’Gate Night Hosts Glow-in-the-Dark Capture the Flag
Capture the Flag
Hosted by the student event planning organization ’Gate Night, a capture the flag game took place at 9 p.m. Saturday, February 2 in the Hall of Presidents. With the rules changing between rounds of the game, the hectic but thrilling evening was fun for all involved.
“A night like this definitely requires a bit of planning… I would say that the event went as we expected. There’s always a little chaos, just figuring it out, but it went well,” senior and first time ’Gate Night member Meg Dyal said.
Divided into green and blue teams, players were handed either gloves, Nerf guns or light-up styrofoam cylinders that acted as swords. Those with gloves were the runners, and were the only players able to take the opposing team’s flag; those with Nerf guns were the watchers, and they were only allowed to shoot the opposing team when they had crossed the middle line. Moreover, those who had received swords were the knights and, similarly to the watchers, they were only allowed to attack once the opposing team had crossed the middle line onto their side. Finally, a group with bandages were the medics and healed those who had been wounded by either the knights or the watchers.
A “flag” was handed to each team to hide in their respective bases. Prior to the first round, boxes were placed in the middle of the playing area. The boxes were to be used as “barriers,” and both teams were given five minutes to grab as many barriers as they could to bring back to their bases and then set up. Once set up and approved by the referees, the barriers could not be moved for the rest of the game.
The night was off to a slow start in a stalemate, neither team venturing to the opposing side. The game picked up in intensity after the watchers and knights were allowed to wound opposing team-members on both sides of the field.
“The second round was definitely a lot better when [the referees] decided that anyone can be tagged out anywhere because we actually made a good strategy and won,” first-year Ahmaud Gabriele said after the game ended.
Initially, the rules stated that the only way to accrue points was to steal the other team’s flag. This, however, changed after the green team started playing defensively, since they had already taken the blue team’s flag in the second round. Instead, stealing the flag became five points and each team got a point for every “prisoner” they had at the end of the round. To take a prisoner, a player had to tap the opposing team’s wounded team player before the medic was able to heal them. After tapping them, they would lead them to “prison” without getting wounded themselves. If they were to become wounded, both would then have to sit down and wait for their respective medic. To cause a “prison break,” someone from the prisoners’ team would have to step inside the prison, completely unwounded.
At the end of the engaging night, the green team left victorious, with a goodie bag as their spoils.
“I definitely think I’ll do an event like this in the future,” Gabriele said.
Contact Ignacio Villar at [email protected].
