I grew up in South Dakota and we played a game in the late 70s-early 80s called “Tarantula”. I remember it being a huge amount of fun with 30+ neighborhood kids playing several nights a week after dark. I was on the young side and only got to play a handful of times before the main group of kids disbanded. I’m curious if anyone knows the rules/goals or perhaps has another game and rules to recommend.
With my own kids, we have organized a couple of large neighborhood capture the flag games which have been awesome but inevitably older kids can too easily dominate gameplay. Tarantula, as best as I can recall, involved much more skill in hiding and staying hidden (I remember garage roofs were often the ideal location and fences were easily scaled). There were hunters who counted for a minute or few and then kids spread out over a block or two- each game lasted 30 minutes until they called the still-hidden kids back in. (When younger, I was so envious of all of the yelling and hollering through the neighborhood while I was in bed.) But my recollection ends with what the goal was, or if caught kids joined in the hunting, and any other nuances that made the game so much more fun than hide-and-seek (high schoolers would play!).
So any knowledge, guesses, or similar games would be great! Googling over teh years has not helpful for obvious reasons.