Imagine if you will that tag and hide & seek had an illegitimate child. Flashlight tag would be that illegitimate child.

This game works best with a lot of people, a fairly large area to play in with lots of good spaces to hide, and also a general darkness about. In fact, it's rather difficult and inane to even attempt to play this during the day. Play Red Rover or kickball instead. You'll have a much better time. Really.

Alright, so you've got your people, you've got your place to play and you've got your night. You'll also need to get a (working) flashlight and to designate an area as 'base'.

Here's the hide and seek part.

First pick someone to be 'it'. Any random method of choosing will do, but try not to be cruel, eh. Then the person who is 'it' closes their eyes and counts to a sufficiently high number that everyone else has a chance to run and hide. Mr (or Miss) 'it' then announces to the world that they're a-comin' for them and begins to search.

And the tag part starts to enter into play here:

The 'it'ee searches for people that are hiding using the flashlight. If they illuminate someone with the flashlight then that person has to try to make a break for the base. At this point the person who is 'it' has to attempt to tag them. Anyone who gets tagged then has to help the person who is 'it' find the other players. Granted they don't get a flashlight. If you make it back to the base without being tagged, then you're safe for that round.

The last person to get tagged is 'it' for the next round. If everyone makes it safely back to base without being tagged, then whoever is 'it' has to repeat their performance. This can get somewhat frustrating if they rather suck so giving them a break once in a while might keep them from outright quitting.

Have fun.