Netflix’s Squid Game is all the talk of the town right now. The show sees 456 contestants who are deeply in debt partake in a series of games in order to win a staggering 45.6 billion Won prize pool (the equivalent of $38.6 million) for the lone winner. Of course, the games have a slightly sinister twist to the ones kids would play in parks and playgrounds, and your chances of survival are… well… pretty bleak. So just how survivable are the games in Squid Game? We’ve ranked them from most to least survivable down below.
Disagree with our ranking? Share your thoughts and your own ranking down in the comments below.
Red Light, Green Light
Believe it or not, a game in which you’re shot by a sniper if you move when an enormous doll is looking at you is actually the most survivable game in Squid Game.
With such a huge amount of people playing, you’ve got ample cover to hide behind, as we saw Sang-woo make use of in the show. On top of that, as long as you’re overly cautious each time the doll turns its back, you shouldn’t have too many problems getting through this one unscathed.
Just don’t sneeze or anything… that’d be a bit unfortunate.
Dalgona Candy
Ranking the Squid Game Games from Most to Least Survivable
The Dalgona Candy game in Squid Game is the second one the contestants in the show face, and is once again relatively easy to survive… depending on which shape you pick.
The umbrella, as we saw, is a real bastard if you were unlucky enough to pick it, but get a triangle or star and you’re in with a little more luck.
There are two factors that make this relatively survivable, though. First off, you can always use Gi-hun’s approach to the game by licking the back in order to melt the honeycomb and make the shape easier to remove without breaking. A piece of sheer ingenuity if you ask us… and a tasty one, too!
Second, you’re not ‘facing off’ against anyone in the Dalgona Candy game like you are in others. In other words, as long as you’ve got an effective plan and stick to it, nobody can hinder your chances of survival.
Also… how hard can carving out a honeycomb shape really be? — Famous last words.
Squid Game
Ranking the Squid Game Games from Most to Least Survivable
Though the actual Squid Game looked incredibly punishing in the show, there aren’t really any external factors that can come to bite you in the ass. You’re definitely going to be up against it with 45.6 billion Won on the line and, in this case at least, just one person standing in your way in this game.
Ultimately, though the parameters for winning here are largely in your control, and more importantly you don’t have to beat three shades of the brown stuff out of your opponent like Gi-hun and Sang-woo inevitably ended up doing.
The rule of the game is for the ‘attacker’ to reach the head of the squid, and the ‘defender’ simply had to push them out of the body in order to win. If either player is unable to complete their task (in other words, because they’re dead), their opponent automatically wins.
In other words, killing isn’t explicitly necessary, so if you fancy yourself an agile attacker or strong defender, you don’t have to resort to simply ending someone’s life yourself.
You can bet your bottom dollar a pink-suited PlayStation face will be waiting to take care of the loser, though.
The reason we’ve put Squid Game so low, though, is because we don’t really like the idea of our fate being put in the hands of chance, like in some of the other games. We’ve terrible luck, so we’d rather determine our fate, even if we are put against some absolute beast of Squid Game.
Tug-of-War
The rules of the tug-of-war game in Squid Game were simple. Form a team of 10 and then get strapped to a lengthy piece of rope. Then proceed to pull the opposing team to a bone-crunching drop to their death off their ledge.
The tug-of-war game is largely down to how lucky you were when picking your team. If you’ve got some big and strong teammates, your chances of survival are immediately improved.
But even if you don’t, solid teamwork and communication can see you turn the odds in your favor. Given there are eight teams at this point and only four can survive, you’ve essentially got a 1/4 chance of making it through to the next round. They’re not exactly the most comforting of odds when it comes to life or death, but we’d take them over the odds of some other games.
Marbles
Ranking the Squid Game Games from Most to Least Survivable
“Marbles?! Deadly?! HA!” I imagine you’re all scoffing and I’ll be lambasted with such comments down below, but hear me out.
The rules of the game of marbles in Squid Game were so vague. You simply had to claim all the marbles of your opponent by the end of the given time and as we saw with Sang-woo, your opponent could be pretty conniving… though you’d have to let them. Let’s pour one out for my naïve boi Abdul.
So not only do you have to be skilled at throwing marbles in some vague circumstance, you’ve also got a 50/50 chance of getting through to the next round, too. This is the main factor here. In games like Red Light, Green Light, your success wasn’t determined by someone competing directly against you. In marbles, only you or your opponent survives.
Or, you can just throw the entire ‘normal’ marbles game out of the window and just bet them as Gi-hun and Il-nam did. This, in our opinion, is even worse than playing marbles. You’re basically putting your life into the hands of chance… or hoping some kind old man pities you and lets you win. We don’t like those odds with that amount of cash money on the line.
The vague rules of the marbles game in Squid Game make this a really difficult one to rank and combined with the possibility of chance playing a significant role in determining who lives and who dies, we’re putting it up here.
Glass Stepping Stones
If you reach the glass stepping stones, you’re basically f*****d. Unless you happen to be an incredibly lucky (main character) person, you’re just not making it out of this one alive.
First, you’ve got to pick your number which determines the order you go in. If you’re going first, you may as well just save yourself some time (and a bucket load of suspense) and hop off the edge, shouting “Screw you everyone!” to everyone behind you. That’ll teach ’em!
Anyone in the first 10 or so (assuming there are even 10 people left in your version of Squid Game at this point) are also basically done for. Even if you go on a lucky streak of two or three tiles, the chances of you making it across 18 tiles are incredibly slim.
But even if you’re as lucky as Gi-hun, Sae-byeok, and Sang-woo and end up at the back of the line, the odds are still very much stacked against you.
Not only have you got to remember the correct order up until where your last fellow competitor fell — which Gi-hun showed was tricky enough — , there are still more tiles than players in the show’s example. That means you’ve still got to pick the right tile twice with 50/50 odds each time.
Factor in a 16-minute time limit, lots of stressing and panicking from other players, and The Front Man preventing you from finding any handy ways to distinguish which are the tempered glass and which aren’t (which we still think is cheating) and you’re in for a real bad time.
I mean, just look at the order of the tiles here and tell me you’re getting across there without dying. And if you want to fall down a rabbit hole into the odds and complexities of this game, check out this Reddit thread (credit goes to u/DoodlingDisaster in it for the diagram, too).
Which Squid Game game do you think would catch you out? Let us know down in the comments below.
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