The other day, I got a Slack notification advertising the latest Farm Games event, a Stanford-rendition of the infamous Squid Game. On a complete whim, I decided to register. And on a rainy Saturday evening, I showed up at AOERC among ~250 other students, competing for the chance to win a grand prize of a MacBook and AirPods Max.
To my surprise, one of the games happened to be an actual puzzle! How fitting for this Critical Play. This was the seventh game we played that night, all of which were analog games played in real life. Within the Squid Game, this puzzle was not officially named, so I will just called it the Farm Games Puzzle, created by Stanford Farm Games. This game was designed for participants of the Stanford Squid Game (i.e. college students), and by this point, there were only five players left, which was intentional in the context of the Squid Game‘s progression.
The mechanics of the Squid Game Puzzle, especially its timed race-to-the-finish and lack of explicit direction, create an immersive experience in a high-pressure environment where players have to think quickly and clearly, focus solely on their task at hand, and abandon any goodwill they may have had towards one another. In this way, the Stanford Squid Game aims to emulate the same feelings of being in the actual Squid Game, minus the actual dying.
To recap, the Stanford Squid Game is based off the in-show competition form Netflix’s Squid Game. In the show, 456 players compete against one another to the death in hopes of winning the grand prize of 45.6 billion won. Players who lose a game are eliminated (killed), which creates a very high stakes environment where one mistake could cost someone the game and their life. In the Stanford Squid Game, however, there is no actual dying. While the ~250 players are still competing for a grand prize (a MacBook Air and AirPods Max), losing a game simply means being eliminated by a Nerf gun, not actually dying (whew!). While this does take a lot of the pressure off of the players, there is still a level of healthy competition as everyone eyes the grand prize.
The other games were as follows: the first game was Red Light, Green Light; the second game was cutting a shape out of a dalgona cookie; the third game was Mingle; the fourth game was Tug of War; the fifth game was Stanford’s version of the Marbles game using other props (cards, basketballs, dice, ping pong balls, etc.); the sixth game was the Six-Legged Pentathlon; and the seventh game was the Farm Games Puzzle.
For this seventh game, the five remaining players spread out across the baseline of the basketball court. Across the court from each of them was a bag. When the Frontman said “go,” we ran to our respective bags and found puzzle blocks and began trying to solve them. The two players to solve the fastest would move on to the final game.
Throughout the Squid Game, the Farm Games organizers do a great job of creating an immersive atmosphere. Of course, this is quite different from the actual Squid Game from the show, but a lot of inspiration is taken from it, especially when it comes to the structure of the competition and the games themselves.
In this way, the Stanford Squid Game creates an evocative space in which players experience a narrative that builds on one that they are already familiar with from the show. The plot progression does not follow in the same exact way, but players are able to draw on their own narrative competencies coming into the competition. As a result, players can somewhat anticipate the kinds of games they may be playing, which cannot be said for the characters in the show. Armed with this background knowledge, players are able to fill in parts of the narrative ahead of time and plan accordingly. While not an exact retelling of Squid Game, players can take the strategies and lessons learned from the show and apply them to the current game, which allows for new narrative experiences as players are having an internal dialogue with the existing material and the game they are playing.
This Stanford Squid Game as an evocative narrative all serves to create a highly immersive experience. I knew that I would not actually die if I was eliminated, but I still felt all the thrill and excitement and stress of trying to pass each game.
At the same time, however, over-relying on pre-existing knowledge of Squid Game does not trivialize the competition. For one, the Farm Games Puzzle, the seventh game, was a Stanford original game not found in the show. In fact, when the remaining players entered the room and lined up, we had no idea what the next game would be. The Frontman did not even explain what the game would be—he told us that once he gave us the command, we would run across the court to our respective bags and that the two people remaining would move on for the final game. I think this lack of explicit direction was by design. People who may have been relying on their experiences watching the original show could do so no longer, in part leveling the playing field between them and people who had not already watched it, and in part creating more pressure and stress as no one would know what to do.
In fact, when I opened up my bag, I did not even know what I was supposed to be doing. We were not told that the game would be a puzzle. All I saw were wooden blocks in the bag, so I began taking them out. Eager to act as quickly as possible, I dumped out my bag on the floor and realized that the blocks had paint on them. Scanning over them, I realized that this was a puzzle and that the people who would move on would be the people who finished the quickest.
This experience was most similar, in my opinion, to the actual experience of being in the Squid Game compared to any of the previous games we played. In the show, players do not know what games they will be playing beforehand and have no way of preparing strategies ahead of time. They had to think on the spot of the best way to win. In that same way, the remaining players had to quickly uncover the purpose of this game and try to find a way to solve it as quickly as possible.
When I realized that this was a timed race-to-the-finish, I began frantically trying to pull pieces together. What made this puzzle especially challenging was that unlike a traditional jigsaw puzzle that is effectively 2D, these wooden blocks were 3D, meaning that I had to turn each block around a few times to find the right pattern. I also initially thought that all of the pieces would be the same orientation, meaning the final solved puzzle would have all blocks vertical or all blocks horizontal, which was not the case at all. Starting with zero knowledge of the game at hand whatsoever, I had to think quickly and clearly as there was no time to waste.
There was also the added pressure of having the guards walking around, as well as all of the eliminated players-turned-spectators. The room was actually quite loud as a result, as the spectators would cheer on each of the players. I wanted to look around me to see how far along the other players had gotten, but I knew that would just waste time. This meant that I had to block out everything around me and focus solely on the puzzle in front of me. I was completely immersed—in that moment, the puzzle and I were the only things that existed in the world. It was highly immersive. And as one of the few remaining players, I knew I had a decent shot to win it all, which added to the stakes and pressure that I was feeling. I entered the Zone as I quickly pieced the puzzle together, actually sweating all over the floor. While I did not even know what the final image was supposed to look like, I had to rely on matching colors and shapes as I advanced towards a finished puzzle.
Another important aspect of this game was that the feelings of competition were at an all-time-high given the broader context of the entire event. The previous game was the Six-Legged Pentathlon, which had two teams compete in a relay race of different mini games. Having moved onto the seventh game means the players I was competing against were also my teammates and my comrades in just the game prior. Some of these players were even on my team for Tug of War. Over the past six games, and especially in the sixth game, we had forged bonds with one another. This created an interesting dynamic heading into the seventh game where the players that were once our allies became our opponents. But in the ruthless nature of Squid Game, we had to abandon any goodwill we had towards one another if we wanted to win. I had to forget about all the memories we had made together. This experience also mirrored Squid Game, in which alliances in one game may very well be broken in the next, adding to the highly immersive nature of evocative narratives. In that moment, I felt like a real player in the Squid Games (I was imagining myself as Seong Gi-hun because I wanted to win).
As I neared a solved puzzle, I heard the Frontman announce that one player had already finished their puzzle. I was soooooooo stressed and thought Iw as about to be eliminated. But I super locked in and was able to finish second! This meant that I would move onto the final game.
The finale of Stanford Squid Game saw five briefcases laid out on the table, with one containing the prizes. One player would shuffle the briefcases without the other looking. Then, that other player would have to guess which briefcase was the winner. If they guessed wrong, they would switch roles until a winner was decided.
Unfortunately for my opponent, I am so lucky when it comes down to it. I read my opponent’s soul and guessed the right briefcase on the first try. I was stunned silent, but the crowd behind me erupted in cheers. I had won!
This was a super fun event and definitely a night to remember. Thinking about our class, Stanford Squid Game, and especially the Farm Games Puzzle, really embodied Challenge as fun (from the 8 Kinds of Fun). The thrilling part of this game was trying to figure out how to solve the puzzle. The instructions were not immediately clear and we did not even know what the final image should look like. It was also my first time solving a puzzle where the pieces were 3D, which made it especially challenging. Still, I think that challenge was what made it fun as I raced to the finish.
Thinking of the formal elements of game design, it is clear that this particular game had both Race and Solution as its objectives. I had to not only solve the puzzle correctly but also solve it faster than at least three other players if I wanted to move on. In this way, this seventh game in the Stanford Squid Game was a multilateral competition, unlike the player vs. player or team vs. team games that we had earlier. This was actually the first and only such multilateral competition we had during that event, which made it stand out even more. It was effectively a zero-sum game, where one player moving on would mean one does not. While previous games really capitalized on Fellowship as fun, especially in the team-based games, any ideas of fellowship were thrown out the window by this point.
The Farm Games Puzzle really contrasted with all of the other games we played up to that point. And I think here there were definitely elements of Narrative as fun because as we got closer and closer to the finale, we had built up this narrative of our experiences playing through the game. Before and after this seventh game, we were actually each interviewed by a camera crew about our experiences in the games. Having made it through to that point, I certainly started to feel like a protagonist where I might actually have a shot of winning it all. The idea of that made me really excited. I wanted to come away from it all having created a good story to tell.
Ethics Question
While I was not one of the designers of the Stanford Squid Game, I imagine they had to think long and hard about what kinds of games to include. In particular, they would have had to grapple with the idea that a lot of players may already be familiar with some of the games due to the popularity of the show. I believe that is why they included the Farm Games Puzzle since that was an original game. By this point in the competition, however, regardless of whether or not someone has seen the show, they would understand by now that they need to solve the current game in order to move onto the next, which means they do not need to explicitly spell out every minute detail of each game.
That being said, the game designers would have had to make an assumption that the players already know what a traditional jigsaw puzzle is and that the purpose is to solve them. This is because the Frontman did not explain to us what the game was—in fact, I was lost as to what we were supposed to do when I first opened the bag. I imagined it might be like Jenga where we have to stack a tower. It was only after seeing the designs and patterns on the block that I realized it was a puzzle. I had to rely on my pre-existing knowledge of what a puzzle was and how to solve it, which may not be accessible to other players who have never done a traditional jigsaw-esque puzzle.
While players did not need explicit background knowledge tied to particular cultures, educational backgrounds, socio-economic status, etc. they would have to have some general cultural knowledge of what a puzzle is.
And now that I am thinking about it, I think the game designers would also had to have assumed players were able to actually start solving the puzzle. One of the players had a broken wrist, meaning they had only been able to use one hand throughout the Squid Game. This put them at an immediate disadvantage for this game where having two hands would be key to a quick solve. Additionally, the designers may have assumed players were not colorblind as some blocks looked identical aside from come color differences. While I am not color blind myself so I cannot speak to it fully, I would think this would out colorblind people at a disadvantage.
That being said, I do think this all reflected the actual in-show Squid Games pretty well, where some players may be more physically advantaged than others at certain games or may have more experience and thus more skilled at certain games. Overall, the Stanford Squid Game did a phenomenal job of encapsulating the high-stakes environment of the actual Squid Game, minus the dying.
Plus, I won!
