We had two threads in IMHO about “Could you escape and win a hundred million dollars if 25 strangers knew your face and address” and the consensus of both threads was that it was too easy and that the game rules made it extremely simple for the fugitive to win. In fact, as soon as the fugitive got in his car and made it a few hundred yards from his house, it was probably game over, for all intents and purposes.
What conditions would it take to make the game a 50-50 chance for pursuers and fugitive alike? What if it were 100 people given your name and face and address, and you were not permitted the use of vehicles or any other transportation (you can only go about on foot)?
I think environment is going to play a major role. To use one extreme, if everyone is on a flat featureless plain then you’re going to have an extremely hard time escaping. On the other end, if you’re in a major urban downtown, you might be 50 feet from a single building you could successfully hide in all day. Even in a suburban area, I could pretty easily go into some storm sewer tunnels and crawl around and hide and I doubt anyone would locate me.
I got curious and tried finding any real life examples of this being done for sport but didn’t have any luck. I did learn that the opposite of “Hide & Seek” (one seeker, lots of hiders) is a game called “Sardines” where each person who finds the hider’s spot has to hide with them in the same place, getting progressively more crowded until only one hunter remains (and is the loser). Sadly, while there’s been massive Hide & Seek games played, it doesn’t seem like 100-on-1 games of Sardines are very popular.
Base it on the TV show “Hunted” and give the hunters “powers of the state”, phone tracing, ANPR, offering rewards for infomation leading to their capture and so on.
The success rate on the show is less than 50% but the contestants had to get to a particular location on the last day which makes things harder.