The maidan at dusk.
A red-earth mat under string lights, seven defenders waiting, one breath to do it in. Steer the raider with your thumb, reach for a hand touch, a toe touch or a kick, take the bonus line, break the hold with one timed swipe and get home. Then it is your turn to set the chain and time the tackle.
Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play. Plays on phones, tablets and desktops.
Standard rules, every one of them, judged by the same engine the computer teams play on. Each call is one plain sentence under the score.
Every team plays with roles: corners, covers, ins and a raider. They read your feints, wait for the right moment and make human mistakes, from a lot to almost none.
Drag anywhere to move; tap to reach, and the touch comes from where you stand: hand in front, toe to the side, a kick behind you on the way home. Held? Swipe home when the ring turns gold.
Three formations, move one of your seven, tap when the raider is in reach. Behind is an ankle hold, beside a thigh hold, in front a block; a team-mate within a step joins the chain.
Standard seven a side or Street five a side on a small court; Short, Standard or Full length; any of eight clubs against any level.
Eight clubs home and away, play-offs with a real kabaddi tie-breaker, three divisions you earn your way up. Your players grow with every match; nothing is bought.
Fifteen set positions in three sets: a first touch, a toe touch, a bonus run, break the hold, a do-or-die, a golden raid. Every card was scored by the computer before it was kept.
Each player drags and taps on their own half of the screen; raids alternate, so you swap raiding and defending turn by turn.
Captions in English or Hindi, read aloud by your phone's own voice if you like, with a crowd that oohs on a hold, claps a point and drums an all out.
A 3D mat, a banyan, charpais, a village skyline, with three looks and a graphics setting that keeps 60 frames a second on a mid phone.
Our own "Maidan" piece under the menus, every whistle and pat synthesised live, a whistle for your turn and vibration, each with its own switch.
Kits differ by pattern as well as colour, large text follows your phone, reduced motion, a left-handed layout and labels on every control.
Everything plays with no connection. There is no online play in this version.
The first match teaches one move at a time, on the mat, in under a minute, with no wall of text.
No ads, nothing to buy, no accounts, no chat and no personal data. A friendly sport, never a fight: a tackled raider sits down laughing. Links outside the game sit behind a grown-ups check. The only thing the game ever sends is anonymous play statistics to our own server, and you can switch that off in Settings.