Roblox Squid game

Feel free to screenshot

I don't really take the time to talk about one of the biggest video games of our precious generation, for the simple fact that I don't really care for it. Yes, whereas once upon time I was all about the Runescape and the other browser based games, (Not that Runescape was browser based, but it was so accessible it might as well have been) I had a big break off from those sorts of games a long while back and haven't picked up one since. (Except, of course, for Friday Night Funkin', but I prefer to download that one anyway) We've moved onto the point where browser based games are no longer really an option due to girth of even kid-based games, but the spirit of them lives on in the video game platform known as Roblox. A creative engine large enough for people to come together and throw assets together in some random order. The consequences are... unique. Sometimes cool. Mostly a mess. Oh, and somehow this led to that "I love it" song video which might have been Kanye's last masterpiece before he lost his mind. (Actually, watching the video again; I'm pretty sure he was mid-losing it during this stage)

And my reticence to sign up with this enduring powerhouse has been entirely to my own detriment, because this is game that has lasted past all those fad years and genre titles, Roblox is the Minecraft of the next generation. Or the last generation. It's been around for a while. But I'll be honest and say that the most I ever got into the game was when I was scouring the various different servers looking at how many where RP worlds for the most mundane positions of UK parliament imaginable. (Yeah, the get up to pretty much everything over on Roblox) Oh, and then there was a time not so long ago when I discovered that there's an actually rather comprehensive Jojo's Bizarre adventure MMO-style game on their servers. But as for actually logging on myself and getting into the trends; not for me apparently.

That means there are swathes of trends that I miss out on, as does anyone who can't be bothered with the Roblox hassle; unless of course that trend leaks far out of the Roblox eco-structure and floods into everyone's sphere of influence. But the only way that would happen would be if we were looking at a trend that was both supremely weird and mildly concerning and- oh wait, that's what is happening right now. Who'd have thunk? So now I have to go slightly out of left field and throw a question at you: Have you heard of 'Squid Game'? It's a South Korean drama show that has blown up on Netflix, and it's about, and I haven't watched it either so forgive me if I mess up this description, a sort of 'deadly game-show' premise where people are put up against a series of games that are similar to children's playground games, but with deadly consequences for the losers. That show, is the basis for Roblox's current trend.

Now you might initially think of that and find the combination incompatible in your head, (a death-based game show and a children's gaming platform for minigames?) but mull it around for a little bit and it'll all slide into place. Essentially the entire show sells the premise of minigames wherein failure is death: it's basically Fall Guys. They made Fall Guys into a TV show and now Roblox is here to turn it back into a game again. Only with a lot more hacking because Roblox is so bare bones that it's susceptible to freakin' cheat engine! (Good god, how hard it is to hire a single security expert for your stupid game?) But I'm sure you're wondering how this plays out in a manner different to Fall Guys in order to fit the 'Squid game' skin better. I'll tell you right know it's not for quality.

Whereas Fall Guys maintains this cutesy persona to it, both in the colourful design of it's tabular participants and in the just-as-colourful layout of it's stages and tasks, Roblox Squid Game adopts the far more dystopian, muted, and sometimes bloody direction from the show. Take for example, the red light green light game, a lot of which depict a narrow open-roofed corridor with fake outside scenery painted on the walls, highlighting the sense of captivity by drawing attention to the freedom you're deprived of. The game itself involves walking towards a young Korean girl who turns around and sings a particularly creepy-sounding nursey rhyme before swinging around and catching anyone out who is moving. Oh, and the people who are caught get shot. Instantly. Brutally gunned down. It's a lot for what should be a kids game. (and again, sometimes it's really bloody as well.)

Another game has players sat down in front of the cult-looking organisers of these games (each of which wearing a mask that depicts one of the face buttons of a PlayStation controller) and tasks them with cutting a shape from the material in front of them within a time limit. Should they err in the shape, or run out of time, the organiser shoots them point blank in the face with a revolver. Real kid friendly stuff here, huh? But that's what Roblox is about, I guess, creating games for kids out of things that would otherwise not exist. Like a game based on a show about killing people. Where else would that exist but in Roblox? On a positive note, the whole popularity of this trend has worked to make this show even more well known then it already was. Heck, I'd have never heard of it without all of this craziness.

What tickles me is just the amount of servers that have sprung up around this premise, and all of them being so very popular too. It's as though Roblox players are really desperate to rush to anything that might be considered a little risqué for their age group, even when the thing that they're imitating really loses a lot of it's horror when inflicted on squarish block-people. That's just the natural leaning of children afterall, to seek that which isn't meant for them. But then again, I'll bet a lot of them don't even know about the existence of the show at all and just seek to play the popular thing of the day. Maybe not even noticing how bizarre it is that the punishment for failure always seems to link back to a swift and brutal death.

Within time this will just be another trend that fades and Roblox fans will go back to RPing as members of the UK transport ministry, or slaying 1v1's as Za Warudo in order to unlock Za Warudo AU. That's the beauty of Roblox, being a platform for minigames it can literally morph and evolve itself to be whatever it's players want it to be at anytime, in a way that no other similar game creation platform has quite nailed the rhythm of. Who knows, maybe the next fad will be RPing as members of house Arterides and figuring out how to best cut up the spice production of DUNE in order to win a monopoly stake of the intergalactic trade commission; I find it absolutely feasible to imagine Roblox kids playing out a session as space-spice messiah in the near future. Maybe after their done killing each other at Squid game first.