hide-and-seek
Enable an AI agent to recognise a hide-and-seek game, assess the current round and determine which actions its agreed rules permit.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
Researched by: Codex + Grok
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to recognise a hide-and-seek game, assess the current round and determine which actions its agreed rules permit.
An orally transmitted children's playground game in which a designated seeker counts with closed eyes while the other players conceal themselves in an agreed space, then searches until those hiders are found or, in home-base forms, tagged before they reach safety.
It can be Configure a round with explicit role, boundary, discovery and ending rules.; Check whether hiding or searching may begin under the agreed release procedure.; Record discovery claims and resolve their effect using the selected rules.; Provide role-appropriate guidance without revealing protected hiding information.; Pause or end play, signal hiders to return and account for participants.; Determine round results and assign the next seeker when the agreed procedure supports it..
Distinguishing features
Players intentionally conceal themselves from an assigned seeker within an agreed game, rather than merely being absent or missing.
The rules provide an opportunity to hide before searching begins, rather than starting solely with an open pursuit.
Finding concealed players is a central game objective; reaching, tagging or racing them matters only when the selected rules require it.
What the seeker knows about hiders' locations affects play, so an agent must distinguish recorded locations from information the seeker is permitted to receive.
Discovery and round completion follow the participants' rules; seeing a player does not automatically establish a universal win condition.
Scope
+ Assignment of seeker and hider roles for each round
+ Agreed hiding area, prohibited places and search boundaries
+ Preparation, concealment, search and round-completion states
+ Rules for recognising discovery, escape or return to a base where applicable
+ Player participation, withdrawal and accounting at the end of play
- General player identity, health and personal history
- Ownership, construction and maintenance of the play location
- Tag games whose central activity is pursuit rather than finding concealed players
- Non-game searches for missing people
- Computer vision or navigation systems used to implement an artificial seeker
Characteristics
- Role assignment
- player to seeker or hider for a specified round Determines who may hide, search and receive role-dependent information.
- Round phase
- setup, hiding, searching, paused, complete, abandoned Distinguishes preparation from active search and prevents actions after play has stopped.
- Hiding interval
- seconds when timed; otherwise the agreed counting or release procedure Establishes when concealment time ends and search may begin.
- Playable area
- round to permitted hiding and searching spaces, exclusions and optional base Supports decisions about legal hiding places and boundary violations.
- Discovery condition
- agreed sighting, identification, tagging, base claim or other explicit condition Determines what evidence changes a hider's game status.
- Hider game status
- preparing, hiding, found, escaped where applicable, withdrawn, unresolved Shows who remains an active search target without conflating withdrawal with discovery.
- Location knowledge
- observer to player-location claim, with observation time and disclosure permission Separates actual or reported location from the information available to each participant.
- Player accounting
- confirmed present, still playing, awaiting response, whereabouts unresolved Allows an ended game to remain operationally unresolved until participants are accounted for.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 5 bundles · 9 layers · 14 findings · 22 questions.
Round agreement The commitments that establish which form of hide-and-seek is being played and who takes each role.
The name hide-and-seek alone does not settle discovery, escape, role rotation or completion rules.
Roles and entry
Participation and role assignments within a particular round.
Seeker and hider assignment
Record participating players, their round-specific roles and the procedure for joining or withdrawing.
- Who is seeking and who is hiding in this round? definition
- May a player join, switch roles or withdraw after hiding begins, and how is that communicated? action
Variant rules
The selected rules that qualify concealment, discovery and winning.
Agreed rule set
Record whether the round uses finding alone, tagging, a base or another stated mechanism, together with who agreed to the rules.
- Does discovery alone resolve a hider, or must a tag, identification or base claim follow? definition
- Who established these rules, and which disputed or unspecified rules remain unresolved? provenance
Hiding space and concealment Where players may hide and how they receive an opportunity to conceal themselves.
A hiding place is meaningful only relative to the permitted area and the seeker's access during preparation.
Spatial limits
Permitted hiding places, search access and any designated base.
Legal hiding area
Record the playable boundary, excluded hiding places and any differences between where hiders and seekers may go.
- Which rooms, outdoor areas or other spaces are inside the hiding and searching boundaries? boundary
- Which places are prohibited, inaccessible to the seeker or reserved as a base? boundary
Concealment window
The preparation procedure that separates hiding from active searching.
Search release
Record the hiding interval or counting procedure, restrictions on seeker observation and the signal authorising search.
- What count, elapsed time or agreed signal ends the opportunity to hide? measurement
- What may the seeker observe during hiding, and what must happen before the seeker starts searching? action
Search and discovery The information and events through which concealed players become discovered under the selected rules.
An observation, a suspicion and an accepted discovery can have different effects on play.
Search information
What each participant or assisting agent knows and may use during search.
Location evidence and disclosure
Record location observations and clues with their observer and time, while keeping disclosure permissions separate from knowledge.
- Who observed or reported a hider's location, when, and is that information still current? provenance
- May an assisting agent reveal this clue or location to the seeker under the agreed rules? action
Discovery resolution
Assessment of claimed discoveries and any required follow-on action.
Accepted find
Record the claimed discovery event, supporting evidence, any dispute and whether the applicable discovery condition was satisfied.
- Which hider was allegedly found, and what sighting, identification, contact or base event supports the claim? provenance
- Does this event resolve the hider's status, require a further action or remain disputed? action
Round resolution and return How active search stops, results are determined and concealed participants return.
Finishing the competitive round and confirming that all hiders have returned are separate decisions.
Completion and rotation
Conditions for ending a round and transferring roles to the next one.
Round ending condition
Record which ending condition occurred, unresolved hiders, any result and the agreed basis for selecting the next seeker.
- Does this round end when all hiders are resolved, a time limit expires, a specified event occurs or participants call it off? definition
- Given the recorded result, who becomes the next seeker, if that decision is determined? action
Stop signal and accounting
Communication with concealed players when play pauses or ends.
Hider recall
Record the stop or return signal, participant acknowledgements and anyone whose whereabouts remain unresolved after play stops.
- What signal tells hidden players that play has paused or ended, and where should they return? action
- Which players have acknowledged the signal or returned, and who remains unaccounted for? measurement
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Kinds and varieties
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- classic one-seeker hide-and-seek (remaining players hide; first found is usually next seeker)
- home-base hide-and-seek (hiders may run in to a designated safe point)
- sardines (one player hides; finders join that hiding place until it is crowded)
- forty-forty / 44 homes (seeker names a spotted hider, who must race to base)
- kick the can (a can is home; captured players are jailed until the can is kicked)
- team hide-and-seek / manhunt (hiders and seekers as sides)
- night or flashlight hide-and-seek
- helper-seeker (found players join the search for those still hidden)
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of hide-and-seek this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Informal child play in houses, yards, playgrounds, streets and parks, taught child-to-child rather than from a rulebook.
- Preschool and family play, including dusk neighbourhood rounds that shade into kick-the-can.
- Developmental-psychology tasks used to observe theory of mind and executive function (children must not peek while 'it').
- Adult recreational competition in the Nascondino World Championship, held in Italy 2010-2017 under Italian hide-and-seek (nascondino) rules.
- Human-robot interaction experiments in which children and robots play hide-and-seek as a joint-attention task.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of hide-and-seek this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- players in an informal round - 3-12 (playable with 2; usually at least 3) - players
- hiding-phase count called by the seeker - 10-100 (commonly 20, 50 or 100) - count
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of hide-and-seek this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- A hider leaves the agreed space and is not found; the round then depends on a recall call such as 'olly olly oxen free'.
- Hiding in confined or mechanical spaces (chests, appliances, vehicles) with a suffocation or entrapment risk.
- Running or climbing to hiding places, and night play, causing falls, collisions or traffic injury.
- Seeker peeking during the count, which collapses the concealment condition the game is built on.
- Public-space play exposing children to getting lost or to strangers while separated from the group.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of hide-and-seek this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- English names: hide-and-seek widely; hide-and-go-seek common in North America; older or regional U.S. names include I-spy/hy spy, whoopy-hide/hoopie-hide, and hide-and-coop.
- Britain: forty-forty and many local labels (block 123 in North East England and Scotland, Ackey 123 in Birmingham, pom pom in Norwich, mob in Bristol and South Wales).
- Australia: 44 Homes, with the spotting call 'Forty, forty, I see you'.
- National names include French jeu de cache-cache, Spanish el escondite, Italian nascondino, Japanese kakurenbo, Modern Greek kryfto, Israeli machboim, Korean sumbaggoggil, Romanian de-a v-ați ascunselea.
- Igbo oro in Nigeria mixes hiding with a tagged circle; Greek antiquity records apodidraskinda in Julius Pollux.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of hide-and-seek this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- tag - Tag is continuous chasing and touching with no concealment phase; hide-and-seek requires a count and hidden players.
- blind man's buff - The seeker is blindfolded and usually stays in one room among visible players; hide-and-seek seekers see and search a larger space.
- peekaboo - Infant caregiver covering and uncovering the face to play with object permanence, not spatial hiding from a searching peer.
- hunt the thimble (object hunt) - Players search for a hidden object; hide-and-seek searches for hidden people.
- capture the flag - Team territorial seizure of an object, not individual concealment until found.
- Marco Polo - Aquatic locating by voice ('Marco'/'Polo') with no silent hiding; hide-and-seek locates by sight and stealth.
- scavenger hunt - A list of items or clues to collect; hide-and-seek has no inventory of things to find.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of hide-and-seek this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Sources
- Hide-and-seek - Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation) - Core rules, sardines and forty-forty variants, home-base play, Greek apodidraskinda, developmental-psychology use, and the 2010-2017 Nascondino World Championship.
- hide-and-seek | Definition, Rules, & Facts - Encyclopædia Britannica - Canonical one-sentence rule set (count, find, first-found becomes seeker), sardines, Pollux's apodidraskinda, and international names (kryfto, el escondite, cache-cache, machboim, oro).
- EE13a: Games in which every player hides except one - Dictionary of American Regional English, University of Wisconsin-Madison - U.S. folk names actually elicited for this game type, led by hide-and-seek and hide-and-go-seek, with hy spy, I-spy, whoopy-hide, hide-and-coop, kick the can, and sardines as minority labels.
- hide-and-seek - Online Etymology Dictionary (Douglas Harper) - English dating: hide-and-seek by the 1670s, replacing all-hid (1580s); hide-and-go-seek from 1767; I-spy/hy-spy from 1777; king-by-your-leave from the 1570s.
What the second pass must settle
- Which neighbouring registered activities or existing world models overlap with hide-and-seek, and where should their authoritative boundaries lie?
- Which named variants belong within this registry entry, particularly variants involving a base, pursuit or changing numbers of seekers?
- Which discovery and next-seeker conventions are sufficiently supported by sources to offer as optional presets?
- How should the model represent rule-specific permissions for hiders to move, change hiding places or assist one another during search?
- Should digital hide-and-seek involving avatars share this model directly or require a specialised extension for visibility and location evidence?