'Squid Game' Games in Order and Explained

If you take a walk around the virtual corridors of the internet these days, you’re bound to come across some memes, clips, quotes about Netflix Korean hit series Squid Game. After becoming the streamer’s biggest hit with over 100 million views within the first month of its release, Squid Game has people everywhere talking about it, hashing out theories, and, of course, reliving some of their favorite childhood games. In case you haven’t watched it (and live under a rock), the series follows a group of 400+ people who are deep in debt and agree to participate in a deadly competition in which they may end up dead or filthy rich. And they all get surprised when they discover each round of the Squid Game is a reproduction of children’s games, only with life or death stakes.

Now, Netflix has given Squid Game the reality show treatment with Squid Game: The Challenge, which has certainly earned its share of critique given the original show's satirization of the themes The Challenge embraces. Regardless, the first installment of the series was a major audience draw for the streamer, taking a leading spot in the Top 10 TV Shows on Netflix week after week. But if you've never watched the original Squid Game before, or just need a mental refresher on the most iconic games that appear in the original, fictionalized show (with some of them even making their way to The Challenge!), let's break them down.

Squid Game

Hundreds of cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in children's games. Inside, a tempting prize awaits with deadly high stakes: a survival game that has a whopping 45.6 billion-won prize at stake.

1 The Recruiting Game

Although not part of the Squid Game, the first competition presented in the series is a game all 464 contestants have to play in order to be accepted into the main event. Called “ddakji” in Korean, this game is very similar to playing pogs: you have to throw a paper card on top of another in order to flip it over. If it does flip over, you win. Of course, in Squid Game, we quickly learn that the first battle is rigged: the Recruiter (Gong Yoo) offers a load of cash if he loses and just slaps the opponent in the face if he wins. This is designed to keep potential contestants interested and then lure them to a higher-stakes competition: the Squid Game.

2 Red Light, Green Light

The first game in the Squid Game is played by children all around the world. It’s the type of game where, the bigger the group, the better it gets. In Red Light, Green Light, a predetermined area is set and while one player (the leader) stands at one end; with their back turned to the rest of the group, all the others can move. The lone player chants “red light, green light, one two three”, and everyone can move. When they get to “three”, however, everyone has to freeze. If anyone is caught moving, they’re either out or have to go back to the starting line. The game is simple, and you just have to move from point A to point B without being “seen,” but the rules vary. In most cases, the ultimate goal is to get past the leader when their back is turned. In others, you have to touch the tree on which the leader is leaning without being caught moving.

In Squid Game, the leader is a giant doll that lets players move when her head is turned to face a big tree. While she’s not looking, she chants “the Hibiscus flower has bloomed,” which is what Korean kids say instead of “red light, green light.” While she is chanting, players are allowed to run towards her. When she stops and turns, whoever moves is shot to death, and you can’t fool her – her eyes have motion detectors.

3 Sugar Honeycombs

Probably one of the hardest games in Squid Game, Sugar Honeycombs is frustrating for players because you can’t rely on strength, manipulation, or taking advantage of other players. The key to making it past Round 2 is… patience. And, turns out, a whole bunch of saliva.

In this game, each player gets a circular tin that can be opened up to reveal a sugar honeycomb with one of four different shapes modeled into it: a circle, a triangle, a star or an umbrella. Armed with nothing but a needle, the players have to carve out the shapes without breaking their design – if the shape doesn’t come out whole, the player is killed. Simple, right? The only problem is the sugar honeycomb is extremely fragile, and can break into pieces if you’re not careful. While most players use the needles to make tiny incisions on the edges of each shape (which takes forever), Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) realizes that making the sugar honeycombs wet is the best way not to break them, as they get softer and it gets easier to carve out the shapes without breaking them.

4 Tug of War

Easily one of the best rounds in Squid Game, the tug of war challenges each group of players to use all their strength and the best of their skills to make the other group fall to their death. There is only one rule: pulling on a thick rope to make the opposing team fall past the center mark. In order to make that happen, anything goes: psyching out the adversary group, pulling with all your strength, and other techniques.

As Il-nam (O Yeong-su) points out, tug of war doesn’t necessarily have to be about which group is stronger. There are ways to win even if you don’t have bulking members in your group, such as waiting for the opponents to get tired before using all your strength, placing team members on different sides of the rope, and using your full body weight to your advantage, as opposed to just your upper body’s.

5 Marbles

In Squid Game, this round is used more as an episode to take a breather while getting to know some characters better than as a challenging entry in the competition. Each player is given a bag containing ten marbles and then they are all divided into pairs. The goal is to win every marble your opponent has, but, as they quickly figure out, between themselves and the person they chose to pair up with (usually the person they have become closest to), one of them will die.

From the very first game, all players knew that most of them weren’t going to make it to the end, but this was the first time they were directly responsible for the death of someone they cared about in the competition since the pairs were chosen by themselves. Players are authorized to use any minigame to win, from throwing marbles on a hole to guessing how many marbles the other player is holding in their closed hands. But, of course, the players don't really care about which method they use once they realize they'll have to kill a close friend in order to get to the next round.

6 Hopscotch

Round 5 is a variation of one of the most popular children’s games. In the original hopscotch, you jump from one square to another, avoid some of them along the way, and then make your way back. In Squid Game, however, there is quite literally no going back. Players have to jump their way along a bridge that has two glass squares side by side. While one glass square is tempered and will hold up to two players at a time, the square beside it is fragile and whoever jumps on it falls to their death. The “fun” part is figuring out which is which in sixteen minutes or less. In this game, each player does not have an equal advantage; the first player has no prior knowledge of which side to take, whereas the last player has seen 15 players make the right or wrong decision, making their challenge simply to get over the bridge in time.

7 Squid Game

The final round features a popular child’s game that, according to The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), is one of the most violent games that Korean kids used to play. The game is played by drawing a square, a triangle, and two circles on the ground (the same shapes seen throughout the whole series) and has two teams trying to invade each other’s space. The tricky part is: you can’t touch any lines and must hop on one foot on most areas. Of course, players will try their best to make you fall along the way. Check out this short video below to visualize it a little better.

Squid Game and Squid Game: The Challenge are available to stream on Netflix.

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