Netflix's hit series "Squid Game" (opens in new tab) is billed as a dystopian Korean drama (opens in new tab), but the "game" in "Squid Game" is based on a real-life children's game in which characters (opens in new tab) are are forced to return to their childhood to guess what will happen. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk told Variety (opens in new tab) that he was inspired by the games he played in his own childhood and kept the rules simple so that he could focus on the characters. The game depicted is very simple and straightforward," he said. It allows the viewer to focus on the characters and not be distracted by the interpretation of the rules.

If watching "The Squid Game" (open in new tab) got you interested in the children's "game" at the heart of the series, here's what we know about the various rounds and their real-life versions.

The program begins with the traditional Korean game of tteokbogi, a schoolyard game played with two tiles, the goal of which is to flip over one tile on the ground by hitting it with the other tile. To flip a tile, the other tile must be thrown with a specific strength and angle, which usually takes practice. Some tiles are made of rubber, but they can also be made from a number of square sheets of origami paper (opens in new tab).

The Korean version of "red light, blue light" is one you may have played as a child, and the basic rules are the same. However, instead of just saying "red light" or "blue light" at random, the tagger turns his back and sings the same phrase as the game's Korean name (무궁화 꽃이 피었습니다 (opens in new tab)). At that point the player can run and must stop before the tagger finishes singing the phrase and turns around.

The Korean name translates as "mugunghwa flowers have bloomed." The mugunghwa is the national flower of Korea (open with a new tab) and is known in English as the Rose of Sharon. The phrases themselves do not change, but players can make the game more difficult by changing the speed of the song, such as saying the end of a phrase very quickly.

The second game, translated by Netflix as "honeycomb," involves cutting out stamp shapes from a sugar honeycomb candy called ppopgi, also known as dargona (last year's trendy coffee drink was named after this candy). The candy itself (opens in a new tab) is made by melting any kind of sugar, adding baking soda or powder after it cools, and pressing the mixture into disks.

As depicted in a flashback in episode 3, the children buy this candy from a street vendor, who provides a small needle that the children use to pull out the candy. (Pupopugi translates as "pull out.") Some vendors exchange the neatly pulled out shapes for small toy prizes. As a reminder, this process is apparently as difficult in real life as it is on the show.

Of all the games in The Squid Game, tug-of-war is most similar in the Korean, US, and other international versions. Of course, you are not tethered to a rope or playing on an open platform. Known as chuldarigi (tug of war), this game has been a popular festival game since the ancient Korean period. It is still played at festivals today, and the winning team is said to bring a good harvest to the village.

In the fourth round of the game, teams of two are given two sets of ten marbles and told to play as they please. The only rule is that the winner gets all the marbles without using violence. The realistic angle comes from the marbles themselves, which are used all over the world. No one knows the origin of marbles, but the earliest version (opens in new tab), a stone smoothed by rivers and man, was found in ancient Egyptian tombs and played with by Native American tribes.

Also, if you've never checked out competitive marble racing (opens in new tab) on YouTube, it's definitely worth a look.

The glass bridge game seems to be inspired by balance games like hopscotch, but (fortunately) has no real-world equivalent. Players must jump across a suspension bridge lined with panels of either regular or tempered glass. If they choose regular glass, the glass breaks and they fall. For players who are able to tell the difference, they can tell if the glass is tempered or not by looking for surface imperfections (open in new tab) such as distortion or slight bending.

The game that gives the program its title is a version of tag with an attacker and a defender, and was played mainly in Korea in the 70s and 80s (opens in new tab). Its name comes from the playing field favored by the squid, a square with a triangle at the top, two rectangles in the middle, and circular "hips" at the top and bottom. The goal is for members of the offensive team to hit the circle at the top of the field, or "squid head," with their feet, while the defense tries to stop them.

As Giffen explains in the opening scene of the program, "When the game begins, the defense can run around on two feet in bounds, while the offense off the line can only jump around on one foot. But if the attacker cuts through the squid's waist over the defense, he is given the freedom to walk on two legs. For some reason we called it the secret inspector."

"After getting ready for the final battle, the attackers would gather at the entrance of the squid. To win, the attackers must hit the small, closed space above the squid's head with their feet. If the defender pushes him out of the way, he dies. That's right. It dies. When you make the tap, you shout "hooray." And in that moment, I felt as if I ruled the whole world," he continued.

Hwang Dong-hyuk, the writer of Squid Game, had played the game himself as a child and described the game as violent in the show. Of course, no one dies playing the game in real life, but.