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Capture the flag (CTF) is a traditional outdoor game where two teams each have a flag (or other marker) and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's 'base,' and bring it safely back to their own base. Enemy players can be 'tagged' by players in their home territory and, depending on the rules, they may be out of the game, become members of the opposite team, sent back to their own territory, or frozen in place ('in jail') until freed by a member of their own team.

Overview[edit]

Capture the Flag requires a playing field of some sort. In both indoor and outdoor versions, the field is divided into two clearly designated halves, known as territories. Players form two teams, one for each territory. Each side has a 'flag' which is most often a piece of fabric, but can be any object small enough to be easily carried by a person (night time games might use flashlights, glowsticks or lanterns as the 'flags'). Sometimes teams wear dark colors at night to make it more difficult for their opponents to see them. If one team has the opposing team's flag on their territory they may be tagged because they have the opposing team's flag.

The objective of the game is for players to venture into the opposing team's territory, grab the flag and return with it to their territory without being tagged. The flag is defended mainly by tagging opposing players who attempt to take it. Within their territory players are 'safe', meaning that they cannot be tagged by opposing players. Once they cross into the opposing team's territory they are vulnerable.

Rules for Capture the Flag appear in the 1920 Edition of 'The Official Handbook for Boys' published by the Boy Scouts of America.^[1]

Location[edit]

The flag is usually placed in a visibly obvious location at the rear of a team's territory. In a more difficult version, the flag is hidden in a place where it can only be seen from one angle. It also might have some challenge involved. For example, the flag could be hidden in the leaves up in a tall tree, and the players have to see the flag, then knock it out and bring it to their base.

Jail[edit]

Different versions of Capture the Flag have different rules, both for handling the flag and for what happens to tagged players. A player who is tagged may be eliminated from the game entirely (out of the game), be forced to join the opposing team, sent back to their own territory, or be placed in 'jail' with or without a guard (according to the number of people in a team).^[2] The jail is a predesignated area of the group's territory which exists for holding tagged players and is normally towards the back of the group's territory.

While tagged players may be confined to jail for a limited, predetermined time, the most common form of the game involves the option for a 'jailbreak'. In this version, players who are tagged remain in jail indefinitely. However, players from their own team may free them from jail by means of a jailbreak.^[2] Jailbreaks are accomplished by a player running from their own territory into the enemy's jail. Such action may, depending on the rules, free all jailed players^[2] or simply those who are physically touched by the one performing the jailbreak. But in some variants, teammates who got tagged can be jailed only 3 times, or they are kicked from the game until the next round. In general freed players are obligated to return directly to their own territory before attempting offensive action (i.e., attempting to grab the flag).

While they return to their own side, freed players usually acquire 'free walk-backs', in which they are safe from tagging until they reach their home territory. The player performing the jail break, on the other hand, is neither safe, nor restricted from performing other actions such as attempting to grab the flag or generally moving about enemy territory. Sometimes, players in jail form chains, so that if a teammate tags one person in the chain, everyone is free. Simply leaving jail without being freed is considered poor sportsmanship and is severely frowned upon, often leading to expulsion from the game. If all players on one team are jailed (meaning no teammate can free them from jail), then the other team will have all the time they want to find the other team's flag.

Capturing the flag[edit]

The rules for the handling of the flag also vary from game to game and deal mostly with the disposition of the flag after a failed attempt at capturing it. In one variant, after a player is tagged while carrying the flag, it is returned to its original place. In another variant, the flag is left in the location where the player was tagged. This latter variant makes offensive play easier, as the flag will tend, over the course of the game, to be moved closer to the dividing line between territories. In some games, it is possible for the players to throw the flag to teammates. As long as the flag stays in play without hitting the ground, it is allowed for the players to pass.

When the flag is captured by one player, they're not safe from being tagged, unless they trip. Sometimes, the flag holder may not be safe at all, even in their home territory, until they obtain both flags, thus ending the game. But they have the option to return to their own side or hand it off to a teammate who will then carry it to the other side. In most versions, they may not throw the flag but only hand it off while running. The game is won when a player returns to their own territory with the enemy flag or both teams' flags. Also, as a general rule, the flag carrier may not attempt to free any of their teammates from jail.^[2]

Variants[edit]

Alterations may include 'one flag' CTF in which there is a defensive team and an offensive team, or games with three or more flags. In the case of the latter, one can only win when all flags are captured, not only one.

Another variation is when the players put bandannas in their pockets with about six inches sticking out. Instead of tagging your opponents, you must pull your opponent's bandanna out of their pocket. No matter where a player is when their bandanna is pulled, they're captured and must, depending on the preferences of the players, go to jail, or return to their base before returning to play. In this version there is no team territory, only a small base where the team's flag is kept. To win, one team must have both of the flags in their base.

In some urban settings, the game is played indoors in an enclosed area with walls, similar to the walls in a hockey rink. There is also a spot sticking out of the back of the opposing ends which is connected to the playing area for the flag to be placed in. In this urban variation, legal checking hockey style and legal checking against the boards is allowed. A player who commits a foul or illegal check is placed in a penalty box for a specified amount of time, depending on the severity of the foul. A player who deliberately injures an opponent is expelled from the rest of the game. Throwing the flag is allowed in this variation, as long as the flag is caught before it hits the ground. If the flag is thrown to a teammate but hits the ground before it can be caught, the flag is placed from the spot of the throw. If a player throws the flag, but is blocked or intercepted by a player from the opposing team, the flag is placed back at the base.

It is not uncommon for people to play airsoft, paintball, or Nerf variations of CTF. Typically there are no territories in these versions. Players who are 'hit' must sit out a predetermined amount of time before returning to play (respawning).

Capture the Flag Redux[edit]

In 2014, Kickstarter users fully funded a campaign^[3] by Starlux Games for Capture the Flag Redux, an update that would allow it to be played at night or in the dark. The campaign raised over $7,000 from over 100 backers.^[4] The new game uses glowing orbs for flags, LED bracelets to identify teams, and light-up markers to show boundaries and jails.^[5] Each kit comes with 2 Glowing Orbs, 8 Jail Markers, 7 Territory Lights, 16 LED Glow Bracelets (eight for each team), 12 cards to explain game variation, and one guidebook (in English and Spanish).^[6]

In 2018, Heavy.com featured the game in their roundup of '62 Best Games for Tweens.'^[7] Toybuzz.org regularly includes the game in their gift guides.^[8]

PlasticandPlush.com describes Capture the Flag Redux as 'a good example of one of those successful Kickstarter projects that’s now widely available online and at retail.' ^[9] Aside from software, video games and apps used in urban capture the flag, this is the first time the classic game has been reimagined as a retail product.

Stealing sticks[edit]

'Stealing sticks' is a similar game played in the British Isles, the United States, and Australia. However, instead of a flag, a number of sticks or other items such as coats or hats are placed in a 'goal' on the far end of each side of the playing field or area. As in capture the flag, players are sent to a 'prison' if tagged on the opponents' side, and may be freed by teammates. Each player may only take one of their opponents' sticks at a time. The first team to take all of the opponents' sticks to their own side wins.^[10][11]

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Software and games[edit]

In 1984, Scholastic published Bannercatch^[12] for the Apple II and Commodore computers. An edutainment game with recognizable capture-the-flag mechanics, Bannercatch allows up to two humans (each alternating between two characters in the game world) to play capture the flag against an increasingly difficult team of four AI bots. Bannercatch's game world is divided into quadrants: home, enemy, and two 'no-mans land' areas which hold the jails. A successful capture requires bringing the enemy flag into one team's 'home' quadrant. Players can be captured when in an enemy territory, or in 'no-mans land' while holding a flag. Captured players must be 'rescued' from their designated jail by one of the other members of the team. Fallen flags remain where they dropped until a time-out period elapses, after which the flag returns to one of several starting locations in home territory. The 2D map also features walls, trees and a moving river, enabling a wide variety of strategies. Special locations in the play area allow humans to query the game state (such as flag status) using binary messages.

In 1992, Richard Carr released an MS-DOS based game called Capture the Flag. It is a turn-based strategy game with real time network / modem play (or play-by-mail) based around the traditional outdoor game. The game required players to merely move one of their characters onto the same square as their opponent's flag, as opposed to bringing it back to friendly territory, because of difficulties implementing the artificial intelligence that the computer player would have needed to bring the enemy flag home and intercept opposing characters carrying the flag.^{[citation needed]}

Computer security[edit]

In computer security, Capture the Flag (CTF), a type of wargame, is a computer security competition. CTF contests are usually designed to serve as an educational exercise to give participants experience in securing a machine, as well as conducting and reacting to the sort of attacks found in the real world (i.e., bug bounty programs in professional settings). Reverse-engineering, network sniffing, protocol analysis, system administration, programming, and cryptanalysis are all skills which have been required by prior CTF contests at DEF CON. There are three main styles of capture the flag competitions: attack/defense, hardware challenges and Jeopardy!.

In an attack/defense style competition, each team is given a machine (or a small network) to defend on an isolated network. Teams are scored on both their success in defending their assigned machine(s) and on their success in attacking the 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. Two of the more prominent attack/defense CTF's are held every year at DEF CON, the largest hacker conference, and the NYU-CSAW (Cyber Security Awareness Week), the largest student cyber-security contest.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Hardware challenges usually involve getting an unknown piece of hardware and having to figure out how to bypass part of the security, e.g. using debugging ports or using a Side-channel attack.

Jeopardy!-style competitions usually involve multiple categories of problems, each of which contains a variety of questions of different point values and difficulties. Teams attempt to earn the most points in the competition's time frame (for example 24 hours), but do not directly attack each other. Rather than a race, this style of game play encourages taking time to approach challenges and prioritizes quantity of correct submissions over the timing.

There is a fourth type of CTF, most commonly referred to as King of the Hill (KotH). King of the Hill is similar to Attack/Defend, but instead of everyone having their own machine (or small network) to defend, there are only preconfigured ones, which require all teams to exploit them. Once a team has successfully taken over the machine, the focus shifts to defending the machine from other teams' attacks. Score is usually determined by a score reporting service on the machine, that reports a team token. When one team is able to gain access, they will remove the other team's token and insert their own, thus making them the King of the Hill.

Urban gaming[edit]

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, Fugitive and Manhunt). 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 cities throughout North America. One long running example occurs on the Northrop Mall at the University of Minnesota on Fridays with typical attendance ranging from 50 to several hundred.^[17]

See also[edit]

• Flag-rush

References[edit]

1. ^'The Official Handbook for Boys' published by the Boy Scouts of America, 1920
2. ^ ^abcd'USSSP - Games - Capture the Flag'. Usscouts.org. Archived from the original on 2019-05-02. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
3. ^'Capture the Flag REDUX'. Kickstarter. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
4. ^'A Review of Capture the Flag REDUX'. Christian Camp Pro. 2015-02-06. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
5. ^Vat19.com. 'Capture the Flag Redux: Play glow in the dark capture the flag!'. Vat19. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
6. ^'Capture the Flag REDUX - a Nighttime Outdoor Game for Youth Groups, Birthdays and Team Building - Get Ready for a Glow in the Dark Adventure'.
7. ^Aquaro, Jenny (2018-10-27). '62 Best Gifts for Tweens'. Heavy.com. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
8. ^ToyBuzz (2018-11-06). 'Best Toys and Gifts for 9 Year Old Boys 2018'. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
9. ^'REVIEW: Capture the Flag Redux'. Plastic and Plush. 2016-08-14. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
10. ^Jessie H. Bancroft (1909). 'Stealing Sticks'. Games for the playground, home, school, and gymnasium. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
11. ^'The Game of Stealing Sticks'. The Age. June 3, 1932. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
12. ^'8-Bit Product Reviews: Bannercatch, Simulated Computer, Title Bout, MegaFont II, Boulder Dash, Operation Whirlwind, Songwriter, Video Billboard, Relax, The Institute, Montezuma's Revenge, CityWriter'. Atarimagazines.com. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
13. ^'CSAW CTF Qual 2014 – csaw2013reversing2.exe Writeup'. infamoussyn.com. 22 September 2014. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
14. ^http://www.usf.edu/engineering/documents/01132015-csaw-finals.pdf
15. ^'Cyber Security Awareness Week :: About'. csaw.engineering.nyu.edu. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
16. ^University, Polytechnic Institute of New York. 'NYU-Poly Cyber Security Awareness Week Announces Winners of World's Biggest Student Contests'. www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
17. ^'Game Captures Campus Attention'. www. mndaily.com. 2005-09-19. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2011-09-09.

External links[edit]

• Capture the flag at usscouts.org
• Capture the flag in computer security at root-me.org
• CTFtime - worldwide CTF tracking site

Fracture is a third-person shootervideo game developed by Day 1 Studios for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.^[2]

Story[edit]

Set in the year 2161, Fracture tells the tale of a xenophobicUnited States which has been split into two sides, the Pacific and the Atlantic, by rising water levels caused by global warming. The Atlantic is devoted to advancing the technological prowess of humanity, while the Pacific is devoted to enhancing the human genome. When the xenophobia reaches an unfortunate peak, war erupts, and an army from the Atlantic is dispatched to deal with the Pacific force. Players control Sergeant Jet Brody as he leads his attack team against the Pacific force. His first target is Alcatraz Island, where Brody is able to test all the Pacific's found weapons. Both the Atlantic and the Pacificans have a trade monopoly in the area to promote the sciences.

Jet Brody is ordered to capture Sheridan, the Pacifican commander, the player's team is ambushed and Sheridan escapes. During the pursuit in a dropship, the ship is shot down, and Brody is the only survivor of the crash. After evading enemies, he meets up with a squad of Atlantic soldiers. The squad infiltrates a Pacifican bunker, but most of the members are killed shortly afterward. After fighting through the bunker alone, the player discovers HYDRABALLS, a new, highly explosive Pacifican weapon. After destroying a large number of the weapons, the player breaks through and takes an elevator to a secret underground facility, where the player locates and destroys key manufacturing equipment. After destroying the equipment, the player aids an allied squad in capturing the Golden Gate Bridge from Pacifican forces and fixing another bridge using multiple spike grenades. The Golden Gate Bridge is captured, but a giant, 1,000-foot-tall (300 m) machine called Dreadnought awakes from the Bay and destroys most of the Atlantic forces, then marches towards the East Coast invincible to aerial attack.

The player is taken out of San Francisco to a remote Pacifican base in the desert, where he is supposed to find information about destroying the Dreadnought. Along the way to the communications center the player fights a new enemy, the ground-burrowing Creepers, and shuts down the base's defense systems by destroying power generators. Brody also destroys both the radar systems and their generators, therefore knocking out all Pacifican communications. At this point in the game the player is required to use the Lodestone, a vortex-creating weapon, to solve platform puzzles by creating magnetic vortices. Also introduced are the super-fast Cheetah soldiers, who can move from place to place in the blink of an eye. Next Brody encounters a creature called the Bolla, a large minotaur-like monster that throws boulders and charges the player. After killing the Bolla Brody is given an Alliance vehicle, the TDV1, that has an automatic turret and terrain deformation powers. Using the TDV1, the player is supposed to jump large pits of toxic chemicals and destroy the base's supercomputer, while fighting Pacifican soldiers and another Bolla.

This combination attack is crucial against larger foes such as giant enemy crabs. Deadstorm pirates. Had we been playing in a real Japanese arcade, we would have easily run through 600 yen each (about six bucks) during our 15-minute demo. This creates some good-natured conflicts when multiple tough targets appear: A player's instinct is to defend his own half of the screen, but splitting up will only leave both players in trouble.It's a challenging mechanic, one that had us tapping the Start button furiously to return to the action as we accidentally got each other killed again and again.

At this point the base's supercomputer goes on meltdown and starts destroying the base, just as the player receives another TDV1 to escape to a landing pad. Sheridan escapes, this time with some of the toxin, and locks a traitorous biologist, named Marico, in a prison cell guarded by a Pacifican squad. The player must destroy the Pacifican forces and rescue Matsuharo before proceeding to Washington, D.C. to destroy the Dreadnought and take down Sheridan. Another boss creature, the Spike Hydra that can create personal shields, is encountered as well as another Bolla as Brody brings the defense shields back online by connecting the generator beams together. Brody breaks the Dreadnought's shields and destroys it from the inside, then kills Sheridan in a final battle to destroy the Pacifican Army.

Gameplay[edit]

Fracture's unique selling point is its deformable terrain. The player has futuristic weapons, both in the form of guns and grenades which can raise or lower the terrain. This ability allows the player to create cover, jump to areas not normally reachable, and launch enemies into the air and into ceilings. Examples are the entrencher, the tectonic grenade, and the subsonic grenade.^[2] The player can collect data cells to unlock a weapons testing facility and the weapons within it. Notably, the game requires puzzle solving using terrain deformation.

Music[edit]

Music for the game was co-composed by Chad Seiter and Chris Tilton. The score was produced by Michael Giacchino and conducted by Allan Wilson. It was recorded by Peter Fuchs, mixed by Steve Smith and performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. ^[3]

Reception[edit]

Fracture received 'mixed' reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.^[19][20] In Japan, where the game was ported and published by Activision on 30 October 2008,^[21]Famitsu gave it a score of one seven, one eight, one seven, and one six for a total of 28 out of 40.^[6]

1UP.com criticized Fracture for taking multiple features from other shooters such as Halo, Gears of War and Resistance: Fall of Man.^[22] The site described character Jet Brody as 'perhaps the single most derivative character in the modern age of gaming, a direct combination of the heroes from Resistance/Mass Effect/Gears of War/Too Human. If the narrative weren't so staunchly heavy-handed, I'd put my money on Brody being a literal parody of shooter-genre character tropes.'^[22]Game Informer continued this theme by ranking Brody first on its list of 'the top 10 worst character names.'^[23] Moving beyond the character's name, Game Informer noted that “Jet Brody is a detailed character, but ends up looking like an Unreal reject.”^[7] By contrast, 1UP.com described the Entrencher gun as 'Fracture's true star.'^[22]Edge gave it a score of four out of ten and said of the game, 'Given that its bland combat is little enhanced by the ability to create cover, you suspect that the promises made for the technology have simply dug its own grave.'^[24]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcMiller, Greg (2 October 2008). 'Fracture Review'. IGN. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
2. ^ ^abDe Marco, Flynn (3 September 2008). 'Preview: Fracture'. GamePro. IDG Entertainment. Archived from the original on 9 September 2008. Retrieved 26 September 2008.
3. ^'Fracture (2008) - Original Videogame Soundtrack'. Chris Tilton.
4. ^Nicholson, Brad (11 October 2008). 'Destructoid review: Fracture (X360)'. Destructoid. Enthusiast Gaming. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
5. ^Bramwell, Tom (10 October 2008). 'Fracture (Xbox 360)'. Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 24 December 2017. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
6. ^ ^abcBrian (22 October 2008). 'Famitsu review scores'. Nintendo Everything. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
7. ^ ^abcReiner, Andrew (November 2008). 'Fracture: An Ambitious Attempt at Reshaping The Battlefield'. Game Informer. No. 187. GameStop. p. 123. Archived from the original on 12 October 2008. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
8. ^ ^abHudak, Chris (8 October 2008). 'Fracture Review'. Game Revolution. CraveOnline. Archived from the original on 7 September 2015. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
9. ^Lewis, Cameron (November 2008). 'Fracture (360)'. GamePro. IDG Entertainment. p. 90. Archived from the original on 7 January 2009. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
10. ^ ^abThomas, Aaron (7 October 2008). 'Fracture Review'. GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
11. ^ ^abGraziani, Gabe (7 October 2008). 'GameSpy: Fracture'. GameSpy. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
12. ^'Fracture Review (X360)'. GameTrailers. Viacom. 8 October 2008. Archived from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
13. ^Hopper, Steven (2 October 2008). 'Fracture - PS3 - Review'. GameZone. Archived from the original on 3 October 2008. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
14. ^ ^abCaravella, Vinny (15 October 2008). 'Fracture Review'. Giant Bomb. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
15. ^Watt, Meghan (December 2008). 'Fracture'. Official Xbox Magazine. Future US. Archived from the original on 11 October 2008. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
16. ^'Review: Fracture'. PlayStation: The Official Magazine. No. 14. Future plc. 25 December 2008. p. 74.
17. ^ ^abDahlen, Chris (6 October 2008). 'Fracture'. The A.V. Club. The Onion. Archived from the original on 24 February 2010. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
18. ^Fritz, Ben (7 October 2008). 'Fracture (X360)'. Variety. Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
19. ^ ^ab'Fracture for PlayStation 3 Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
20. ^ ^ab'Fracture for Xbox 360 Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
21. ^'フラクチャー [PS3]'. Famitsu (in Japanese). Enterbrain. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
22. ^ ^abcSuttner, Nick (7 October 2008). 'Fracture Review (XBOX 360)'. 1UP.com. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
23. ^'The Top 10 Worst Character Names'. Game Informer. No. 188. GameStop. December 2008. p. 22.
24. ^Edge staff (December 2008). 'Fracture'. Edge. No. 195. Future plc. p. 90.

External links[edit]

• Fracture at MobyGames