How to Make Ddakji Origami Tiles From Squid Game

Ddakji is a traditional South Korean game that involves two playing tiles of different colors. The point of the game is to flip over the other player's tile, by hitting it with your tile from above. As easy as the rules are, it's actually quite a challenging game that takes a lot more skill than you would think - but no worries, I'll give you a tip later to maximize our chances of winning this pastime.

In the Netflix series Squid Game, ddakji was used in the first episode as a means to recruit players for the forthcoming competition.

These card playing cards have become a symbol of the successful Squid Game series, even inspiring some fan theories about a secret meaning behind the red and blue colors of the playing tiles.

So in this Instructable, I will show you how to make your own set of ddakji playing tiles!

Red and Blue origami or construction paper

A ruler

A paper cutter

Each tile will be made out of two paper rectangles, each one having a ratio of 2:3.

As in my case, I only had one A3 sheet of both colors, so I cut the A3s into two rectangles of 7.7″ (19.8 cm) per 11.7″ (29.7 cm).

You can change the dimension of your rectangle (while keeping the 2:3 ratio). Just bear in mind that the bigger the tile, the harder it is to flip over. Meanwhile, a bigger tile is easier to fold.

For this project, I tried to match the size that is being used in the series.

Mark the grid layout shown above onto your paper sheets.

Just take the length and width of your rectangle, and divide those by 2 and 3 respectively. Then, mark those dimensions onto the rectangle to fold it precisely.

Fold a sheet of paper in half, leaving you with 3 aligned squares

Fold the ends under a 45° angle, making sure to change the folding direction for the two ends in order to get a parallelogram.

Repeat the last steps for the other sheet of paper.

Place your two folded papers in a cross formation on top of each other. Then, fold the angled tips inward, one by one, to get a compact square.

Repeat the same steps to get a second tile.

And here we go, we're now ready to play the game!

As I said in the intro, this game is actually harder to play than it looks. You have to combine technique, precision, and power to make the other tile flip over. To make the game easier to play, you can use smaller tiles, or place a rigid piece of cardboard in the tile, to make it puffier and heavier.

Now, if you want an advantage over your opponent, here's a tip for you:

What most people will intuitively try to do, is hit the other tile by throwing theirs perpendicularly to maximize the grip and precision. However, that will almost always result in the thrown tile simply bouncing off, without giving away any energy to make the target flip.

Instead, hit the opponent's tile with the flat side of yours, so that the contact surface is as big as possible and you transfer more momentum to the other tile. That will make it bounce and hopefully flip over.

Thank you for reading and have a great day! :)