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.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Activities and processes
- Entry kind
- thing
- Plane
- ACT
- Domain
- ACT.ACT
- Other names and narrower kinds
- Pîpê, Kick the can
What it is Filled
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.
In 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
Out of scope
- 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
Why it exists Filled
Enable an AI agent to recognise a hide-and-seek game, assess the current round and determine which actions its agreed rules permit.
Distinguishing features Filled
- 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.
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Encourage children to hide in fridges, chests, vehicles, water tanks or other places where they could be trapped.
- Play with children without the knowledge of their carers.
- Lose track of a child who has hidden and not returned.
- Use the game to lure children away from supervision.
Only with a human decision
- Deciding that a missing child is still hiding rather than lost.
May
- Explain the rules and regional variants of the game.
- Play the game with children when supervised by their carers, in an agreed safe area.
Moral aspects Filled
- Children have suffocated after hiding in closed spaces; safety rules matter more than winning.
- Games like this build trust; adults and agents must not abuse it.
Who is affected
- Children
- Parents and carers
- Teachers
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody: a traditional game held in common.
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- Q1509934 - registry parent class
- Q30301727 - registry parent class
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.hide-and-seek
- Wikidata: Q171957 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q171957)
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
- Role assignment: player to seeker or hider for a specified round
- Round phase: setup, hiding, searching, paused, complete, abandoned
- Hiding interval: seconds when timed; otherwise the agreed counting or release procedure
- Playable area: round to permitted hiding and searching spaces, exclusions and optional base
- Discovery condition: agreed sighting, identification, tagging, base claim or other explicit condition
- Hider game status: preparing, hiding, found, escaped where applicable, withdrawn, unresolved
- Location knowledge: observer to player-location claim, with observation time and disclosure permission
- Player accounting: confirmed present, still playing, awaiting response, whereabouts unresolved
Plane ACT: no invented physical properties.
Recognition optional Filled
- A seeker counting with closed eyes while others run off to hide.
- Calls such as ready or not, here I come, and a home base the hiders run to.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- 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.
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Children can be trapped or suffocate in closed containers or appliances.
- Hiding near roads or water exposes children to accidents.
Standards and interfaces not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
The informal game has no universal official rules or dedicated technical standard, although its venue may have applicable safety requirements.
Context of use required Filled
- Hide-and-seek is played in homes, playgrounds and other agreed spaces as informal recreation for children.
- Players use locally agreed rules to organize hiding, searching and sometimes returning to a home base.
- Supervised settings use boundaries and participation rules suited to the players and the available space.
Sources Filled
- 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.
- Wikidata item Q171957: hide-and-seek - identity and sense of the item
Open questions
- 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?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q171957/spec.json