Field notes · Manhattan Mall, NYC · 19 Oct 2024

Netflix brought Squid Game to New York

Did I survive Squid Game: The Experience? 🦑🚦

For one afternoon in October 2024, my best friend Tracy and I became Players 344 and 369: wristbands, masked guards, a giant Young-hee, five games and a live leaderboard, one week after the pop-up opened. Nobody got hurt. Nobody won $4.56 million either.

The five games Play Red Light, Green Light

Player344reporting

Rocky in a teal player tracksuit outside the Squid Game: The Experience entrance, flanked by two pink guards — Reporting for duty at 2:44 p.m.

Games start 3:00 PM

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Before the games

Imagine voluntarily walking into Squid Game

Being handed a player number. Walking past masked guards who are watching your every move. Hearing that music. Now imagine doing all of that with your best friend.

On October 19, 2024, Tracy and I visited Squid Game: The Experience, which had turned part of Manhattan Mall into a real-life version of the show one week earlier. Nobody was harmed, eliminated players stayed very much alive, and, to my dismay, there was no cash prize at the end. But for a paid experience they knocked it out of the park. I was immersed enough that it made up for some of the disappointment of not getting cast in Squid Game: The Challenge.

I’m a huge fan of both the series and The Challenge. I’d already been to a Squid Game: The Challenge Red Light, Green Light party in Brooklyn, where I met contestants Dash (Player 141) and Sam (Player 016), wearing my green player tracksuit, number 287. I wore it again for this. The wristband said 344. Nobody minded.

Would I survive? More importantly, would my friendship with Tracy hold up with a million dollars and our lives on the line? 😯 (You bet it would.)

Rocky at home in the teal 287 tracksuit before leaving for the city — 12:14 p.m. Suited up.

Digital menu board for The Squid Game Red Light Bagel at Ess-a-Bagel — Ess-a-Bagel was in on it too

The Ess-a-Bagel across the street from the mall was selling a Squid Game Red Light Bagel (red bagel, Dalgona cream cheese, crushed Dalgona candy) and a Dalgona Coffee for the run of the pop-up. I photographed the boards and ordered neither, which I now regret. Get the bagel.

What it was

You weren’t visiting Squid Game. You were a player.

Squid Game: The Experience ran at Manhattan Mall (100 West 33rd Street, entrance at Sixth Avenue and 32nd) from October 11, 2024 to September 1, 2025. The ticketed part was about an hour of gameplay across five challenges, in groups of up to 24, with a neon Night Market to wander before or after. Unlike a photo-op pop-up, everyone had to play.

5GamesFour from the shows, one secret finale.

60minOf gameplayPlus as long as you like in the Night Market.

$112.60Two standard tickets3:00 p.m. slot. Tickets started at $39 plus fees.

24Players per groupStrangers, wristbands, one leaderboard.

Rocky and Tracy holding up their teal player wristbands, numbers 344 and 369 — 344 and 369, officially.

The player wall of registered faces and numbers on the screens — The player wall

Entering the game

Wristbands on, faces registered

At check-in we got numbered wristbands that tracked us through the games, and registered a photo so our faces could show up on the screens and rankings. Which is how Tracy and I ended up on the player wall as the only two people not looking at the camera.

“The only two not looking” 😂

The guards, the lighting, the music and the Front Man set the mood before the first game, and the staff stayed in character while explaining the rules. That immersion was the whole reason I wanted to come, and it delivered.

The scoreboard

Five games. Zero podium finishes.

We did our best. We also mostly died, with one technical survival to our name.

Our resultWould play again, out of 5

Game01

Memory Steps

Inspired by Glass Bridge

3 / 5

The show’s deadly coin-flip became a memory test. A safe path of floor panels lit up, disappeared, and you had to repeat it by stepping only on the right squares. Wrong square, you’re out of the round rather than out of a window. Only a few people could cross at a time, so the rest of us watched, which is its own kind of entertainment.

Didn’t winPlayers 344 and 369

We went first, before either of us had really understood the rules. So we both died. Immediately.

The Memory Steps room: a grid of glowing LED floor panels with players waiting at the edge — The bridge, 3:41 p.m.

Game02

Marbles

Inspired by Marbles, episode 6

3 / 5

No devastating betrayal here. Players stood around circular stations marked with the shapes and tried to land a marble inside the target; good throws let you collect marbles from the board, and whoever ended with the most won. It looked simple. It was not simple.

Didn’t winPlayers 344 and 369

No comment on my throwing.

A round red marble station with a pink star in the sand, players standing around it — Aim for the star.

Game03

Warships

Inspired by Squid Game: The Challenge

5 / 5

Life-sized Battleship, straight from the reality show. We were split between two rooms, each side with a grid, several ships and controls to fire at the other team, and captains calling the targets. You couldn’t see what the other room was doing, which brought in exactly the team politics that made the show fun. Also the best chance all day for Tracy and me to blame each other for everything.

Didn’t winPlayers 344 and 369

We sat in the ship marked 2, loved every minute of it, and lost. Possibly my favourite game of the day.

Rocky and Tracy sitting in a ship cabin lit purple and coral in the Warships room — Crew of ship no. 2

Game04

Red Light, Green Light

Inspired by the game that opens both shows

5 / 5

The one everybody came for. The room was a field of oversized wrapped gift boxes with Young-hee at the far end, and seeing the doll on a screen is one thing; standing in front of her waiting for “green light” is something else entirely. The rules were the ones you know, the room tracked every player, and the results fed straight into the leaderboard. Of the five games, this was the one that most delivered the feeling I’d hoped for.

SurvivedPlayers 344 and 369

I made it to the other side safely. Barely.

Rocky and Tracy in front of the giant Young-hee doll with the clock at 00:00 — 00:00 on the clock. Still standing.

Game05

The Secret Finale

Built for New York

2 / 5

Kept out of every ad, mostly luck, and only a couple of people from the group actually got to play it. The full story is a little further down.

SpectatorsPlayers 344 and 369

Watched from our seats as the lights picked somebody else.

A silver cloche on a pedestal in the finale room, lit from above — One covered dish per player

Game 04 · In the room

The lights decide, not you

Inside the Red Light, Green Light room: guards walking between oversized gift boxes under red light

Inside the Red Light, Green Light roomGuards between the gift boxes, red light to green, then me in front of Young-hee.

Red means freeze. Green means move. My footage from the floor: the guards, the boxes, the light flipping over the whole room, and then the doll.

Your turn, Player

Could you stay still?

Hold the button to run. Let go the moment the signal turns red. Reach the finish before the clock hits zero.

SignalReady

00:30

Finish

369

344

Green light means go.

Attempts0Survived0Best time—

Game 05 · The secret finale

Dinner is served. Don’t lift the lid

Now that the pop-up has closed, I can spoil it. As best I remember, it went like this:

Everyone was sent into a room of covered dinner dishes, each one with a light bulb, and picked a seat.
Then it was hot potato with lights. A light ran around the room and stopped at random in front of somebody, and where it stopped decided whether that player had just won or lost.
The room emptied round by round until one or two players were left, and it ended with a jack-in-the-box showdown against the Front Man.

We watched from our seats. The room looked fantastic, but it was the one game where most of the group didn’t really play, which other reviewers noticed too.

A striped carnival booth with lanterns and a checkerboard floor in the finale room — The showdown stage

A red squid-shaped tag reading 003 on a silver plate — Number 003, on a silver plate

The Night Market

Neon, Squid Mart, and a cocktail called The 456M

The public part was a neon-lit Night Market: H Mart food, a Johnnie Walker bar (The 456M, $18; a mocktail called The Thing We Used to Do as Kids in the Playground, $14), Squid Mart merch, and photo ops with the doll. Nobody pushed us toward the exit afterwards, so there was time to compare scores and process how badly we’d done. We looked, we didn’t buy. It’s also where I met a friend I’d only known from Instagram, in person, for the first time.

The Squid Mart merchandise stand under neon signs — Squid Mart

Rocky with a friend under blue light in the Night Market — Instagram friends, IRL

Neon circle, triangle and square shapes hanging from the ceiling — ○ △ □

NightMarketopen late

Rocky posing beside the Young-hee doll standee in the Night Market — Me and the doll

Tracy posing dramatically at the feet of the Young-hee standee — Tracy and the doll

Rocky and Tracy either side of the Young-hee standee — Both of us, pre-elimination

A red poster reading Make Tonight a Squid and Chill Night, a Squid Game: The Experience and H Mart collaboration — Squid and chill

The verdict

Was it worth it? For me, yes.

My favourite part wasn’t one game. It was being inside something I had only ever seen on a screen.

The games were adaptations, not replicas, and the darkness was softened for families, so it couldn’t reproduce the stakes. What it did reproduce was the world: the music, the costumes, the shapes, the guards, the leaderboard. In that sense it had more in common with The Challenge than with the drama, a one-hour taste of what that competition might feel like. Guests seemed to agree: the official site showed a 4.6 out of 5 across more than 3,000 reviews.

If I could change one thing, it would be one more game. Five go fast, and by the time I was fully absorbed we were at the final leaderboard. My favourites were Red Light, Green Light and Warships. Going with Tracy made it better. Experiences like this need someone to strategize with, compete against, and blame when everything goes wrong.

Made itOutalive

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