Description

Ddak-ji is a popular Korean childrens game played using specially made cardboard disks. The disks resemble Pogs but are perhaps thinner and slightly curved. Unlike the games played using Pogs, Ddak-ji uses no 'slammer' piece. Only the ddakji themselves are used.

In the basic version of the game the throwing player is chosen by 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' and the losing player places their disk on the table. The active player throws their disk down on it in an attempt to make the inactive player's disk flip over. The curvature of the disks makes finesse an important part of the technique. If a disk is flipped, the player who flipped it gets to keep it. Variants of this play style exist.

The modern disks are decorated with pictures of characters from popular culture (TV, animation and video game characters are extremely popular).

Modern ddakji is the descendant of an older game that was adopted from Japanese culture. In Japan special illustrated cards (Cf. 'menko'), similar to modern sports cards, were thrown down in an attempt to flip and claim the cards. The old Korean version that descended from this was played with handmade folded paper or pasteboard squares.

The early history of Ddak-ji in Korea is briefly mentioned in Lee E-Wha's History of Korea, Vol. 14:

"in addition to these games, there was a slap-match (ddakji chigi) which came from Japan in the nineteenth century. The goal of this game was to flip the pasteboard card (ddakji) on the ground by slapping it with another pasteboard card."