Kriti Mehrotra
With Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ season 2 revolving around former winner Seong Gi-hun (Player 456) as he tries to bring down the titular survival competition for good, we get a show unlike any other. That’s because while he ends up being in the game all over again, the games he faces following Red Light, Green Light are not at all the same. Instead, in exchange for Ppopgi (Dalgona) as game 2 in this installment, there is the six-leg team game, among which is a smaller sport called Gong-gi. Gong-gi is also known as Korean Jacks and Seven Stones, and it is a very popular local children’s game.
All it Takes to Conquer Gong-gi is Focus
Although Gong-gi is often better known as Korean Jacks or Seven Stones, it is actually traditionally played using five or more small grape-sized pebbles. These pebbles are called gonggitdol in Korea, but they do have different variations of it across the globe too – it is Gotti in India, Gatti in Nepal, and 5 tas in Turkey (which literally translates to 5 stones). These pebbles in question are usually colorful in nature, essentially filling space that is easily played alone or in competition with others.
The objective of this game is to toss the stones from the palm of their hand into the air at different stages and levels of difficulty before catching them without any issues. During this, the players also switch their hands palmside and backside, with the one to capture all five stones in one hand in the least number of tries being declared the winner. In the Netflix show, there were little to no modifications made to the game – only the pebbles were customized so as to have the Squid Game signs on them; otherwise, they were all clear for good.
Gong-gi Has Different Levels Within the Game Play
The very first level of Gong-gi has the players throwing all the pebbles on a clean surface at once before picking one up and throwing it in the air. While they do so, they have to pick up another pebble from the surface before catching the one in the air. Then, while keeping the first picked pebble in hand, they have to throw the second in the air before picking the third and continuing the process until all 5 stones are in their hands. Then comes level two, wherein players follow almost the exact same process but have to pick two pebbles while having one in the air.
As for level three, like in levels 1 and 2, the pebbles need to be picked up in clusters of three before they immediately jump into the next level, wherein all four pebbles on the surface need to be picked while one is in the air. In other words, the players toss one stone in the air before grabbing all four pebbles from the surface, and then they do so all over again to reach the final stage. This time around, though, when they have all five pebbles in their palms, they don’t toss them on the surface; instead, they toss them in the air before catching them on their backhand before tossing them again to have them in their palms. Various other tricks can be used in this phase, but the number of stones a player catches at the end of level five is their score.
There Are Eliminations and Redos in Gong-gi
While Gong-gi is a traditional children’s game, it has its fair share of playing calls and rules, too, with the primary one being that a mess up by a player at any level results in them either having to restart or pass over the pebbles to the nest player. These mess-ups can be in various forms, including “double touch,” when the player physically touches a pebble more than once in a level, or drop, when the player drops a pebble on the surface almost immediately after catching all 5 because they couldn’t hang on to them. There’s fixation, interception, kong, movement, and tree frog too.
While fixation means a player adjusting the five pebbles in their palms to ensure nothing falls out right at the end, interception is deliberately distracting a fellow player. As for kong, that happens when the players miss their chance to catch the airborne pebble but then do it once it bounces from the surface, which is a rule break, too. Coming to movement, that’s the player moving their own position to catch a pebble, which is not allowed, and tree frog, which is a level three mistake of catching one stone first before picking up the remaining three at once when the order should be opposite. In any case, Gong-gi is a fun game that can truly be played by people of all ages.
Read More: Mingle in Squid Game, Explained: Rules and How is it Played?
