How to Play Infection Tag

Playing Infection Tag

Gather your players. The more, the better. You'll usually need a group of at least four, but ten or more is preferred. The more the merrier!

Set up your boundaries. You don't want your game spilling across the street and through the neighborhood. Set clear boundaries about how far players can run and hide. You'll want to give players room to run, but not too much space that the game gets boring. Be careful to avoid trespassing on other people's property. You may want to make certain potentially dangerous areas off-limits.

Choose who is "It". This person will be your first Infected. You can either randomly select a person to be "It", or a fast and skilled player can volunteer or be nominated. Don't force a slow or unskilled player to be "It". This can be mean and wouldn't be fun for anyone.

Start the countdown to 30. While closing their eyes, the person who is "It" will count to 30 and give the rest of the players time to run and hide.

Tag and infect others. The person who is it will tag and infect other players. When another player is tagged, they are also infected. Once this occurs, they switch sides and begin to try to tag others. Uninfected players can ask if any other player is infected. If a player is infected, they must declare that they are.

Infect everyone. Keep playing until everyone is infected. The last person tagged is declared the winner. Then the game starts over, usually with the last person being the new Infected.

Trying Variations

Play Infection Hide-and-go-Seek. This variation works especially well if you need to play inside and can't run or risk damaging anything. Rather than chasing people, the person who is "It" merely needs to find them. Once found, a player assists the Infected person in finding other players. Last player found wins!

Try full zombie-mode infection tag. In this variation, the original Infected is allowed to run as they normally would, but tagged players can only walk like a zombie, and must make zombie noises and moans when chasing other players. This variation removes the need to ask other players if they are also infected - they'll be moaning and shuffling like a zombie! This can also add an interesting element of strategy. Since zombie players can't move quickly, they need to work together to trap other players.

Try walking indoor Infection Tag. This works well in really big houses and buildings as well, where running would be frowned upon. Since you shouldn't be running indoors, players are limited to walking when chasing and attempting to escape each other. When walking, at least one foot must always be on the ground.

Play timed Infection Tag. This variation is more complicated in that it requires everyone to have a stopwatch or phone with a stopwatch app, but it can be a lot of fun. When tagged, players are infected for a set amount of time (usually 3 or 5 minutes). If this time elapses without everyone being caught, players are "cured" once their timer is up, and need to be tagged once more!