Letter Tag: Online Tag Game for Kids
A free tag game for kids that runs on keyboards: type the letters over a crewmate's helmet to flip them orange, and stay blue until the clock runs out.
Anyone can host: a teacher putting the map on the projector, or a kid playing with friends at home. Roles are dealt at random when you press Start.
Leave it off when this screen goes on the projector: it becomes the big map, and letters never show on it.
Type the 6-digit room code from the host's screen (or scan the QR code) and pick a nickname.
How to Play Letter Tag
Letter Tag is a tag game for kids that you play with a keyboard instead of your feet. It is infection tag on a paper-cut space station: a few players start as orange taggers, everyone else is a blue survivor, and each survivor has a short string of capital letters floating over their helmet. To tag someone you don't touch them. You stop next to them and type their letters. Every tag turns a survivor orange, so the chase gets harder for the blue side with every minute.
A round takes 2, 3 or 5 minutes and works the same whether it is a typing tag game for a whole class or five friends on their own laptops. Here is how one round goes from start to finish:
- Open a room. The host presses Open a room and gets a 6-digit room code, a join link and a QR code.
- Join. Players type the code (or scan the QR code), pick a nickname and land in the lobby. Nobody can see their role yet.
- Set the rules. The host chooses 1 to 5 starting taggers, 1 to 5 letters per helmet, the length of the round, whether there is a guard, whether power-ups are on, and one of three maps.
- Start. Roles are dealt at random the moment the host presses Start. A 3-2-1 countdown runs, and then taggers stay frozen for another 3 seconds so survivors get a head start.
- Chase. Arrow keys move you. When a tagger lets go of the arrow keys near a survivor, they automatically lock on to the nearest survivor in range. The tagger stays put while locked and types that survivor's letters in order.
- Tag or escape. If the tagger finishes the letters, the survivor flips orange and joins the chase. If the survivor runs out of the lock ring first, the lock snaps and the tagger's progress drops back to zero.
A wrong key does not undo the letters already typed, but it does not move you forward either, and mashing the keyboard doesn't help because the game ignores anything past 25 keys a second. Pressing an arrow key while locked cancels the lock, so a tagger has to choose: keep typing, or give up and chase someone closer. Taggers move a little faster than survivors, which means a survivor usually escapes by timing, not by outrunning anyone.
The letters are random capitals. The game never uses Q, X or Z, never puts the same letter twice in a row, and filters out combinations that spell something rude. The host can set anything from 1 letter, which works well for kindergarten, up to 5 for older kids who already know where the keys are.
Taggers, Survivors and the Guard
Every player has one of three roles, and the colors on screen tell you which is which.
- Taggers (orange) carry no letters. Their job is to get close, stop, lock on and type. The host picks 1 to 5 starting taggers, and the game always keeps at least 2 survivors, so a small room never starts with almost everyone orange.
- Survivors (blue) carry the letters. They win by keeping enough of the blue team alive until the clock runs out. The best move is usually to stay near the edge of a tagger's ring and step out the moment a lock starts.
- The guard (blue with a gold ring) is a survivor with a special job: giving out shields. The guard is on by default when 8 or more players start, and the host can switch it on or off for any room. It needs at least 2 survivors at the start, otherwise the game leaves it off.
Shields work like this. The guard stands still next to a teammate, locks on and types that teammate's letters, the same way a tagger does. When the letters are done, the teammate gets a shield bubble. The whole room has 3 shields per game, a kid can only hold one shield at a time, and the guard can't shield themselves.
A shield blocks one tag. When a tagger finishes the letters on a shielded survivor, the shield pops instead, the survivor gets a brand-new set of letters, and that tagger has to wait 1.5 seconds before locking on to the same kid again. Any other tagger who was halfway through typing that survivor drops back to zero. If the guard gets tagged, the guard turns orange like anyone else and any shields that were not handed out yet are gone for the rest of the round.
Power-Ups in Letter Tag
Power-ups are on by default. They show up as round badges on the map, and you use one by walking over it. The color of the badge says who can grab it: blue badges are for survivors, orange for taggers and white for anyone. If you are the wrong color, you walk straight through it and it stays on the map.
| Power-up | Color | Who can grab it | What it does | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocket Boots | White | Anyone | You move 40% faster. | 5 s |
| Letter Swap | Blue | Survivors | Your letters change on the spot. Every tagger locked on to you loses the lock and can't lock you again for 1 second. | Instant |
| Cloak | Blue | Survivors | No tagger can start a new lock on you. | 4 s |
| Tractor Beam | Orange | Taggers | Your lock range grows by half, so you can lock on from further away. | 8 s |
There are never more than 3 badges on the map at once. The first one appears about 8 seconds into the round, and after that a new one shows up roughly every 12 to 18 seconds, always away from players so nobody gets one dropped at their feet. None appear in the last 30 seconds, so the ending comes down to typing and running. Rocket Boots turn up most often, and Tractor Beam is the rarest.
A Cloak only stops new locks. A tagger who was already locked on when you grabbed it keeps typing, so it works best before someone stops next to you. Letter Swap is the emergency button: it breaks every lock on you at once.
Tag Game for School: Play on the Class Screen
Letter Tag was built as a tag game for school days when the class can't go outside, or when you want a typing activity that feels like recess. The teacher opens a room on the computer connected to the projector and leaves I'm playing too switched off. That screen becomes the big map: the whole station from above, every astronaut in orange or blue, the lock lines and rings, the power-up badges, the room code and join address, a countdown clock, and a panel with how many survivors are left against how many are needed to win.
The big screen never shows anyone's letters. Letters only appear on the players' own screens, so kids can't read them off the board. They have to find the keys themselves, which is the point of a typing game.
While a game runs, the host can make the map full screen, remove a player, or end the game early. A student who arrives late or whose laptop takes a minute to load can still join with the same code; they come in as a tagger instead of waiting for the next round. If a laptop drops off the Wi-Fi, opening the page again puts that kid back in their seat.
When the round ends, everyone sees the results together:
- A winner banner for the survivors or the taggers.
- An infection timeline that shows the orange spreading minute by minute, with markers for every shield that popped and for the moment the guard was tagged.
- An MVP podium: Most tags, Last one standing (the survivor who dodged the most locks, or the last kid tagged if nobody made it), and Most saves for the guard. When power-ups are on there is also a bonus Power-up Pro for the player who grabbed the most badges.
Press Play again and the same room and code go back to the lobby, so you can run several rounds in one lesson and change the letters or the map between them. There are no student accounts and no chat, and the room deletes itself afterwards. A short 2-minute round makes a good warm-up; a 5-minute round with the guard on fills a longer break. For a quieter check of each child's speed, pair it with our typing test for kids, or pick games for one class level, such as our 3rd grade typing games.
Play Tag Online With Friends
You don't need a classroom to play tag online with friends. At home, the host switches I'm playing too on, picks a nickname and shares the 6-digit code or the join link. Each friend opens the page on their own computer with a keyboard, so it works for kids in the same house or across town. You need at least 3 players to start, and the room holds up to 30, which makes it an easy online tag game for a birthday video call, a club or a group of cousins.
Each map changes how the chase feels:
- Space Station has 5 rooms joined by 4 airlocks. Taggers start in the round hub in the middle, and the narrow airlocks are where most locks happen.
- Ring Station is one big loop with 4 pods and two spokes through the core, so survivors can keep running in circles and cut across when a tagger gets close.
- Cargo Bay is a single hangar full of crates, an open maze where a stack of boxes is the best place to break a lock.
A few tips the kids figure out fast. As a survivor, keep moving, because taggers lock on when they stop. As a tagger, stop just inside range of a survivor who is boxed in by a wall or crates. As the guard, shield the teammates the taggers are chasing, not the ones who are already safe. Everyone gets better at finding letters without looking down, which is the typing practice hiding inside the game.
Letter Tag is one of three room games on TypingGamesKids that all use 6-digit room codes. If your group wants a straight speed contest, try our multiplayer typing race, Class Race. If they would rather build than chase, Type Town is a city building game for kids where the sentences you type earn coins to build your team's city.
Letter Tag FAQ
Is Letter Tag free?
Yes. Letter Tag is free to play in a web browser. There is nothing to buy, no sign-up and no app to install: the host opens a room on this page and everyone else joins with the code.
How many players can join Letter Tag?
A room needs at least 3 players to start and holds up to 30. Kids who join after the game has started come in as taggers, so nobody has to sit out until the next round.
Do kids need an account?
No. Players join with the 6-digit room code (or by scanning the QR code) and a nickname of 2 to 16 characters. Rude nicknames are blocked, and there is no chat anywhere in the room.
What does the class screen show?
If the host is not playing, their screen becomes a big map of the whole station: every player as an orange or blue astronaut, the lock lines, the power-up badges, the timer, and how many survivors are left against how many are needed. Letters never appear on it. They only show on each player's own screen.
Is anything saved?
No. Nicknames and results live only inside the room. The room deletes itself 30 minutes after a game ends, or after 2 hours with no activity. We only count how many rooms and games run each day. See our children's privacy policy.
How do survivors win?
When the clock runs out, survivors win if at least 15% of the players who started are still blue, rounded up and never fewer than 1. In a room of 20 that means 3 survivors. If every survivor gets tagged before time is up, the game ends early and the taggers win.
Does Letter Tag work on tablets or phones?
Players need a real keyboard, because arrow keys move you and letter keys tag. On a touch-only tablet or phone the game shows a "needs a keyboard" message and the player can still watch the chase. Chromebooks and laptops both work.
What grades is Letter Tag for?
It is made for kids in kindergarten through grade 8. The host sets 1 to 5 letters per helmet, so younger players can start with 1 or 2 and older ones can go up to 5. The letters never include Q, X or Z.