Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk can still remember playing Mingle, a schoolyard game in which contestants must form groups based on numbers that are called out. If you’re left without a group, you’re out. In Hwang’s memory, one game came down to him, his best friend, and one other boy. The number “two” was called out. “If we two just hugged each other, then we would be done,” he says. “But somehow we were fighting for the little guy, and we were kind of holding onto his arm trying to form a team of two.” A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races Arrow

Hwang knew early on that he would include Mingle in the second season of his hit series Squid Game . The game has a lot of built-in tension—which ramps up significantly if the repercussion of losing is death. “Mingle is a game

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