How to play
Stand in a loose circle. You need four people and something soft to throw — a beanbag, a rolled sock, a sack. One person is the caller, and the caller does not receive while calling. The role rotates, so nobody sits out for long.
Why four and not three. The caller is not receiving, so a circle of four has three receivers — the smallest number that leaves any surprise in it. With two receivers the caller can only alternate, everyone knows who is next before the name is said, and the calling stops meaning anything. Three can practise the passing. Four is where it becomes a game.
- The caller says a name out loud.
- Whoever is holding the sack sends it to that person.
- If they receive it, that is one completed pass. Nobody scores alone.
That is the whole game. Everything after this is a way of playing it better.
When nobody knows anyone's name yet
The caller cannot say a name they have never heard. So in the first round the caller points, and the person pointed at says their own name before receiving. Everyone hears it, including the caller.
By the second round the caller knows a few and starts saying them instead. The pointing disappears on its own, which is the whole game in miniature: the help goes away exactly as fast as it stops being needed.
The caller rotates
This matters more than it looks. As a player you only ever hear names. As the caller you have to say them — and saying is the harder half of learning a name. Take turns.
Choose how you send it
Hands, a paddle, or feet. Different people in one circle may use different methods — say which before you start, and that is the whole rule. It is how a grandparent and a nine-year-old end up in the same game.
Choose what you are playing against
- Friendship — no score at all. Three or more people. The point is the names. Start here.
- Streak — count up together. How many completed passes before it drops? The record belongs to the circle, never to a player.
- Team — with a net or a line. Each side starts on a number and counts down; first to nothing wins. Uneven sides start on different numbers.
Choose how much warning you get
The level is how long you have between hearing your name and the sack arriving. Slow, medium, fast.
At the slowest level, the person called raises a hand and says their own name before receiving. That is how the circle learns to pronounce it — from the person it belongs to. The help disappears as the circle speeds up, because by then nobody needs it.
Handicaps go at the start line, never in the stream
If sides are uneven, give one side a different starting number and say it out loud before play begins. Once play starts, nothing adjusts. A handicap is a public, ceremonial number — not a hidden correction.
The three things sey will not do
These are not house rules. They are the reason the game works, and any app or league built on sey should keep them.
It never rates a person
No player statistics, no rankings, no individual scores. Records are collective — our park's record is 87, never your average.
You cannot pick on anyone
Because the caller chooses receivers on both sides, hunting the weakest player is not a strategy — it is not a move. Skill goes entirely into delivering well.
Nobody is left out
A circle widens to admit someone. There are no captains and no picking, and everyone touches the sack the same number of times.
Tonsay teaches sey
Start with Friendship, and go slowly. Nobody is keeping score, so there is nothing to lose by getting it wrong. The first few rounds are just people saying their names to each other, which is the entire point.
Let the person say their own name first. If you have never met, you will get it wrong, and being corrected once is better than being called the wrong thing for a year. Ask. Then say it back.
Pass the caller's job around. The shy player who calls fifteen names has done more for the circle — and for themselves — than anyone who caught fifteen.
When the streak dies, it dies. It always will. Start again from nothing. That is not a failure state, it is the shape of the game.
sey belongs to everyone
The rules on this page are released CC0. Play it, teach it, run tournaments, print it in a textbook, build your own app for it, sell equipment for it. No permission is needed and none can be withheld.
B-Sey™ is one implementation of sey — the app linked on this page. That name is not free. The sport is.
Write the sport lowercase and unmarked: a sey circle, let's play sey.
The app, if you want it
You do not need it. Everything above is playable with a sack and five minutes, and that is how it will be played at recess, where nobody has a phone.
What the app adds is fairness you would have to be superhuman to manage:
- It chooses receivers so that everyone touches equally, in an order nobody can predict.
- It rotates the caller too, so the quiet player is never the one who ends up never calling.
- Each person records their own name once, and it plays back to whoever is calling — so the circle learns to say it the way its owner does.
Free, no account, works with no signal. Names, voices and photos stay on the phone that recorded them and are never uploaded — there is nowhere for them to go.
Where the name comes from
សី
The word sey names a Khmer circle game played at dusk — a group keeping something in the air together, for as long as they can, for no prize. This is that game with one addition: the caller says your name.
A friendship often begins when someone remembers your name. In that moment a stranger becomes someone recognised, and a connection begins to form.