Buwan-Buwan

A moon is scratched into wet sand on a beach at night, lines across it, and everyone stands inside. One player is IT. The IT can only walk the lines but tags anyone within reach of them, and a tag swaps who is IT. Your score is every second you spend not being IT, so the round goes to whoever spends least time on the lines.

How the round goes

The first IT is picked by a hompiang, as in Tumbang Preso: palm up or palm down, the smaller group plays on, and the last two play rock, paper, scissors. The IT then steps out onto the rim and waits three seconds before the first tag. The moon darkens toward red as the round goes on, and the IT's reach grows with it. The last 15 seconds are totality: the lines glow red, and the IT reaches furthest and runs fastest.

Being IT

• Q tags the nearest player within reach, front, side or behind. A faint red ring on the sand shows the reach: 1.9 m when the hunt starts, growing to 2.3 m, then 2.5 m in totality. A missed tag takes 1.2 seconds to come back.
• Bumping counts. Anyone who comes within 0.9 m of you is tagged without a press.
• You walk the lines only, at 6.3 m/s against everyone else's 5.4, and 7.3 m/s in totality. At a junction you take the line closest to the way you are pushing.
• A player you tag is snapped onto the nearest line and needs a second and a half before they can tag. You get two and a half seconds in which nobody can tag you.

Not being IT

• Q shoves the nearest player within 1.6 m in front, pushing them back and stunning them for a quarter of a second, every second and a half. It never moves the IT.
• Mind the rim. Step outside the moon and you have one second to get back in. Stay out and you become IT, and the IT goes back to being one of you.
• A shove that pushes someone onto the IT is a tag, and one that pushes them over the rim may be one too.

Where to stand

The middle of each patch between the lines is as far as you can get from every line: about 2 m. When the hunt starts that is just beyond the IT's reach, so each patch has a small pocket no tag reaches. As the reach grows the pockets shrink, and by totality there are none.

• Watch the red ring. Outside it, you cannot be tagged from where the IT stands.
• Cross the moon, don't run along a line. The IT goes round by the lines while you cut straight across, so the patch on the far side is usually the safe one.
• After a swap, move away from the new IT. Their second and a half is your head start.
• As IT, stand on junctions. The middle and the points where spokes meet the rim each threaten several patches at once.
• In totality, keep moving. The pockets are gone and the IT is nearly 2 m/s faster than you.

The moon at every size

Up to 5 players the moon is about 10 m across with a cross through it. From 6 it is about 13 m across with six spokes. From 11 it is about 18 m across, with six spokes and an inner ring at half the radius. The patches inside that ring are so small that nowhere in them is out of reach even at the start, so the pockets are in the outer band.

The folk game

Buwan means moon. Buwan-buwan is a Philippine tag game: a circle is scratched on the ground with lines across it, everyone stands inside, and the IT (taya) may only walk the lines, tagging anyone within reach. The one tagged becomes IT. The no-tag-back rule is walang bawian, Filipino for "no taking back". The darkening moon comes from Philippine folklore, where an eclipse is the Bakunawa, a great sea serpent, swallowing the moon.