Luthang

Ninety seconds in a backyard, everyone for themselves, one bamboo pop-gun each. A single pellet knocks anyone out, and two seconds later they are back on their feet at the edge of the yard. What decides the round is the miss. Every shot is followed by two seconds with an empty gun, and the player you just missed knows it.

One pellet at a time

• Pellets fly dead straight at 13 m/s and vanish after 14 m, so lead a runner, and expect a pellet they can see coming to be dodged.
• A hit anywhere on the body is a knockout. No splash, no headshots.
• The gun reloads itself in two seconds while you walk, jump and tumble. You can read a rival's gun across the yard: rod pushed in, they have just fired; rod drawn back, loaded.
• Knocked out, you return two seconds later on the edge of the yard, away from the living, with three seconds of protection drawn as a dome. Pellets pass straight through a dome, so don't waste one on it. Firing ends your own protection at once.
• A pellet already in the air still scores if you are knocked out before it lands, so two players can trade.

Your three keys

The camera looks over your shoulder with the crosshair in the middle of the screen. Click the arena once and the mouse turns your view.

• Q (or a click) fires where the crosshair points, and the pellet climbs or drops with your aim.
• E tumbles the way you are moving, or the way you aim if you stand still; double-tapping a direction does the same. For about a third of a second your body drops below the height pellets leave the gun, so a level shot flies over you. It recharges in a second on the ground.
• Space jumps, and a jump makes the tumble ready again at once. Tumble out of a jump, or jump out of a tumble, and you carry much further than either alone. One tumble per jump in the air.

Bullet time

At 20, 45 and 70 seconds in, everything slows to about a third of its speed for five seconds: bodies, tumbles and pellets. A countdown and amber marks along the yard's edge give warning. The reload does not slow down. A pellet now takes about three seconds to cross its range and you will have another loaded long before it lands, so the yard fills with pellets and you pick gaps through them.

How good players win

• Aim at the feet of anyone tumbling. A rolling body sits under the height your pellet leaves the gun.
• Tumble across a pellet's line, not along it. You leave its path and duck under it at once.
• Mind your own barricade. The bamboo barricades are about waist high and your pellets leave the gun below their top, so a shot fired from right behind one hits it. Shoot from its end. A rival standing behind one still shows head and shoulders; one tumbling behind it is out of reach.
• Spend your protection walking. Three unhittable seconds are worth more as a position than as a first shot.
• Chain it. Tumble, jump, tumble again in the air: it is the fastest way across the yard.

The yard

The yard is 18 m square at 2 players, 34 m at 3 or 4, 40 m up to 8, 50 m up to 12 and 60 m at 16. Low bamboo barricades break it up, 4 at 2 players, 8 up to 8 and 12 from 9, some turned crosswise against shots from the side. On the big yards most of the ground is out of any one pellet's range, so somebody has to walk into the fight.

The real luthang

A luthang is a Filipino bamboo pop-gun: a length of bamboo tube and a rod that fits inside it. Load a small pellet, push the rod home, and the pellet pops out of the far end. It is a homemade backyard toy. Each gun here loads from the back: rod out, a pellet from the hip pocket into the rear hole, rod back in line.