A warm spring evening crept over Centennial Commons as students adorning blue and red T-shirts convened. Some talked strategy while others briefly caught their breath.

Junior civil engineering major Filipe Vieira lifted his shirt and displayed his “battle wounds” – small scrapes on his stomach.

“There was one person from my team in front and an enemy at the side. There was nowhere to go except into the bush,” he said. “A ‘leap of faith,’ I guess you could call it.”

Vieira received these injuries while attempting to steal the flag, a blue-striped towel, for his team during last Monday’s two and a half hour capture the flag game. The three-round game spanned across campus, from the Snell Library quad to the West Village quad, and about 70 students participated.

Seniors Jonathan Cohn, Meghan Colloton and Mike Sovak said they organized the game as a way to bring students together.

“During the summer, the campus really slows down and a lot of your friends go home, so I was hoping people would come out and they’d be able to meet all these new people to hang out with in the summer,” he said.

Colloton said planning for the event took two hours. She researched rules for urban capture the flag, where games can cover several blocks and participants may use public transportation, before customizing them for Northeastern’s campus.

Contrary to standard Capture the Flag rules, Monday’s game did not feature “jails” for tagged competitors to wait in. Instead, students wore wrist bands, which were torn off after a player was tagged by their opponents.

Cohn, Colloton and Sovak advertised the game on Facebook, where they invited more than 1,000 Northeastern students. More than 120 responded by Monday and Cohn split them into two teams: red and blue.

At 6 p.m., students began arriving at Centennial Commons to learn about the rules, restrictions and boundaries of the game. To earn a point, the red team had to bring the blue team’s flag into their territory, while the blue team’s goal was to bring the red flag into their side. The space between Forsyth and Leon streets would be neutral for either team: only the flag-bearer could be tagged. Cars, tunnels and buildings could not be used for the evening.

One student asked, “And trees?”

“Yeah, you can climb trees,” Cohn said, laughing.

Each round ended with the sound of a foghorn signaling students to return to Centennial Commons to receive new rules intended to change the difficulty and length of the next round. For the first round, both teams were required to put the flag in the center of their base, keeping it visible to the other team.

Adam Sell, a junior journalism major, wore his work clothes, a blue button-up shirt and khakis, since he came to the game straight from his co-op at the Boston Globe. A member of the blue team’s defense, he lingered between the library quad and the Curry Student Center.

“The offense tends to end up on the ground and I have enough laundry to do already,” Sell said. “Plus, I’m not fast enough to run in and run out, but I’m fast enough to defend our flag.”

Members of the red team circled near the library, then rushed in for a failed attempt to grab the blue flag. Sell tagged and removed the bracelets from several of the players.

“That’s three! That’s three!” he yelled before returning to his position in front of the student center.

The blue flag was later retrieved from the circle and tossed in the shrubbery between Forsyth Building and the Barletta Natatorium. Members of the red team lined up against Forsyth Street’s sidewalk – the edge of neutral territory – and planned their attack.

Senior communication studies and political science major Andrew Allen explained his strategy.

“I run track, so I’m going to just try to run over there and get that flag,” he said.

The red team soon invaded, gradually bringing the blue flag into neutral territory. Yells like “Go! Go!” and “Move, move!” changed to “There’s not enough!” as members of the red team were tagged. The flag was passed to Allen, who sprinted down Leon Street and back into his team’s territory, earning the first point of the evening.

The red team was also victorious in the following two rounds. The hour-long second round ended with members of both teams storming Centennial Commons. The blue flag was passed to senior mechanical engineering major Mark McBride, who leapt the fence near Meserve Hall and ran across Leon Street. The final round ended after about 15 minutes.

The red team, which won Monday’s game, did not receive a prize for their success, but Colloton said there may be prizes in the future. She said she hoped to plan more Capture the Flag games.

Cohn has since started a Facebook group called “Outdoor Gamers Network” to draw more students to the next event.

Colloton said she was satisfied with the turnout and attitude at the game.

“They were really excited that we put something like this together,” she said. “At the end of the night everybody said what a great time they had and they wanted to do it again. And that’s all that matters.”