Squid Game: Season 1 and Season 2 All Games in the Netflix Series
Squid Game season 1 games were loved by all viewers and season 2 also came with new games and challenges. Country you go, game you find. Maybe the saying was not exactly like that, but we can safely apply it to all the cultural traditions that characterize a country. This therefore also applies to the childhood games that characterize the growth of each of us; even when we become mortal as in the Netflix event series Squid Game returned after three years with the second season. We take this opportunity to review all the games we attended on the show given the third and final chapter, which we will see in 2025. Continuing reading, attention to spoilers.
Squid Game Season 1: The Games of the First Season
Before approaching the tests that the participants had to face in the inaugural cycle, we mention the real first game (extra-competition on the island) of the Netflix series or the Ddakji that the Recruiter (a young man in a tie suit) makes people do at the subway stations to understand their degree of debt and despair that would allow him to go to the island. The person chooses between a red and a blue envelope.
If he manages to flip the recruiter’s envelope, he will receive 10,000 won; if he loses and does not have the money to pay, he will be slapped in the face by the same. If he wins, he will also receive an official invitation to participate in the games, being picked up at night by a dark car and being hooked and asleep by a gas, so as not to know the location of the island. Red and blue are not two colors chosen at random but are part of one Korean metropolitan legend: a ghost turns the unfortunate on duty into a deceased of violent death, red by stabbing, and blue by strangulation. Instead, children are used to honing their origami skills.
Red Light Green Light
Red Light Green Light is the first game on the island. Participants must successfully reach the other end of the field, where a large robotic doll is located (called Young-hee and based on the character of a children’s book from the 70s to 80s), within 5 minutes. Players can move when the doll says “One two Three” turning their backs on them, but they must stop and remain motionless for as long as it remains turned towards them shouting “Stella!”. The robot has motion sensors in the eyes and placed at the top there are snipers ready to eliminate competitors at the slightest movement detected.
Dalgona
The second test for Squid Gamers is Dalgona, also known in Korea as Dalgona or Ppopgi. Competitors must choose a shape from four (a circle, a triangle, a star, and an umbrella **) without knowing for what purpose, and a small metal container is delivered to it with the chosen shape drawn on the dalgona (biscuit) together with a small needle. The goal is to use it to carve the chosen shape without breaking the biscuit. If you are unable to complete the challenge on time or the cupcake is shattered, you are eliminated. Many techniques are used: licking the biscuit, using your sweat, or even a heated needle.
Pull on the Rope
Emblematic in Squid Game is the Pull on the Rope mortal of the third game. They faced each other for the first time in the teams so everyone’s victory was one’s victory, to strengthen the spirit in the team and not just the individualistic one. Two teams of ten each face off on two raised platforms simulating cranes: the goal is obviously to get the other team out of the platform, making it fall below. The players are tied to the rope and a guillotine to ensure their departure in case of defeat. It is the first test and it fills two episodes and not just one.
Marbles
Another symbol of childhood is certainly the marbles. This time it’s one game for two: each of the remaining players is told to choose a partner without initially revealing to them that they would not work together but against each other. Using their set of ten marbles, each of the couples chooses the test they prefer with their partner and wins the player who manages to take all ten of them from the other within 30 minutes. If you do not complete the test in time, you are still eliminated. It is here that Seong Gi-hun eliminates Oh Il-nam (or at least believes he is doing it, then discovers that he is the creator of the “project”).
Glass Bridge
The penultimate game of the first season is the Glass Bridge. Competitors must cross two parallel bridges suspended high in a sort of circus tent, jumping on tempered glass panels and avoiding weaker ones of normal glass. Those who land on a normal panel break through falling below and are eliminated. The same fate belongs to those who do not reach the finish line in time when all the remaining panels are detonated. Players are told to choose a jacket with a number from 1 to 16 before the game and this will reveal the order in which they would play. Those behind want those in front to hurry up and act as “cavia” to test the correct panels.
Squid Game
The final game of the inaugural cycle also gives the title to the cult series or the Squid Game presented in one of the first episodes and also known as Ojingeo. The field is composed as follows: the squid is made up of two circles, one at the top and one at the bottom. The upper circle is intersected by a triangle, while the lower one is intersected by a square. All symbols that they return to the guards of the game on the island.
Here are the rules of the game: there is an attacker and a defender. The former must enter the mollusk-shaped field, run past the defense, and touch the area inside the squid’s head with his foot to obtain victory. The defender must instead block the attacker’s advance and take him off the pitch to win. If one of the two can no longer play on a physical level, the person who remains standing wins. In this version, it is allowed any type of violence and fighting technique. In the Korean infantile original, teams are played and not in a single way against each other.
Squid Game Season 2: The Games of the Second Season
Chapter 2 of the Netflix series proposes a variation on the theme of the first game and one substantial difference for all games. That is, at the end of each test all participants are called to vote if they want to stay on the island or not, putting on their chest a symbol with the corresponding choice (a green circle or a red X) so that everyone knows what they have chosen, to increase the tension between players. In the inaugural season had only happened once to games started for a clause in the contract that each competitor signed before starting; a slightly modified clause this time to meet player 456’s grievances and continue the psychological game between him and the Front Man.
Red Light Green Light
The rules of this Red Light Green Light are the same as in the first season with the difference that this time Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae) has already participated and knows them well, thus trying to find a new trick to save as much as possible the other new players, unaware of the lethal situation in which they went hunting.
Six-Legged Pentathlon
The second game is not Caramello, as 456 expected but something much more composite. So much so that he dreams of an alternative version in which the triangle – the simplest form to choose for that game – becomes the most difficult since it consists of many small triangles inside. In Six-legged pentathlon each team of five starts with their legs tied together; every ten meters each team member must pass a minigame to survive, under the penalty of collective elimination. The goal is to complete everything and cross the finish line in 5 minutes, those who fail are killed. Before starting the team must choose the player in charge of each minigame, but the help of the teammates is granted.
The minigames are: Ddakji (already met in the first season), Flying Stone, Gong-gi, Trottola, and Jegi. In Flying Stone you have to hit a vertical boulder by throwing another one from a distance of three meters, if you are wrong you have to start from scratch and be behind the launch line while you are doing it, otherwise, the shot is not valid. Go back in five with your ankles tied: here’s the difficulty. The Gong-gi known as “Korean aliosis” is perhaps the most difficult of the fifty since five dice colored with the hand must be thrown into the air without ever dropping them: first one, then two, and so on, until you get to keep them all on the knuckles, throw them all up together with the palm, always without dropping them. Another child game par excellence is the top where a thin rope must be rolled around the instrument to rotate it when throwing it. Finally, the Jegi is a sort of silver rattle to be thrown into the air and tipped five times with the foot, like a skilled footballer, without ever ending it on the ground.
Gathering
We arrive halfway through the game in season 2. The proof is Gathering, and players place themselves on a platform that resembles the horse carousel (but without animals) in a circular room surrounded by closed doors. When the platform starts to turn the voice over the microphone, call a number. You have to improvise a team made up of several components corresponding to the number called, enter one of the rooms around the platform, and close the door within 30 seconds. Those who remain outside are killed.
It is on this occasion that the Front Man in disguise – Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun), player 001 – reveals his true nature and slightly changes the rules, as he kills a third competitor to save him and Park Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) and remain in two in the room. The song you hear, while music starts, is always part of those popular Korean infantile and recites: “Turn and turn. We turn in a circle and dance. Let’s clap our hands. And let’s sing. La-la-la-la, let’s have fun dancing. Dance, dance, dance. Let’s turn hand in hand and have fun jumping around”.
Special Rounds
In both the first and second chapters there are so-called special rounds, always foreseen by the organizers because they know that at some point to thin out the competition and to increase the final prize pool, the participants will begin to kill each other. A phenomenon happens in both cases at night, when the lights go out, and therefore with the favor of the dark, with an ambush. In the second case, as a consequence of what happened in the men’s baths between the two factions between those who want to stay and those who want to leave the island; Seong Gi-hun wants to take advantage of the opportunity for his rebellion and get to the control room, but as we know unfortunately, he will not succeed.
What Will Be the Games of the Third Season?
Now we just have to wait for the games of the third and last season, of which we had a taste in the post-credits scene where you can see three players from behind and two dolls. In fact, in front of Young-hee appears Cheol-su, also derived from children’s books from the 70s and 80s. There is also a traffic light that turns green from red, kicking off the game. Which? Only time will tell. It could be a new group of competitors as the numbers on their shoulders do not correspond to the survivors of this second season finale. It could be a flashforward or a flashback from when In-ho won.
