Before the advent of video games, smartphones, and tablets, boys and girls used to play outside with their friends. Children didn’t need fancy and expensive gadgets to have fun. For most games, all you needed were a few friends – if you did need some equipment, it was mostly things found outside, around the house, or were relatively inexpensive (if you needed to purchase them).
From the basics, like habulan, patintero, or tumbang preso, there’s a lot of traditional games Filipino children from around the country play. Nowadays, it seems like only the titos and titas are the only ones who remember these classic games and how to play them.
This is a series I’d like to call Games Children No Longer Play. Join me in this trip down memory lane, where we talk about the different Filipino games that are near and dear to my heart, with rules on how we used to play them in our part of the Philippines.
I have also used Google AI to generate the pictures for these articles.
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All Around the World, Double Knock, and Into the Cave. These are just some of the exhibition names of one of the most played children’s games of yesteryears — Jackstones.
Jackstones is a game played with one small bouncy ball and ten stones (that look like stars, really). It is usually a girls’ game, but boys also play it, especially on rainy days when they can’t run about outside.
The game is played with one player scattering the stones on the floor, then swooping them back again while bouncing the ball once and catching it.
There can be as few as two or as many as ten players playing it. The more players there are, the longer the game lasts.
In the first round, the player picks up the stones one by one. On the next round, the player swoops two. As the game progresses, so will the number of stones the player has to get in one swoop. If the player completes the first ten rounds without dropping a stone or failing to catch the ball, they then proceed to the exhibition round. If the player makes a mistake, they lose their turn.
The exhibition round is where players show off their flair. The first one to finish the preliminary round will be the leader and gets to set the exhibitions. The opponents will then have to ape it.
Exhibitions can be as simple as a double tap, which is tapping the stone twice before picking it up and catching the ball after a single bounce. Some can be complicated, such as picking one stone, circling it around the bouncing ball, and then catching the ball.
The game ends when the leader of the game runs out of exhibitions. It is a game of skills and flair, and the most skillful and creative one usually wins.
Before, there were jackstones sold everywhere — toyshops, sari-sari stores, and by vendors outside the schools. There are fancy jackstone sets with stones made of metal or heavy plastic. There are also cheap sets where stones can easily bend. However, no matter what set is used, kids usually end up having a great time.
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For the bona fide titos and titas out there – did you play this game in your youth? Maybe it was called something else, with a whole set of different rules? Let us know in the comments below, and let’s talk about it!