Upgrade Rock, Paper, Scissors with Modern K-Games

Ladder Climbing

On days when HIKOCO HQ cooks up a feast for lunch, there’s one person that is up to wash all the dishes after. With just about 10 people, it’s quite the mission! So the ladder game or in Korean, “sadari taki” (사다리타기), ladder climbing is what exactly determines who will be washing the dishes 🥲 So get your paper and pen ready and start by drawing vertical lines, with each line representing a player. Next draw horizontal lines across to each vertical line to represent the “ladder steps.” And now the nervousness comes in to decide who will be the victim! Starting from the first vertical line at the top, each horizontal line you see, you make the turn that it leads to until you reach the very bottom of the line. And you do this with every player’s vertical line. You’re safe only if you have reached the bottom and it lands on your name! To make it even more nerve wracking, there’s an arcade-like tune that you can sing to hype the game up even more. For me, instead of singing the tune along with everyone, in my head I’m seeing if any of the ladder steps will lead me to be the one to clean up 😬 Watch how BTOB uses this game to determine their dorm room here

Cham, Cham, Cham

Another quick game to play is Cham, Cham, Cham (참,참,참) which only involves two people. There are two roles in the game, an attacker and defender. It starts off with both players saying cham, cham, cham with the attacker then pointing his hand to a direction: left, right, up or down. The aim for the defender is to point their head in any other direction that the attacker didn’t point towards. If the defender moves their head to the same direction as the attacker’s points, then the attacker wins! Watch Running Man play this game in action here at 0:19 with a classic korean variety show punishment, get hit by the iconic toy hammer

Tangsuyuk 

The simplest of all, may just be the hardest of all! You have to think quick and having a slow reaction time, I always lose this game 😅 To start, pick a three or four syllable word, in Korea, it is common to start with the word or “tomato” (토마토) or “tangsuyuk” (탕수육) if you want even more of a challenge. The first player starts with the first syllable, “tang,” second player says the next syllable “su,” and it goes back to the first player with “yuk.” Continue by alternating and saying the next syllables to form the word, “tang-su-yuk” as fast as you can until someone messes up. The first person that messes up loses the game! Click here to watch Aespa compete with the word “saranghaeyo” (사랑해요) and here’s how to not play 😂