Forty-Four Students, One Winner: A Very Serious Squid Game on the TC Lawn
A crowd of 44 Dakota State students took over the West TC Lawn, all vying for glory, prizes, and a little dose of Korean drama nostalgia. The Student Activities Board put on a life-sized version of Squid Game, bringing back classic playground challenges that put everyone’s dexterity, luck, and motionless-standing skills to the test.
The games began with a tense round of “Red Light, Green Light.” It turns out the simple act of freezing on command is tougher than it looks, and the starting group of 44 began to shrink pretty fast.
From there, the survivors paired off for a round of marbles. The organizers made a clever call by letting each pair decide their own game, which turned the lawn into a patchwork of quiet, intense marble negotiations. Winners moved on, while losers were left to contemplate their marble-less fate.
Two rounds of the “Glass Bridge” followed, a game that was all about chance and watching your step. This brought the number down to eight, who then faced a pure test of strength: Tug of War. After some grunting and a bit of strategic digging-in-of-heels, the group was cut in half, leaving just four finalists.
Those final four then sat down for what was probably the most stressful part of the night: the Dalgona Candy challenge. Trying to carve out a shape from honeycomb with just a needle proved to be too much for two contestants, whose candy, and hopes, crumbled under the pressure. This left just two finalists in a final, sugary showdown.
In the end, Miikka Ruotsalainen’s steady hand won the day, as he successfully freed his circle shape to claim the top prize and some serious campus bragging rights.
The whole event was a huge hit, doing a great job of turning the show’s intense drama into some fun, low-stakes competition. One of the organizers from the Student Activities Board explained their thinking: “I evaluated what games from the actual show we can adapt to be fun and engaging for the students.” They picked popular games like “Red Light, Green Light” and Dalgona Candy, used the marble game as “a good way to reduce number of ‘alive’ participants,” and added Tug of War simply, “because why not.”
As things wrapped up, the lawn was filled with students laughing about their near-wins and epic fails, which just goes to show you don’t need a billion-dollar prize to have a good time with some old-school playground games.
