All the Squid Gamegames are dark and twisted spins on a number of classic children’s pastimes, both Korean and international, and each one has a deeper layer of meaning than appears at first glance.

When Squid Game exploded worldwide in 2021, it became more than a Korean thriller. It turned into a cultural event that made survival dramas mainstream for a global streaming audience.

At first glance, the games in Netflix’s Squid Game seem deceptively simple — childhood pastimes like Red Light, Green Light or Tug-of-War — but in this twisted survival drama, innocence quickly gives ...

CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The ...