This game counts as one of my favourite outdoor games, which I still play every now and then.
“Freedom” combines elements from other fun games, such as tag and hide-and-seek. If you are interested and want to know how this game works, keep reading.

What do you need?
There is no additional equipment required to play this game. Even though it does work to play it inside, I definitely recommend playing it outside where you have a big open space, e.g., a park. The minimum number of players is three but as for most games, the more the merrier.

How to play?
If you know the game “hide-and-seek”, these instructions will sound familiar to you. In hide-and-seek, one player (the “seeker”) has to find all the other players that are hiding. The only difference in this game is that the hidden players are allowed to move and do not necessarily have to stay in the same spot the whole time.
To start the game, the group has to select one player to be the seeker. One way to select the player is by playing “rock, paper, scissors, shoot”; whoever loses is the seeker.
Once this player is selected, a meeting point has to be chosen; I suggest choosing a tree that is easy to recognize. The seeker then has to face the tree, close their eyes and count to 30. However, the meeting point and the countdown can be chosen individually to fit the circumstances best.
While the seeker is counting, the other players have to find a spot to hide. Important to this is that before the game begins, the players have to settle on an area that they want to play in. This ensures that everyone is within the borders and cannot get lost.
After the seeker is done counting, he or she has to find out where the other players are hiding. When the seeker sees a player somewhere, they have to go back to the meeting point, touch it and say the name of the player that they saw. This player has to come out of hiding and wait until the round is over. The goal of the players in hiding is to touch the meeting point and shout “free”, before they get found by the seeker and their name is called out.
When there is only one player left in hiding, it gets more interesting. This player has to say “freedom”, instead of “free”. With this, the player frees all the other players that were found before and the seeker stays the seeker for another round. However, if the seeker finds this person and calls out their name before they reach the tree, the first person that was found becomes the new seeker. The game then starts again.
Two important rules for the game are that the seeker is not allowed to stay right next to the tree the whole time and instead has to leave the area to give the other players a chance of freeing themselves and the commands (“free/-dom” or “name of a player”) only count when the player is touching the tree.

I hope you enjoy this game and have fun playing!