One person is the Fugitive and can go about doing normal Second Life activities. But as as active Fugitive (wearing the HUD), they may be hunted at any time. Up to three Hunters can select an active Fugitive from a list and start tracking them. In this game the Fugitive has been implanted with an old style radio beeper like those collars that wild animals are fitted with. No GPS here, you can't go right to the place where the Fugitive is. Hunters use a radio direction finder that shows strength of signal and bearing to the Fugitive.

Initially the signal may be so weak that an accurate bearing is not possible. So Hunters must use the strength of signal indicator to know if they are getting closer or farther away from the Fugitive, (which may be as much as a kilometer away). When the Hunter gets closer, a stronger signal allows a pointer to the Fugitive to become active on the HUD.

But we also assume that the Hunters have brought dogs along to aid in the tracking when they get close. And so, when a Hunter does get close, the Fugitive will hear the sound of barking dogs and know they need to be more careful about strangers approaching. This is the dividing line in the game between "tracking" the Fugitive and "pursuing" them. (This is also the point at which game scoring starts).

Once the pursuit begins, the Hunter will win by simply bumping into the Fugitive. The Fugitive wins by evading the Hunter for 20 minutes. (This time is configurable and may be changed to improve gameplay).

The HUD has many status information panels and buttons to control game setup and options. But for the hunter, the Tracking panel is the key display.

• The distance bar, labeled How Close, fills to the right as you get closer to the target.
• The Tracking Status can have several indicators:

  STRONGER

  You are far away but getting closer to the Fugitive

  FADING

  You are moving away from the Fugitive

  TRACKING

  You are close enough for the direction finder to indicate the heading to the Fugitive. This is based on the direction you are moving, not the direction your avatar is facing.

  ABOVE

  You are very close and the Fugitive is a few meters above you.

  BELOW

  You are very close and the Fugitive is a few meters below you.

• To the right of the Tracking Status is a circular arrow. This will teleport you back to where you were 30 seconds ago. This is needed in case you walk into a security orb zone and need to back out before it ejects you.
• Touching the Map will open a map in a browser. The Location Pointer on the Map is not where you are, but rather the center of the region where you are.
• The Rezz Zone button will print the distance and direction of the nearest land rezz zone. And if one is nearby, the nearest rezz zone with ocean access.
• The Dart is used when you are close to the Fugitive and they are riding or sitting on something. Remember that you normally win by bumping into them. But if they are sitting, this contact can not be detected. The Dart can be used to capture them in this situation -- but you have to be close.
• Your main tool while in Tracking Mode is the direction finder. This will indicate the direction to the fugitive relative to the direction you are moving.

• No super-hero skills such as flying, or jumping off of buildings or cliffs, or walking underwater.
• No use of radar or maps to help locate a person.
• No zooming your camera to see far away.
• No teleporting.
• The game is intended to be played while walking or running on the ground, however vehicles are allowed some situations.

When a player has RLV enabled for their viewer, these rules can be automatically enforced. If RLV is not enabled, then you are restricted to playing the game in "Friends" mode.

What about Skyboxes?

Fugitives can go up to skyboxes until someone starts to hunt them. They will then have 90 seconds to return to ground level on the mainland before the game can start.

"It's the journey not the destination"

Before getting into the details of the game, I'd like to suggest that there are two ways to view this game.

As a Hunter:

1. It's just a mad chase to catch the Fugitive. Trying to go in a straight line as fast as you can, back-tracking and going round obstacles only when necessary.
2. It's more of a stalking game. You need to get closer, but are willing to take a slower, perhaps longer approach. Remember the rules about no use of maps, radar and camera limits? This means the fugitive only has line-of-sight visibility of you. So should you approach slowly, perhaps hiding behind buildings or natural terrain features, to get very close before running at them?

As a Fugitive:

1. Do you just pick random places to hide when someone starts to hunt you?
2. Do you travel around the continents exploring and looking for the best hiding places? Do you choose an island, a mountain top or a busy urban area.

Is this a game of chase, tactics or strategy?

The Second Life Mainland regions are a vast space filled with many interesting and creative builds. Whether Fugitive or Hunter, you will discover new places that you might never know about just by using Search to explore SL.

The original prototype was played on the entire SL Grid. Fugitives could hide-out on any region and hunters moved about by clicking on a location on the world map to teleport to it, and then checking to see if they were closer to the fugitive. There were several problems with this that resulted in frustrating game play.

So the game is now played on the mainland continents. Yes, there are still security systems, but because you are not randomly teleporting into them, hunters now have time to back out and find a way around that parcel. And, the HUD has a PANIC button to quickly back you out of a protected parcel.

This does require that fugitives stay on mainland regions, and if they leave on, they will be reminded to go back or have their fugitive status reset. The Second Life Mainland regions are a vast space filled with some interesting and creative builds. You may discover new places that you might never know about just by using search to explore.

Each of the mainland continents is contiguous land mass. Fugitives can start this game on any of them. Hunters are initially teleported to a spot a few kilometers away to begin tracking them. But there are other large role-playing estates that are also a great places to play this game

	Mainland
Game Play	Mainland regions of Second Life are mostly flat land and both fugitive and hunters can move about freely. It has a wide variety of region and parcel content. Including many homes, business, and some role-play areas. The main obstacle is private land that you must avoid. Because there is so much wide open space, it is not difficult for a hunter to locate and close in on a fugitive. Once the pursuit begins it really is a game of "catch me if you can", as both hunters and fugitives have the same limits on how fast they can move.
Role-Play	There are a few mainland regions dedicated to a specific role-play theme and you should respect the ongoing role-play of others before running full speed into and through them during this game. Most of the time, places are empty, but if others are present, you should respect the property and privacy of someone's home or place of business as you would in real life. please read the New to Amazon River section at the bottom of this page
Combat and Capture	As hunters wins this game by bumping into the fugitive, that is the only form of capture. When this happens the fugitive's movement is frozen for 45 seconds. This provides time for role-playing a capture should both the fugitive and hunter wish to do that.

Normally a person registered as a Fugitive in the database can be hunted by anyone. All names are hidden and no one knows who they are hunting or who is hunting them. This is the normal mode for the game, but requires that all participants have RLV enabled for their viewer.

But there is a "Friends" mode where the Fugitive selects one or more nearby avatars to be the Hunters. Any of these friends that does not have RLV enabled for their viewer is "on their honor" not to look at radar or maps to help find the Fugitive. No scoring takes place in friends mode.

Random Strangers

Friends

The primary way to play this game is with strangers. This is an open game where the Fugitive will not know who is hunting them. When you start a game as a Fugitive, you are entered into a database as "available" to be hunted. Hunters will then see your active status and select you to hunt. But they see only see a randomized name such as Fugitive #2. Once they have selected you, they will receive a description of you such as might be on a 'wanted poster' Up to three Hunters can choose pursue you at the same time. Because there are a small number of players during the Beta Test, you should play this game in Friends Mode.

In the Friends version of the game, the Fugitive selects the Hunters from nearby avatars. When the selection is complete, the Fugitive will have a two minute head start. During this time, those friends will access the Fugitive database. They will see the normal listings of anonymous Fugitives, but also the name of their friend, who can then be selected as the Fugitive to hunt. Once a "friend" Fugitive is selected, the Hunter's movement will be frozen for 2 minutes to give the Fugitive a head start. After the head start period, the game is the same as for when hunting a stranger. There is no scoring for Friends Games.

There are four distinct phases of game play.

Fugitive Not being Hunted	When a player first registers to be a Fugitive, they can go anywhere and do anything they wish in the Second Life World. But when the have been selected to be hunted, the Fugitive will then have 90 seconds to move to ground level on one of the mainland continents. If they can't they are removed from the list of active Fugitives.
Tracking Phase	The tracking phase begins once a selected Fugitive has moved to a Mainland region. The Hunter is then teleported to a random location about a kilometer away from the Fugitive to start their hunt. For Hunters this phase of the game is about getting closer to the Fugitive and navigating obstacles in your path such as private parcels, rivers, and walls. For Fugitives, there are two cases: If the fugitive is in a mainland region, they will not know the hunter is pursuing them will the Pursuit Phase starts. If not in a Mainland region, they are told to move to one, (which alerts them that they are being hunted). But there is no need to panic as the Hunter is initially several regions away, and you will usually have at least 5 minutes before the Hunter can get very close to you. You can of course start running at this point, but you may end up going toward the Hunter.
Pursuit Phase	The Pursuit phase starts when a Hunter is about (1 region), away from the Fugitive. The fugitive will now know they are being hunted. This begins the timed phase of the hunt and really when the chase starts. If the Fugitive can evade capture for 20 minutes, they win the game. The Hunter wins by bumping into the Fugitive before the time limit.
Capture	Hunters win this game by bumping into the Fugitive. At that point scores (mostly based on how quickly the Fugitive was captured) are available. But if the Fugitive's profile is configured for it, their movement is frozen for 45 seconds to allow time for role-playing a capture scene. Hunters should read the Fugitive's SL Profile to see what types of capture role-play they are interested in.

Locations of players are exchanged via an external server that initially updates every minute, but will increase in frequency as Hunter and Fugitive get closer.

It is possible that either player may wander into a parcel that has scripts disabled and just "goes silent". To help avoid this:

• There is a flashing indicator on the HUD when scripts are running.
• After a couple of minutes an attempt is made to send an IM to the silent player to alert them.
• And other players will receive a notification when a fugitive goes silent.

The barking of the dogs when the Hunter is close is generated by the HUD and only heard by the Fugitive.

If you have a RLV viewer or one with RLVa enabled, restrictions to make the hunt more fair and realistic will be applied .

You can update the HUD without losing any previously configured information.

Permissions are: Copy, No Modify, No Transfer