All the Squid Game games are dark and twisted spins on a quantity of classic children’s pastimes, each Korean and international, and every single one particular has a deeper layer of which means than seems at 1st glance. Squid Game season 1 ends with the titular Squid Game, which is explained in the show’s opening scene, but there are a lot of other innocent-turned-deadly games that fill the episodes in among. Notably, Gi-hun survived all the Squid Game games in order to win a massive sum of money. With Squid Game season 2 becoming greenlit by Netflix, it would be intriguing to see what new deadly twists on properly-identified children’s games will give gladiatorial entertainment for the VIPs.

There’s a purpose the Squid Game games became such a speaking point, and will probably be so once more when Squid Game season 2 arrives. In Squid Game season 1, a massive element of the terror conveyed to the audience is the dissonance among how the games appear and really feel and what they basically are. Like the vibrant red and green colors of the show’s costumes, each Squid Game game conjures feelings of happiness and childhood, which are immediately smashed by the grim reality of what the contestants ought to do.

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Recruiter’s Game: Ddakji

Season 1, Episode 1, “Red Light, Green Light”

Ddakji is the 1st of all the Squid Games games in order. Before SquidGame‘s gameshow starts, players are 1st tested by the organization’s recruiters, individuals who seek out these deeply in debt and prey on their desperation by way of the guarantee of reward for playing a basic game. In the show, the recruitment game Gi-hun plays is ddakji, also known as ttakji.

The Squid Game game’s origins come from a standard Korean game related in a lot of strategies to the common 1990s game identified as Pogs. The purpose of Ddakji is for every single player to flip their opponent’s tile on the ground by striking it with their personal tile, created of folded paper. In the show, Gi-hun plays against the Squid Game recruiter, it is clear that he’s at a disadvantage mainly because the recruiter carries his personal set of game pieces about.

The recruiter is clearly extra skilled and ready, but he acts like he and Gi-hun are on an even playing field. Ddakji is arguably the most unfair of all the Squid Game games. In a lot of strategies, this dynamic mirrors the capitalist corruption that Squid Game critiques. Indeed, at its extremely core, Squid Game is truly about a society in which the poor have no actual way to rise to an equal station as the wealthy, but exactly where an illusion of equality is perpetuated nonetheless.

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Round 1: Red Light, Green Light

Season 1, Episode 1, “Red Light, Green Light”

Once Gi-hun and the other Squid Game contestants make it to the island, they start out the games off with possibly the most brutal one particular of all: Red Light, Green Light. This Squid Game game’s origins come from a beloved playground game. Red Light, Green Light is identified by a lot of names, such as Statues, Grandmother’s Footsteps, and, in Korea, “Mugunghwa kkochi pieotseumnida.” The Korean name is also the song sung by the creepy killer doll in Squid Game, which roughly translates to “The Mugunghwa flower has bloomed.”

Symbolically, Red Light, Green Light tends to make a lot of sense as the 1st of the Squid Games as it shows the contestants in a definitely traumatic style that if they step out of line even a tiny bit, they will die. It reinforces the theme of handle that pervades the game, and it is a sickeningly ideal game to whittle down the playing field as extra than half of the Squid Game players are killed prior to the 1st round ends. Red Light, Green Light may perhaps also be the most memorable and influential out of all the Squid Game games.

Round 2: Dalgona/Ppopgi

Season 1, Episode 2, “The Man With The Umbrella”

The second of the SquidGame games in order sees the contestants play in a competitors involving ppopgi, also known as dalgona. Squid Game‘s honeycomb toffee candy was when a common Korean street meals. The Squid Game’s origins come from a deal involving the ppopgi. Traditionally, if the particular person shopping for the dalgona managed to consume about the shape in the middle devoid of breaking it, they would obtain a second, free of charge candy.

That’s the challenge provided to the players in Squid Game, but the reward for profitable consuming is survival, and the punishment for failure is death. The terrifying delicacy and fragility of the game are properly reflective of the Squid Game players’ state of thoughts at the time, soon after seeing so a lot of be killed for the duration of Red Light, Green Light. They, like the candy, hang delicately in the balance, with even the slightest error which means their destruction.

Round 3: Tug Of War

Season 1, Episode 4, “Stick To The Team” &amp Season 1, Episode 5, “A Fair World”

In round 3, the competitors becomes group-primarily based in Squid Games’ tug of war. This Squid Game game’s origins hold deep cultural significance in Korea, exactly where variations of tug of war have been played in festivals and neighborhood celebrations for a lot of years, in particular in agricultural regions. Called juldarigi in Korea, tug-of-war variety games are usually played among the east and west sides of villages, with the winners supposedly earning a superior harvest that season.

The winners of this Squid Game clearly earn a unique sort of excellent fortune. Thematically, the tug-of-war round starts a turn in Squid Game, producing the competitors straight among the players, rather than among the players and the organization. That shift sets up the factionalism and backstabbing that pervade the later episodes of the show. Indeed, soon after every single of the Squid Game games, the players’ extremely morals and internal feelings are in an increasingly unpredictable tug of war.

Round 4: Marbles

Season 1, Episode 6, “Gganbu” &amp Season 1, Episode 7, “VIPS”

Round 4 is Marbles, which unique players select to play in unique strategies. Contestants match up in pairs, like Gi-hun and the old man Oh Il-nam, and one particular ought to win all the other player’s marbles prior to the time provided expires. The contestant devoid of any marbles at the finish of the game dies. This Squid Game’s origins are some of the most ancient and longstanding in identified history, dating back thousands of years to ancient civilizations like the Roman Empire. As shown in Squid Game episode 6, marbles can be played in a wide selection of unique strategies.

This Squid Game is mainly utilised as an chance to slow down the frantic pace of the action and give character relationships a possibility to truly create in a higher-stress circumstance. It also forces the remaining players to take element in the violence of the games by proficiently picking for themselves which Squid Game contestants will die and which ones will reside — but in a twisted way. This was also the most deceptive of the Squid Game games, as players initially believed they would be paired with — and not against — their selected partners.

Marbles creates the most heartbreaking character deaths in Squid Game. Abdul Ali and Sang-woo pair up for this game, for instance. When the players are told to choose partners, a lot of of them select somebody they trust, and the game subverts their expectations. A husband and wife are forced to compete against one particular yet another in the Marbles round, with one particular of them losing their life to the game, and the other taking their personal life afterward.

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Round 5: Glass Stepping Stones

Season 1, Episode 7, “VIPS”

The only game of Squid Game season 1 that does not explicitly have actual-globe origins is round 5, which sees the contestants producing their way across a treacherous path of unpredictably protected and unsafe glass platforms. Still, this Squid Game is inspired by hopscotch and other related hopping games, and its origins date back centuries to ancient India and Rome.

In the show, the game is utilised to represent how severely the competitors is rigged against the players, as the Squid Game Front Man immediately turns out the lights when he sees one particular contestant who can inform the distinction among tempered and untempered glass. Unlike all the other Squid Game games, the glass tile game is notably unique for becoming created like a complete-blown, higher-price range game show. However, this has the related objective of inducing horror by way of familiar components from childhood, as audiences and players alike watched game shows on Television expanding up.

In addition, the spectacle of the penultimate death game serves as a tease to the final occasion. The certain level of game play also encourages anything that occurs among games — for the players to kill one particular yet another. While players may well fall mainly because of splintering glass, some players select to fall from the platform, and some take other folks down with them.

Final Round: Squid Game

Season 1, Episode 9, “One Lucky Day”

The series gets its title from the final Squid Game game, in which Gi-hun and Sang-woo battle for the ultimate prize. The Squid Game’s origins are related to tag, but with extra difficult guidelines. There are two teams — the offense, who ought to in the end attain a specified space at the finish of the playing field, and the defense, whose job is to quit that from taking place. The game was extremely common in Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, when a lot of of the major Squid Game cast of characters would have been youngsters.

Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has mentioned in interviews that he chose the Squid Game as the final challenge and the title of the series mainly because of its inherent violence. As Squid Game’s Front Man explained in the show, this ideal represented the elements of contemporary society that he wanted to concentrate on. Indeed, this is the important distinction that the final occasion has with the rest of the Squid Game games, none of which are as inherently physically confrontational as Squid Game itself.

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Why Squid Game Uses Children’s Games

Subverting Childhood Innocence Makes The Games More Entertaining For The Rich

On the surface, the purpose that Squid Game utilizes children’s games is comparatively basic. In Squid Game episode 9, “One Lucky Day”, Gi-hun asks the old man Il-nam a quantity of inquiries, but the most critical is why Il-nam made the death games in the 1st spot. Inspired by the games he played as a youngster, Il-nam made the games themselves as a implies to entertain the mega-wealthy. He goes on to say that wealthy individuals and poor individuals have suffering in popular, and that as a wealthy man, mainly because he can get something he desires, he finds tiny joy in his life. Therefore, the Squid Game games are for the nostalgic entertainment of Il-nam and other billionaires.

However, below the surface, the reasoning behind making use of children’s games is a tiny extra difficult but no much less disturbing. It’s clear that the ultrarich never see poorer individuals as individuals in basic, so they chose children’s games turned deadly to mock the Squid Game players. Additionally, it lures the contestants into a false sense of safety, as shown for the duration of Red Light Green Light.

Another purpose is the organization’s safety, and how the strangeness of the games tends to make it complicated for escapees to be believed. When the players enact the third clause and leave the game, one particular of the motives the police never think their stories is precisely mainly because of their claims about children’s games.

The Squid Games finish up becoming the ultimate tool of manipulation to pit players against one particular yet another for the entertainment of the VIPs, when also displaying the rich’s contempt for their playthings. Squid Game episode 9 is a grim way to finish the series, and it sends Gi-hun house with 45.6 billion Korean won (roughly $38 million) that remains unspent.

What The Season 1 Squid Game Games Suggest About Season 2

Season 2 Will Likely Feature Even More Subverted Childhood Pasttimes

Now that Netflix has confirmed that Squid Game season 2 is on the way, the query of how a sophomore season will make on the premise and themes of the 1st is critical to take into consideration. Almost absolutely, Squid Game season 2 will prominently function yet another iteration of the games, but it really is tough to think about them becoming specifically the exact same as in season 1. Season 1’s Squid Games have been primarily based about these of the creator’s childhood and have been usually deceptively basic, created especially to illustrate the strong themes of excellent vs. evil and the bonds among individuals.

It’s most probably that Squid Game Season 2 will function a mix of new games and reimaginings of some classic Squid Games from Season 1. It would match the tone of the show for Squid Game season 2’s games to be taken from the classic children’s repertoire, so this format in all probability will not be tampered with. However, if season 2 is to distinguish itself from the 1st, the games may perhaps have to do anything unique this time. That could imply becoming extra sophisticated or complicated or producing up new games that never exist in the actual globe.

Have Any New Squid Games Been Confirmed For Season 2?

There Have Yet To Be Any Reveals About The Next Games

As of June 12, 2022, Squid Game season 2 is officially in the performs at Netflix. Series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has confirmed that Seong Gi-Hun will be back to participate in yet another round of the deadly games, and the Front Man (Hwang In-ho) will return, as well. As fascinating as this news is, Hwang has also tempered expectations for when Squid Game season 2’s release date may well be, reminding audiences that it took twelve years for him to understand the 1st season of Squid Game. That mentioned, Hwang has confirmed that he’s started writing the script, and that “Humanity is going to be put to a test through those games once again,” (through Entertainment Weekly).

The series creator has provided no additional clues about what new Squid Game games will seem subsequent season, even though he has also explained that they will ask the very important query, “Is true solidarity between humans possible?” The earliest Squid Game season 2 may well arrive will probably be late 2024, but audiences can rest assured that it will retain Hwang Dong-hyuk’s signature mix of spectacle and sharp socio-cultural commentary. What’s extra, Hwang and Netflix are even in talks to extend the series to a third season. For now, having said that, Squid Game season 2’s story information and cast — beyond Gi-Hun’s vengeful return — stay unknown.

How Squid Game’s Games Compare To Alice In Borderland

Despite The Similar Premise The Games Are Very Different

Squid Game is not the only Asian drama primarily based on deadly competitors that is turn out to be common on Netflix, as Alice in Borderland usually draws Squid Game comparisons thanks to possessing a related battle royale set-up. However, there are many important variations among the games in the shows. While the person games themselves are, of course, unique, the thematic influences behind every single show also implies that the general really feel of every single competitors has much less similarities than initially seems.

While the games in Squid Game are subversions of classic Korean children’s games, the games in Alice in Borderland are influenced each by video games and Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland books. While the Alice in Borderland games are just as complicated and deadly, they have their personal distinctive flavor, which means that each shows have a distinct appeal regardless of the seemingly related premise.

However, there are some Alice in Borderland games that do look like they’d match Squid Game, such as the twisted versions of Tag and Hide-and-Seek. Ultimately, even though, the aesthetic of each shows is extremely unique as well, with Alice in Borderland opting for a dystopian sci-fi tone that, at instances, feels extra reminiscent of the Saw franchise (such as in games like Light Bulb).

Squid Game

In Squid Game, a mysterious invitation to join a competitors is sent to individuals at threat who are in dire require of cash. Four hundred fifty-six participants from all walks of life are locked into a secret place exactly where they play games to win 45.6 billion won. Games are chosen from standard Korean children’s games, such as Red Light and Green Light, but the consequence of losing is death. To survive, competitors ought to select their alliances very carefully – but the additional they go in the competitors, the extra probably betrayal will rear its ugly head.

Cast

Wi Ha-joon , Anupam Tripathi , Oh Yeong-su , Heo Sung-tae , Park Hae-soo , Jung Ho-yeon , Lee Jung-jae , Kim Joo-ryoung

Release Date

September 17, 2021

Seasons

1

Writers

Hwang Dong-hyuk