commonly available tools, in order to demonstrate the level of effectiveness of their chosen defensive strategies and tools.

An international, academic CTF has been hosted twice by UCSB. The winner of 2005 edition was the team from the Politecnico di Milano university in Italy.

=Urban Gaming=

Capture the Flag is among the games that have made a recent comeback among adults as part of the urban gaming trend (which includes games like Pac-Manhattan and Manhunt (people game)). The game is played on city streets and players use cellphones to communicate. News about the games spreads virally through the use of Blogs and mailing lists. Urban Capture the Flag has been played in New York and Toronto by the group [http://www.newmindspace.com newmindspace].