[EPISODE 4] Daily's Reality Sims Squid Games

22 Kovazians continue on fighting in Squid Games, still only one will leave alive. Hope ya'll enjoy Episode 4! I've included a short section of dormitory updates before the game begins. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: hausofkimchi CarltonRS Luka Spikedcurley Melodrama Gabbes dumblonde CocoVanderbilt heatherleigh Dani Cristi CasinoCheese Kodua JessieKowalski camell22 Hunter Juulpod Cherry YanderTron21 katheryn Bagel IceBeast -------------------------------------------- Twenty-two people. The dormitory that once held one hundred and five now feels almost quiet — the rows of bunks half-empty, the space too large for the people left in it. Survivors have pushed their beds together into clusters, filling the room differently now, mapping their allegiances in furniture. The alliances are no longer forming. They have formed. What exists now is maintenance — tending to them, testing them, deciding how much to trust them. Melodrama and YanderTron21 remain the most visible and the most committed bond in the room. They have stopped bothering to hide it. After three games, the pretense of independence feels pointless. They coordinate openly — meals, positioning, conversations with others. What began as a late-night whisper in the dark has become, by now, something close to a partnership of equals. Other players have started treating them as a unit, which is both powerful and dangerous. JessieKowalski and Spikedcurley have built something different — competitive rather than protective. They push each other, challenge each other, compare notes after every game. Their bond is less about emotional support and more about mutual sharpening. They are better when the other is watching. CocoVanderbilt, Hunter, and IceBeast operate as the most deliberate alliance remaining. They have been meeting in the corridor after lights-out since the merge of survivors after Dalgona, and by now their structure is tight — roles defined, read on every other player shared, next moves agreed upon. CocoVanderbilt does the thinking. Hunter does the remembering. IceBeast does the quiet work of making everyone around them feel safe. What they don't know — what none of them know — is that the game has its own plans. heatherleigh, Luka, Dani, and hausofkimchi have built the warmest corner of the dormitory. They share food. They look out for each other. Cherry and katheryn drift in and out of this cluster with easy regularity, and on quiet evenings the corner bunk area has the feel of something almost like home. Kodua and CarltonRS have also found their way into this gravitational field — less through strategy than through proximity and comfort. It is the kind of alliance built on genuine feeling rather than calculation. In this game, that is either the most powerful thing you can have — or the most devastating. camell22 and Bagel have continued their strategy of warm neutrality — close enough to everyone to be trusted, specific enough to no one to be threatened. Cristi operates in a similar register, present in multiple conversations, committed to none. Gabbes and Juulpod have each built quiet individual reputations for reliability — the kind of players others want around without fully understanding why. And then there are two players who have found each other in the spaces between all the other alliances — CasinoCheese and dumblonde. Their connection is understated, barely visible from the outside. They don't sit together at meals. They don't draw attention to their conversations. But in the last few days, something quiet and durable has been established between them. Neither of them talks about it. Both of them feel it. Maris is gone. BRAT is gone. The bloc that had defined the political landscape of the first two games no longer exists. In the vacuum it left behind, Womanizer and the others who clustered around that alliance are simply gone — and what remains is a flatter social landscape with no obvious dominant force. Nobody has moved to fill that role. The question of who will is unspoken but present in every conversation, every glance across the dormitory. bim and muribolt — gone. joeburrow — gone. The departures from Tug of War removed the people who had been the loudest, the most present, the most immediately visible. What is left is quieter. Harder to read. The lights go out. Twenty-two people lie in bunks and try to sleep. Some of them will still be here tomorrow. Some of them won't. Nobody knows which group they are in yet. -------------------------------------------- Marbles. Each player is given ten marbles and paired with one other player. The rules of the match itself are up to the players — any marble game, agreed upon or imposed. The only rule that matters: one player must leave with all twenty marbles. The player who ends up with none is eliminated. There is no time limit. There is no mediation. The game ends when it ends. -------------------------------------------- The twenty-two survivors file into a courtyard — open sky above, flagstone ground below, lit by hanging lights that cast long shadows across the space. Eleven stations are set up across the yard, each marked with a painted square and a number. A guard announces that pairs will be assigned by lottery. Numbers are drawn. The pairs are read aloud. When the last name is called, the yard falls silent. -------------------------------------------- Match 1: Gabbes vs IceBeast Match 2: camell22 vs CocoVanderbilt Match 3: JessieKowalski vs Hunter Match 4: Cristi vs Juulpod Match 5: dumblonde vs Kodua Match 6: CasinoCheese vs CarltonRS Match 7: YanderTron21 vs Cherry Match 8: Bagel vs katheryn Match 9: heatherleigh vs hausofkimchi Match 10: Spikedcurley vs Dani Match 11: Melodrama vs Luka -------------------------------------------- Some pairs stare at each other in silence. Some nod. A few exchange quiet words. heatherleigh and hausofkimchi find each other across the yard and something complicated passes between them — two people from the same corner of the dormitory, the same warm cluster, now standing on opposite sides of an outcome. Luka and Melodrama look at each other for a long moment without speaking. The matches are staggered — one at a time, in order. The rest of the players wait at the edge of the yard. Eleven stations. Eleven games. One winner each. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 1 — Gabbes vs IceBeast Game: Odd or Even The simplest game in the yard. One player hides a number of marbles in their closed fist. The other guesses — odd or even. Correct guess wins the marbles. Wrong guess loses one marble as payment. First to collect all twenty wins. IceBeast opens with confidence — they have been reading people all season, and they approach this as an extension of that. They study Gabbes's face for tells, looking for the microexpressions that reveal the count in the hand. But Gabbes gives nothing away. Their face is unreadable — not because of strategic training but because they are simply, genuinely calm. First guess: Gabbes calls even. They are right. Two marbles to Gabbes. IceBeast recalibrates. The next four rounds are split evenly — back and forth, neither player pulling away. Then Gabbes goes on a three-round run: three correct calls in a row, reading IceBeast's rhythm, catching the pattern in how they load their fist. The gap opens. IceBeast tries to break the pattern, going deliberately chaotic, but Gabbes adjusts mid-game and stays with them. By the fifteenth round, IceBeast has three marbles left. By the eighteenth, one. The final call is a formality. Gabbes wins. 22nd — IceBeast. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 2 — camell22 vs CocoVanderbilt Game: Toss to the Hole A small hole is dug in the flagstone dirt — roughly a hand's width across. Both players stand at a marked line, ten feet back. They take turns tossing one marble at a time. Closest marble to the hole at the end of all twenty tosses — or a marble landing in the hole — wins the round. Winner takes all marbles in that round. The overall marble count determines the winner. CocoVanderbilt is precise. They have a natural accuracy to their toss — the kind that comes from a deliberate, studied approach. Their first three tosses land within inches of the hole. camell22 watches and adjusts. Their tosses are slightly less accurate but more consistent — a tighter grouping, reliable, never spectacular. The rounds are close for the first half. CocoVanderbilt takes the early edge — seven marbles to three after five rounds. camell22 responds. Rounds six through nine go to camell22, who has found the distance now, landing marble after marble within centimeters. The gap closes. Tied at ten. The final round. CocoVanderbilt tosses first — lands two inches from the hole. An excellent toss. camell22 tosses. It hits the rim — and drops in. Hole in one. The round, and with it the match, goes to camell22. CocoVanderbilt closes their eyes for one second. Then they nod. 21st — CocoVanderbilt. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 3 — JessieKowalski vs Hunter Game: Marble Flicking — Ring Elimination A chalk circle is drawn on the ground — roughly a meter in diameter. Both players place five of their marbles inside it. They take turns flicking from outside the ring, trying to knock the opponent's marbles out. Any marble you knock out, you keep. Any of your own marbles knocked out by your opponent, you lose. First to collect all twenty wins. Hunter goes first and is immediately dangerous — their technique is powerful, low to the ground, generating real force. First flick clears two of JessieKowalski's marbles clean out of the ring. JessieKowalski fires back, knocking out one of Hunter's with a precise angled shot. Both players are good. Both players know it. The ring empties and refills as the rounds accumulate. Hunter stays aggressive, going for multiple-marble shots whenever possible. JessieKowalski is more surgical — targeting specific marbles, maximizing accuracy over force. For six rounds it is essentially even. Then JessieKowalski finds a line. Three consecutive shots that clear the center of the ring — a geometry that Hunter can't match. The marble count swings. Hunter has six left. Then four. Then two. The final shot is clean and direct. 20th — Hunter. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 4 — Cristi vs Juulpod Game: Closest to the Wall Both players stand ten feet from a flat stone wall and take turns bouncing marbles off it. The marble that comes to rest closest to the wall after the bounce wins the round. Winner takes the loser's marble. Ties — both marbles are returned. First to twenty wins. Juulpod has a natural feel for the bounce — their marble arcs softly off the wall and settles close with consistency. The first five rounds go to Juulpod: a three-marble lead that looks, for a while, like it might become decisive. Cristi adjusts. They start throwing with less force — shorter arc, gentler contact with the wall, slower final roll. The marble starts landing closer. The gap narrows. Rounds six through twelve alternate in Cristi's favor. At round fourteen, they are tied. What follows is one of the tightest sequences in the yard — six consecutive rounds within centimeters, decided by margins that require both players to crouch down and eyeball the distance to call a winner. Cristi takes four of those six rounds. The marble count climbs. Juulpod makes one final adjustment — a high arc, hitting the wall near the top to generate a steep drop. It works twice. Then Cristi mirrors it. The last marble Juulpod tosses rolls two inches from the wall. Cristi's settles one inch closer. 19th — Juulpod. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 5 — dumblonde vs Kodua Game: Odd or Even with Alternating Control A variation on the classic — both players take turns being the hider. The hider loads any number of marbles into their fist. The guesser calls odd or even. Correct: guesser wins the hidden marbles. Incorrect: guesser pays one marble to the hider. Then roles switch. The psychological wrinkle: knowing your own patterns as the hider makes it harder to disguise them. Kodua starts as hider and is immediately tricky — their counts are genuinely random, no discernible pattern, varying the size of their fist to make visual reads impossible. dumblonde takes three losses in the first five rounds. Down four marbles. But when the roles switch, dumblonde reveals something: they are an exceptional guesser. They read Kodua's fist — not just by visual cue but by watching how they breathe, how their jaw sets differently when they're holding an even count. dumblonde calls correctly on four of the next five rounds when guessing. The deficit closes. The match swings momentum three more times — Kodua surging ahead, dumblonde clawing back. With five marbles left in Kodua's total, they make a last desperate stand as hider — loading and reloading, changing their pattern, throwing off dumblonde's read. It works for two rounds. Then dumblonde adjusts one final time and calls correctly three rounds in a row. 18th — Kodua. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 6 — CasinoCheese vs CarltonRS Game: Marble Bocce A target marble — the jack — is placed at a random point in the playing area. Both players take turns tossing marbles toward the jack from a set line. The player whose marble lands closest to the jack wins the round and collects all marbles played in that round. First to twenty wins. CarltonRS has an arm for this. Their first toss lands so close to the jack that it nearly touches it. CasinoCheese examines the distance carefully and responds — not trying to beat the position, but to knock CarltonRS's marble away from the jack entirely. The knock shot works. CasinoCheese takes the first round. The match develops into a pattern: CarltonRS placing brilliantly, CasinoCheese disrupting. CarltonRS adjusts — starts using the disruption tactic themselves, knocking CasinoCheese's marble away before it can settle near the jack. For several rounds it becomes a game within the game — both players focused more on moving the other's marble than landing their own. The marble counts stay close. CasinoCheese edges ahead at the midpoint, loses the lead, then reclaims it. With six marbles total remaining between them, the jack is moved to a new position. CasinoCheese reads the new distance immediately — one smooth toss, landing inches from the jack. CarltonRS responds with a knock shot that nudges CasinoCheese's marble away — but not far enough. CasinoCheese's marble rocks back and settles closer. The final rounds go quickly. 17th — CarltonRS. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 7 — YanderTron21 vs Cherry Game: Hidden Count Bluff Both players hide any number of marbles in both fists — combined total from zero to all ten remaining marbles. They reveal simultaneously. The player who correctly guesses the other's exact total wins that round and takes the marbles. If neither guesses correctly, both add the marbles back and go again. If both guess correctly, the player who was closer to the true total wins. It is the most psychological game in the yard — less about skill, more about reading a person, predicting a mind, and disguising your own. Cherry is instinctively good at this. Their counts are genuinely unpredictable — going high when the intuition says low, going low when every signal says high. The first eight rounds produce six ties — both players wrong, both hands returned. The yard onlookers stare. When YanderTron21 finally breaks through — reading Cherry's breath pattern, the slightly longer pause before a high count — they call correctly and collect four marbles. Cherry recalibrates. Two more ties. Then Cherry gets one back. The match moves slowly, round after round of psychological maneuvering. YanderTron21 wins three rounds in a row near the end — finding Cherry's rhythm in the final sequences and staying with it, calling correctly as much through intuition as analysis. The last round, Cherry holds five marbles in one fist, zero in the other. YanderTron21 calls five. Correct. 16th — Cherry. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 8 — Bagel vs katheryn Game: Closest to the Line A line is scratched into the dirt. Both players stand at a set distance and roll one marble at a time toward the line. The marble that stops closest to the line — without crossing it — wins the round. Crossing the line forfeits the marble. Most marbles won after twenty rounds decides the match. katheryn rolls with effortless precision early on — five of their first seven marbles land within a thumb's width of the line. Bagel watches and decides on a different approach: rather than compete for the line directly, they aim to stop just far enough back that crossing isn't a risk, banking on consistency over perfection. The strategy holds until round twelve. Bagel's conservative rolls keep them in range but never dominant. katheryn's precision gives them the lead. Then, in round thirteen, katheryn's marble crosses the line — a rare overshoot that forfeits the marble and shifts momentum. Three more forfeits from katheryn in the final eight rounds — the pressure of the lead creating small errors in judgment. Bagel never forfeits once. The marble count overtakes katheryn's with two rounds remaining. 15th — katheryn. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 9 — heatherleigh vs hausofkimchi Game: Toss to the Pit A small depression in the flagstone ground — barely wider than a marble, barely deeper. Both players toss from a marked line, alternating throws. A marble that lands in the pit wins the round and takes all marbles in play. A marble landing closest to the pit without going in wins if neither lands inside. Twenty rounds total. Neither heatherleigh nor hausofkimchi speak before the match begins. There is a long look between them — a look that holds three games of shared warmth and the unbearable weight of right now. They both look away. They both take their positions. The match is quiet. Precise. hausofkimchi takes the first four rounds — their toss calibrated from the beginning, landing close again and again. heatherleigh falls behind. Then they find it. A slightly lower release, a flatter arc. Round five: pit. The crowd at the edge of the yard makes a sound. Round seven: pit again. heatherleigh is back in the marble count. The match is even at round fourteen. hausofkimchi starts pushing closer — nearly in the pit for three straight rounds but narrowly missing each time. heatherleigh takes those three rounds by default. Then hausofkimchi lands in the pit — splits the momentum again. Round nineteen. Tied on marble count. Final round. hausofkimchi tosses first. Two inches from the pit. A brilliant toss. heatherleigh takes a breath. Releases. The marble rolls. Drops in. heatherleigh wins the match. Neither of them celebrates. 14th — hausofkimchi. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 10 — Spikedcurley vs Dani Game: Target Strike A pyramid of five marbles is stacked at the center of the playing area. Both players take turns rolling from a set distance, trying to knock marbles off the stack. Each marble knocked off is won. The player with the most marbles after the stack is cleared restacks and the game continues. First to twenty wins. Dani gets the first shot and is immediately on target — knocking three marbles off the top of the pyramid in a single strike. Spikedcurley answers by demolishing the remaining two. First restacking. Both players have equal marbles. The match settles into a rhythm — both players are accurate, both are consistent, and neither is making errors. Spikedcurley rolls harder, aiming for maximum scatter. Dani rolls with more control, prioritizing single-marble precision over power shots. The marble counts stay within two of each other for the first six restackings. Then Spikedcurley strings together three consecutive total-pyramid demolitions — all five marbles each time — and the gap opens. Dani responds with a run of their own but the deficit is real now: seven marbles down. Dani claws five back. Then Spikedcurley finds the rhythm again and the final sequence goes almost entirely their way — clean, forceful shots that scatter the stack wide every time. 13th — Dani. -------------------------------------------- MATCH 11 — Melodrama vs Luka Game: Odd or Even — Final Showdown The last match of the night. The rest of the surviving players stand at the edge of the yard in silence. Melodrama and Luka face each other across the painted square. Ten marbles each. The game: Odd or Even, the purest version — hide, guess, pay, repeat. No variation. No modification. Just two people in a painted square reading each other until one of them runs out. What nobody in the yard anticipated is how long it would take. The first twenty-five rounds produce almost no movement — both players reading each other so accurately that the counts barely shift. Melodrama takes a marble. Luka takes it back. For nearly an hour, the square holds two people in perfect, awful equilibrium. Then Luka tries something new — they stop trying to disguise their count and start trying to manipulate Melodrama's guesses. They begin making the same call three times in a row, building a false pattern, then breaking it. It works for four rounds. Melodrama is down five marbles — the biggest gap of the match. Melodrama stops. Looks at Luka for a long moment. Then laughs — a short, exhausted laugh. "I see it," they say. They call correctly for the next seven rounds in a row. The gap closes. Overtakes. Luka has three marbles. Then two. Then one. The final hide. Melodrama calls odd. Luka opens their hand. One marble. Odd. 12th — Luka. Melodrama advances. -------------------------------------------- Remaining Cast: YanderTron21 Cristi Bagel heatherleigh Melodrama camell22 Spikedcurley dumblonde JessieKowalski CasinoCheese Gabbes -------------------------------------------- If you've gotten this far, I hope you enjoyed this blog! Episode 5 will release Thursday! Below are some important links such as the group where every season is archived, the directory that has easy blog access to every season, and a spreadsheet has a lot of details for chart lovers! Episodes: https://kovaze.com/blog/120794 Group: https://kovaze.com/group/15 Directory: https://kovaze.com/blog/92713. Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/4bsRZgO That just about concludes this episode! Thank you everyone who has gotten this far, this was a ton of fun to run. If any of yall notice any mistakes please feel free to point out and I'll change it. Appreciate feedback as well I could use to improve simulations down the line as well! -------------------------------------------- Signups for Season 13 are open now if you'd like to see yourself in there! https://kovaze.com/blog/119849