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In 2021, Squid Game entered into the cultural zeitgeist becoming Netflix’s most popular show ever. It’s a fantastic Korean drama about downtrodden and desperate people pitted against each other in simple games for the chance of winning an enormous cash prize.
It features drama, mystery, fantastic visual design, and shocking twists. But what set it apart, was the character development and easter eggs throughout the show. For every twist, you could trace it back through the episodes and find some warning or foreshadowing before it happened.
Highly recommend it, and you can find it on Netflix.
However, we’re here to discuss a show that came out a couple of years before Squid Game. A Japanese drama called Alice in Borderland. It follows a similar premise of the main character, Alice, being forced to play games with brutal resolutions.
But unlike Squid Game, whose main draw is the characters, it’s the games in Alice in Borderland that drove my interest. Every game had a way to win, and as a viewer, I was riding alongside Alice trying to figure them out.
It was equally as addictive to watch as Squid Game, and I can’t wait for the second season – which recently got announced as December 22nd 2022.
What are the Alice in Borderland card types?
Each game Alice faces is one of four different flavours, matching the four suits of playing cards: Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, and Spades. You can read more about each type on the Wiki but for now:
- Diamonds: Games that are beaten through logic and rationality.
- Spades: Games of physical strength or endurance.
- Clubs: Games either focusing on cooperating with one another, or games that combine aspects of all three other types.
- Hearts: Games that play with the hearts of others. These are the most brutal types of games within Alice in Borderland.
The games have a difficulty rating following the same playing card motif. So One of Diamonds would be simple, while a King of Diamonds means a lot of people are going to die.
With that preamble out of the way, here are six games that could fit the Alice in Borderland universe.
6. Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
Check Price on AmazonTwo of Diamonds
This was an easy one.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is more of a puzzle than a game, so you’d have to make it life-size. Where each location they go to is in the real world and involves the characters walking from place to place. But staying true to the roots of the game, the team would start with a map and a series of newspaper clippings.
Then we’d follow Alice walking around the city picking up more information until they eventually solve the mystery. Learning a little bit more about the games and why they exist.
The payoff comes when Shuntarō Chishiya (Alice’s rival) takes the role of Sherlock and explains how they solved the mystery in half as many steps as Alice.
Thereby proving he’s the smartest in the room… The smug jerk.
Game Clear: Complete the problem within the allotted time.
Game Over: Take longer than time allowed.
5. Catch the Moon
Four of Spades
For a physical board game that translates into a real-world challenge we have: Catch the Moon.
Players would have to stack ladders on top of one another to get to the ceiling of a remarkably tall and large room – which holds the keys to victory. As per the rules of the game each ladder must be placed according to the rules in Catch the Moon.
Sometimes the ladders need to touch only one other ladder, sometimes multiple ladders, and sometimes it has to be placed so it’s the highest point of the pile. If a contestant fails to comply, or the stack of ladders falls: GG. In this case, GG means death so brutal I wince as I watch it from my couch.
Catch the Moon has everything needed for some delicious high-stakes drama. Thrilling stunts, gruesome deaths, and a bit of randomness add to the suspense. It all leads to a climactic ending, where the last of Alice’s team makes a daring leap to collect the last key as the tower of ladders falls underneath them.
Game Clear: Touch the ceiling.
Game Over: Failing to comply with a rule or the tower of ladders falls.
4. Crossing
Check Price on AmazonFive of Clubs
Crossing is a game of reading other players’ minds, counting down from three and pointing fingers.
If you’ve never played, there are several groups of gems on the table. You count down from three and point at the group you want. If someone else points at the same pile of gems, then they stay on the table. Otherwise, they’re yours.
Crossing is easy enough for a TV audience to pick up the rules but still allows for deep psychological warfare. As you’re also allowed to point at someone else’s gem stacks – and steal them – and point to your own gems to block.
After several turns, the stacks of gems get larger and so does the edge of your seat suspense. In the show, it would become a battle of the wits, where players would talk through their strategies. But each would give a hint as to where they would point next. It’s not until late in the game that Alice notices all of these hints. Allowing for a late comeback with a slow reveal on the last turn to show Alice pointing to the last gem he needs to get into the top four.
Game Clear: Come in the Top 4.
Game Over: Come last or second last.
3. The Mind
Check Price on AmazonSix of Clubs
The Mind was made for this type of TV show.
Four players sit around a table with a hand of numbered cards. They are then told they need to put them in order from lowest to highest, without showing the other players their cards.
That initial WTF moment when someone tells you the goal of The Mind is glorious. But there’s a trick to it, and it’s not as challenging as it initially sounds. Having the characters learn that trick, and then by proxy having the audience learn the trick would be captivating TV.
Although, once you’ve learned the trick it’s still by no means easy. Each player still has to take a lot of risks for the team to win in the end. It’s this daring action that would keep me glued to the seat wondering “Who’s going to play the next card?!!”
While the game starts slowly with players understanding the trick. Confidence will grow until they lose a couple of lives. Until it all comes down to the final moment where the group has one life and two cards left. The first player goes to play their card before the second player sneaks theirs in quicker… and thankfully that was the right combination.
Game Clear: Beat level 4 of The Mind
Game Over: Lose all lives the players own.
2. Love Letter
Check Price on AmazonSeven of Diamonds
Like the previous games, Love Letter is easy to learn and follow along. Making it perfect for TV watching. It also has enough bluffing and deduction to keep the game perpetually interesting.
Then there are these naturally occurring moments of drama. Like when you pick up a Princess card. Holding onto it will win you the game, but how do you stop people from eliminating you from the round? Or when you pick up a Baron and then must choose someone to face off with. The right director could take these moments and craft a compelling narrative.
Here’s how it would play out:
A cocky player who’s been a thorn in Alice’s side rushes out to a three-love token lead. Then there are several other winners, and Alice fights back to get three of his tokens of his own. The last game comes down to Alice and the thorn, with Alice drawing the Princess on the last card of the round.
Game Clear: Collect four love tokens.
Game Over: Fail to win the game.
1. Scape Goat
Check Price on AmazonSix of Hearts
Hearts games are known to be evil, but then so is Scape Goat.
Like Mafia or Werewolf, everyone has a role to play. Except in Scape Goat, you know everyone else’s role but not your own. Unbeknownst to you, you may just be the scapegoat. The one player everyone is trying to get kicked from the game.
This paranoia of not knowing would be amplified with the threat of death on the line. You’d see tempers flare as the players become suspicious of one another. Throw in a whining, sweating, balding, middle-aged man who is scared of dying so much that he starts throwing out accusations and you’ve got yourself an effective death game.
At first, the characters would try to find a way out, but slowly realise it’s hopeless. Eventually, one of the main characters finds out they’re the scapegoat and is put into a position where they can choose.
Win and live, or die and let the rest of the players survive.
After an emotional speech, the rest of the players look on horrified as the scapegoat pushes the button to sacrifice themselves. Later on, the rest of the players deal with some form of survivor’s guilt, making for excellent character growth and tear-jerking drama.
Game Clear: Turn in the scapegoat/correctly guess you’re the scapegoat
Game Over: Either the scapegoat/team correctly turns in, or the scapegoat/team incorrectly turns in.
Next time you’re in the mood to spice up your game night, try playing all 6 with rules to eliminate people as you go. Maybe not the same type of eliminations as shown in Alice in Borderland though…
Pictures sourced from Board Game Geek, “(German Edition) London Map” by Game Translator (BY-NC-ND Licence), “A Game of Capture the Moon” and “A Game of Love Letter“ by What’s Eric Playing (BY-NC-SA Licence), “What can you tell about me?” by Spacebiff (BY-SA Licence)
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