Manhunt safety for parents, camps and schools

By Aryan, the Manhunt IRL team · Updated September 26, 2026

Manhunt is a safe game when it's set up well: clear boundaries away from roads and water, touch tags only (never tackling), a safety word that stops play instantly, and a headcount at the end of every round. At night, shrink the area, carry lights, and have an adult or trusted host who knows where everyone is.

We want Manhunt to be the game parents say yes to. This page is for parents, camp counselors, teachers, coaches, youth leaders and anyone else responsible for a group of players. It covers how to run a safe game with or without the app, and exactly what the Manhunt app does with location data.

The six safety rules

Print these, read them out, and make them non-negotiable:

1. Stay inside the boundary. Roads, water, railways, building sites and private property are always out, even if they’re inside the area.
2. Touch tags only. A light two-finger touch on the shoulder or back. No tackling, grabbing, tripping or pushing.
3. Hide only where you’re allowed. Public spaces. No roofs, trees above head height, sheds, cars or anyone’s yard.
4. Know the safety word. Anyone can shout it (“Freeze!” or “Safety!”) and everyone stops where they are, immediately, no questions asked.
5. Phones stay on your body and switched on, so every player can be reached.
6. Headcount at the end of every round. The game isn’t over until everyone is back.

Choosing a safe area

• Walk it first. Look for holes, steps, low branches, water, broken glass and anything that would be dangerous in the dark.
• Put the boundary well inside any road. A quiet street can still have a car. A boundary 20 meters short of the road gives players room to stop.
• Size it to the group. A bigger area is not better: it spreads players out and makes supervision harder. For 10 players, a circle of about 175 meters from the middle to the edge is plenty.
• Check permissions. Parks have opening hours, school grounds have rules, and neighbors deserve a heads-up.

Night games

Most Manhunt is played after dark, and that’s where most of the risk is.

• Shrink the area by about 20 percent. Darkness is cover in itself; you don’t need as much space.
• Everyone carries a light, even in flashlight-free games, to use when walking back or if something goes wrong.
• Wear shoes with grip and avoid loose clothing that can catch.
• Younger players go in pairs.
• Agree an end time and a meeting point, and let someone who isn’t playing know both.

Neighbors, parks and the police

A group of people running around in the dark can look alarming to someone who doesn’t know it’s a game. A little courtesy avoids almost every problem:

• Tell the neighbors, or at least the ones whose houses back onto the area.
• Know the rules of the place. Parks close at a set time, school grounds may be off limits after hours, and some towns have youth curfews. Playing somewhere you’re not allowed is trespassing, and it’s the most common reason these games end badly.
• Stay out of yards, driveways and parked cars. Hiding there is how a game turns into a police call.
• If an officer or a neighbor asks what’s going on, stop, step into the light, and explain calmly that it’s a game. Don’t run from them, and don’t hide from anyone who isn’t playing.
• Keep noise down after dark near houses.

Supervising groups: camps, schools, youth groups

These are starting points, not legal requirements. Follow your organization’s own ratios and policies where they’re stricter.

Use a referee. For camps and youth groups, one leader should play as a non-running referee. In the Manhunt app, the referee role sees every player live (players do not) and can pause and resume the game for everyone. Ending the game is up to the host, so a leader running the game should host it.

Tagging and physical contact

The old “takedown” version of Manhunt, where tagging means bringing someone to the ground, causes real injuries. We don’t publish rules for it and the app will never offer it. If your group has played that way, change the rule before the game, not after the first injury.

Other contact rules that prevent most arguments and bumps:

• A tag you weren’t sure about didn’t happen.
• Hunters can’t tag someone who is walking to jail.
• Freed prisoners are immune for a few seconds (20 in the app).

What the Manhunt app does for safety

The app was designed so that the safe way to play is the default:

• Private games only. No public lobbies, no search, no profiles, no strangers. You join with a four-letter code, link or QR code from the host. Once a game has started, the host has to approve anyone new who tries to join.
• No accounts, no free-text chat. Players choose a nickname. There’s nothing for a stranger to message.
• Safety pause for everyone. Any player can hold the pause button for two seconds to freeze every timer for all players. Each player can pause up to 3 times a game (so it can’t be used to grief); the host and referee can pause any time, and only they can resume.
• Speed lock. Moving at vehicle speed gets a player flagged, so nobody can “hide” in a car.
• Boundaries with grace. Players get a warning buzz near the edge and a 30-second countdown if they step out. GPS noise is allowed for, so nobody is punished for a bad signal.
• Touch tags with confirmation. A hunter taps Caught, the runner confirms, and the server checks the two players were actually close. No reason to grab anyone to “prove” a tag.
• Dark by design. The whole interface is dark. In the browser version, runners can switch to a dim “stealth” screen so the glow doesn’t give them away (coming to the iPhone app).
• Everyone ends at jail. The game ends for everyone at once, so the whole group heads back to jail together. Do a headcount there before you look at the recap. (An in-app “I’m back” check-in is on our roadmap, not built yet.)
• Battery awareness. Each player’s battery level is visible to their teammates, the host and the referee, so nobody’s phone dies unnoticed.

Location and privacy, in plain English

• Location is used only during a live game. It starts when the game starts and stops at the final horn. The app doesn’t track anyone between games.
• Other players see only what the rules allow. Hunters see a fuzzy circle around a runner at each ping, not a dot. Teammates see each other. The referee, if there is one, sees everyone. Nobody outside the game sees anything.
• The server decides. Exact positions never reach an opponent’s phone, which also stops cheating.
• Raw location is deleted within 24 hours. At the end of the game, each player in it receives a downsampled route (about one point every 10 seconds) for the recap replay. Share cards use abstract path art with no map or street names.
• No ads during games, and no advertising or analytics company ever receives location.

The full details are in the privacy policy.

A checklist for hosts

Before you start:

• Area walked, hazards removed from the boundary
• Boundary and jail shown to everyone
• Touch-tag rule and safety word agreed
• Lights and phones charged (above 30 percent)
• End time and meeting point agreed
• Someone not playing knows where you are

After every round:

• Everyone back at jail
• Anyone hurt, cold or upset looked after before the next round