---
number: 26
title: Tag — one game of chasey across the whole world
date: 2026-09-11
summary: Playground tag as a core mechanic — opt in on your account, one "it" in the whole world at once, a cartoon glove over every player in the game and a white one over the it, a twenty-second lock against tagging straight back, doors that ask before they take you somewhere the game does not follow, and a fair pick when the it player goes offline.
epic: tag
status: delivered
artifacts: ["docs/handoff/tag.md","workshop/epics/tag/overview.md"]
cta: [object Object]
---

The kids already played tag in the Village by hand — running up to each other and declaring
it. Kris asked for it to be real, and decoupled from everything else: a game you can opt into
or ignore. Built on 2026-09-11 from one voice session, three rounds on the glove the same
afternoon, and signed off in three words: *that is excellent.* APK v30 is the line in the sand.

## How it plays

Tag is off for every account until you turn it on, on the Account page, which also tells you
how many people are playing right now. Once you are in, a green glove floats over your head
so other players can see you are playing. There is one **it** in the whole world at once,
whichever area they are in, and the it wears a white glove and a strip under their health bar
that says so. Stand beside another tag player and it passes. Then the one who tagged you is
safe for twenty seconds — the strip counts down from five so you know when the lock lifts —
because tagging straight back is not a game.

Some places do not continue the game. An area can be set so that tag does not follow you in,
and its doors ask before you go through; if you are it, the door refuses while anybody else is
still playing, so you cannot carry it out of reach. Put your phone down for a minute while you
are it and the game notices: "Name is offline", then "Choosing a new player to be it", then a
random pick who is told. The server keeps a log of who tagged whom.

## The glove

The mitten started as a still and looked wrong the moment it was seen big on a phone — its
thumb hung down. Three rounds later it is a cartoon glove built from primitives: a round palm,
three fingers fanned a little, a thumb out to the left, a rounded cuff, turning with the body
it floats over. The lesson went into the notes: look at a model big before calling it done.

## Underneath

Three parts with one seam each. The server decides who is it and nothing else does; an area
is a sensor that proposes a touch and a mirror that stamps the gloves on the bodies; the phone
draws what it is told and computes one thing locally, the countdown. A player who is not in tag
pays nothing for it. And, unrelated but from the same afternoon: the diamond on the health bar
is a heart now.