REVIEW: SQUID GAME: THE EXPERIENCE

AG
6 days ago
3 min read

We Brave London’s Forensically Faithful Recreation of Netflix’s Gameshow Thriller

Despite being based on Netflix’s bloody, dystopian thriller about desperate contestants playing deadly children’s games, Squid Game: The Experience is the perfect family day out.

We take our children (four and seven) to the forensically faithful (but child-friendly) immersive experience, to become real-life contestants in London’s recreation of the hit TV show, playing five of its famous games.

The scene is set, on arrival into the vast Immerse LDN space - the famous glass piggy bank hovers between the neon staircase, bulging with notes. A giant black mask of Squid Game boss, Hwang In-ho presides over the space, flanked by the Young-Hee game doll, pink-suited workers and a colourful, Korean night market, with themed food, drink and merchandise.

We’re given our bibs with the numbers we’ll be known by for the 60-minute experience, as well as nifty bracelets, which we’ll use to register our successes and failures into machines after each challenge.

Then we’re led into the show’s bunk bed-studded dormitory, to the atmospheric soundtrack of the series. A suited man with a briefcase shows us a screen, in which our photos are separated into red and blue teams and we divide into our groups.

The show’s darkness is only visible to adult fans of the show, and is hinted at via fun, panto-baddie actors. For our children, this is an exciting and colourful series of children’s games, presented in blockbuster fashion - with guys in jazzy pink suits.

The first room’s game, Memory Steps, challenges us to memorise a pattern to make it across illuminated floor squares. The rules of each game are easy enough for all ages to understand, and my seven-year-old daughter successfully completes this, while shamefully, I am eliminated in this round.

The next game sees us enter a colourful, childlike room, decorated in rainbows and pastels. Gathered in groups around tables, we play a simple (but fun) marble game, which (with a combination of mad luck and rule-bending) sees my four-year-old climb from bottom to middle of the leaderboard.

There’s an adrenaline-fuelled tug-of-war game between our team and the blue team - we lose and there’s some light-hearted, panto booing and banter between the two teams.

Then we’re into the game we’ve all been waiting for - the brilliant Red Light, Green Light. The blue sky wallpaper of the TV show’s sandy playground is perfectly recreated, with a giant Young-Hee doll at the end.

Her head spins around, the eyes flash red, and our game begins. When her eyes (and the room) turn green, we can move to the finishing line, hiding behind giant presents along the way. But if we move during the red light, we’re sent back to our starting positions. It's exciting, fun, and deliciously close to the TV show. The children love it and we could play it all afternoon.

For the final game, we’re led into a room decorated like a carousel for Round and Round. We must walk around a circle and beat our opponents to jump onto various floor shapes. It’s tense and fun.

Finally, it’s down to two finalists at the centre of the carousel - the Squid Game boss dramatically arrives in black mask and coat and challenges them to a duel-like game of rock, paper, scissors, and our winner is crowned.

He’s offered the choice of a grand prize to himself or smaller prizes shared between all contestants. Since the rest of us haven’t been bumped off, and can quietly judge him afterwards, he wisely goes for the latter.

The prize is a discount off merch, drinks and food in the Korean Nightmarket, where there are soju-infused cocktails, and pleasingly themed treats like red slushie/green slushie and Squid Game decorated doughnuts. There are also a gaggle of cuddly toys based on characters like Young-Hee and even Gi-Hun.

And with that, our family of players are eliminated from Squid Game, alive and high on adrenaline from this brilliant trip inside the TV screen, into one of TV’s biggest hits.

Squid Games: The Experience. Excel Waterfront, ExCel, London E16 1XL. Adults from £26.pp. Children from £18pp