How to Win Every Game in Squid Game

Squid Game is a south-Korean produced Netflix original series which has quickly become one of the most remarkable foreign-produced series to hit a global audience. In Squid Game, players are prompted to play a variety of children's games for a chance to win several billion won(A Korean currency). The catch is, losing at any of these games will result in players being eliminated from the game, and subsequently, death. Whether it’s due to the game’s mechanics or being executed by one of the many armed staff. So in case you're ever caught in a series of children's games inspired death games, here’s a comprehensive guide on how to win at every game in Squid Game even if you have zero prior knowledge of what the game will be.

The first game is Red Light, Green Light. The goal here is to not be caught moving when it is the ‘Red Light’ phase and to reach the end within five minutes. A simple strategy here is to assume a wide, square stance that gives you the most balance, allowing you to move and stop at a moment’s notice. Additionally, you’ll want to stay at the edges of the field where there are the least amount of players, reducing the chances of you being sabotaged by another player, or tripping over a corpse.

The second game is Sugar Honeycombs. The goal here is to carve out your shape from your sugar disk without damaging the shape itself. Whether you pick the easiest or the hardest shape, because this is a snack that’s made of sugar, it can and will dissolve with saliva. Rather than immediately trying to carve out the shape from the hard sugar, instead, you should use the tin it’s provided in as a basin to pool your saliva, which can quickly dissolve the bottom of the disk without risking breakage unlike if you held it together and frantically licked it. Once it’s damp or dissolved enough, then you can start to carve the shape out of the disk, which should be substantially easier now.

The third game is Tug-of-War, a game that on the surface, seems to be only winnable by the team with the greater amount of brute strength, as Il’nam points out, can be won even with a strength discrepancy between the opposing teams. As the only rule is to pull the other team to their death, it means there aren’t any discernible rules against cheating to win. One of the many famous tactics and techniques of making it easier to win Tug-of-War is a technique called ‘locking’ in which the player wraps their arm around the rope, placing it under their armpit. From there, if the player leans back and places their elbow behind their thigh that’s closest to the rope, using it as a makeshift stop, they’ll be able to distribute the pulling force across their entire body rather than relying on upper body strength alone. Additionally, the anchor of the team can also wrap the end of the rope around their torso, making it so that they can focus on simply anchoring themselves rather than pulling, as their entire body will also be in play to prevent the rope from giving distance. Lastly, specifically in the case of the platforms in Squid Game, the anchor can also attempt to die the rope to the end of one of the metal barriers on the sides of the platform, completely reducing the burden on the team as well as forcing the opposing team to pull against physically impossible odds, burning out their strength and energy.

The fourth game, and likely the easiest game, Marbles, because unlike the previous games. The players can choose how they win, with the only goal being that one player must possess all ten of their partner’s marbles without the use of violence. A surefire way to successfully win the opposing player’s marbles is to play games that have proven victory strategies. The idea is to play games that your opponent thinks they can win, but games that you know you can win. Simple games that are based around mathematics like Twenty One or Nim. For example, Twenty One is a game where two players count to twenty-one, and the player that reaches it first wins. The rule is that when counting, players are only allowed to add values of one or two to the current number. IE: If player A starts with the number two, then player B can either follow up with the number three or four. Through backward induction, you can force the player to pick only a certain set of numbers, which in turn guarantees the numbers you can pick, with twenty-one being one of them. The strategy here is to always go second and pick multiples of three. If you pick three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen, and eighteen, the first player is bound to pick nineteen or twenty, which in turn guarantees that you pick the final number, twenty-one.

The game Nim can be won with a similar strategy. Both players should pool all their marbles into a single pool of twenty. The goal of Nim is to be the player that picks up the last marble(s). The rule of Nim is that each player can only pick up one or two marbles from the pile at a time. The strategy here is to always go first, and pick two marbles, after that when the opponent picks their marble(s), you pick the opposite. So if the second player picks two marbles, you pick up one. If they pick up one marble, you pick up two, and so on. This will guarantee that you can pick the last (two) marble(s).

The fifth game is Glass Stepping Stones, which unfortunately does not have a decisive winning strategy as it is primarily a game of chance. The players must guess which of the two tiles before them are made of tempered glass or regular glass, but there are no real discrepancies between either at a glance. That said, since the only rule is to get across within the allotted time and that players must take off their shoes, no rule specifically prohibits improvisation. One thing you can do to determine which of the two tiles before you is tempered or not. You can make a makeshift flail out of the jackets and the players’ shoes by tying them all together. Using this makeshift flail, you can swing the shoes at the tiles before you, the tile that shatters, or at the very least, cracks, is definitively the tile that’s untempered. Alternatively, if you can’t use a flail to determine which tile is tempered or not. There still is a secure path to the end, and that’s using the steel support beams that hold up the glass to begin with. Whether you hop onto a non-tempered glass tile or not, so long as the majority of your weight is on the part of the glass that’s supported by the beam, it will not shatter, and you will not fall. If by chance you slip, you can still hang onto this beam to catch yourself.

The sixth and final game is Squid Game. This game is the hardest to decisively win because both players have different goals, and thus there is no single winning strategy. These goals are also the only rules of the game so players are allowed to play as deviously as they wish. That said, in a one-on-one situation, the defense has the advantage as their only goal is to push the offense out of the squid drawing. Whereas the offense’s goal is to make a successful lap around the squid and then back towards the squid’s head.

When playing as the defense, the easiest position to achieve the goal of pushing the attacking player out of the squid is arguably the riskiest. It’s that the defense should be as close to the head of the squid as possible, where it is the more tapered and the attacking player has the least amount of room. From this position, the defense has a much easier time of pushing the attacker out of the squid even if there is a notable strength discrepancy.

If you’re on offense, then you have to buy yourself as much time and breathing room as possible. Whether this is throwing pocket sand at the defender, or playing very aggressively to knock the player down so you have a straight shot at the squid’s head.