Why chapteh?

Keep-it-up games are as old as playgrounds. On a screen, the usual version is a ball you tap upward. We wanted the real thing from school fields in Singapore and Malaysia: the chapteh, a small rubber base with a crown of feathers.

A chapteh flies differently from a ball. It shoots up after a kick, slows down, turns over and drifts back down base first. In this game you tap it as it drops to your shoes, and where you tap decides where it goes next.

A bit of real chapteh history

Chapteh is also spelled capteh, chaptek or chatek. Singapore’s National Library Board describes it as a rubber disc topped with rooster feathers, and says the name is thought to come from either Malay or Hokkien.

The main rule is simple. Keep it in the air with your feet and never touch it with your hands. Players often agree on a target number of kicks, and the first to reach it, or whoever kicks the most, wins. Good players switch feet, and some kicks even have names, such as Leopard Head and Sitting Tiger. In teams, players take turns in a circle, and the most kicks wins. The National Museum of Singapore’s guide to old school games has a friendly version too: stand in a circle and kick it to each other until it drops.

The same game is played across Asia. In China it is called jianzi. The National Library Board traces the earliest mention of kicking a feathered object to China in the 5th century BCE, when it was used to train soldiers. In Vietnam it is đá cầu, and shuttlecock kicking was one of the sports when Vietnam hosted the Southeast Asian Games in 2003.

A cousin from this part of the world is sepak raga, played with a woven rattan ball. Sepak is Malay for kick. The game appears in the Malay Annals from the days of the Malacca sultanate, and its net version grew into sepak takraw.

The five stages

• Warm-up (0 to 19): no wind, a wide kick zone, and a short moment to save a chapteh that touches the grass.
• Breezy field (20 to 44): gusts push the chapteh sideways. Watch the flag.
• Trick kicks (45 to 74): one half of the kick zone glows. Kick it there for +1, then the other side lights up.
• Two chapteh (75 to 109): a friend tosses in a second one. Keep both up.
• Kick to a friend (110 to 149): your friend holds up a ring. Send the chapteh through it for +2 and they kick it back to you.

Reach 150 to clear Stage 5. After that it is free play with everything at once.

How to play

• Tap the chapteh when it drops into the kick zone, the band of grass around your feet.
• Tap near its middle for a straight kick. Tap a little to its right to send it left, or to its left to send it right.
• On a keyboard, Space kicks straight, and the left and right arrow keys kick at an angle.
• Each kick is 1 point. Trick kicks and passes add bonus points. If the chapteh lands on the grass, the run is over.
• Reach a stage once and you can start there next time, with your count starting at that stage.
• Stars per run: ★ for 10 points, ★★ for 45, ★★★ for 110, counted from where you started.
• Sound is on to start. Tap 🔊 to mute, or 🎵 for music.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.

Tips

Keep it near the middle. A chapteh close to the edge has less room to move. A small tap to one side steers it back.

Kick into the wind. When the flag streams to the right, tap a little to the right of the chapteh. It heads left, and the gust carries it back.

Lowest one first. With two in the air, kick the one nearest the grass.

Passes need a big angle. Kick from near the middle and tap well to the side of the chapteh.

Your turn

The grass is cut and the chapteh is in your hand. Start with the warm-up and see how far up the kick ladder you can go.