u/Awkward_GM

Some that come to mind:

• The Cube - The premise itself is the game. Locate the exit of the Cube, avoid the traps, and don't get killed by other players/prisoners. Unlike other versions of this, the players are able to collaborate and there isn't a sole winner.
• Battle Royale - The Battle Royale is a tournament where students are forced to participate in an elimination style battle where only one survivor is allowed to leave the game. Everyone has bomb collars so that if they try to leave the island or enter a "forbidden zone" their heads will explode. As an added bonus everyone gets 1 item which range from useful to pointless (one person gets a paper fan another gets a machine gun with ammo.
• Hunger Games - Similar to Battle Royale, main changes are the items you get are located at a central location in the map, the matches are televised with the added wrinkle of viewers can pay to send you gifts.
• The 8 Show - 8 Contestants are in a Big Brother style game where each contestant is given a room on a floor of the game space 1 thru 8. Each contestant generates an amount of money for the contestant per an algorithm (Floor 1 earns ~$7 per minute, Floor 8 earns ~$250). Time is limited, and can only be gained >!if they are "Entertaining enough"!< which is something the contestants don't figure out till later in the show. The big twist on this premise is that if anyone dies or if time runs out the show ends and they take the money they've accrued with them out of the game.
  • They can purchase anything with their money from their room, but it can't leave their room. They can use time to purchase items that are allowed to go anywhere. Except for food and water.
  • There are no bathrooms or amenities.
  • Food and water is given to the person in Floor 8 who then gives the remainder to Floor 7, and that proceeds until they get to Floor 1. The amount of Food and Water is equivellent to 12 servings leading to people hoarding food.
  • Being Entertaining means they actively have to do interesting things, starting with a talent show but quickly devolving into one of the players keeping the others in a perpetual state of torture
• Escape Room - Premise is in the title, players are put into deadly escape rooms and must solve puzzles in order to not die. Some of them include laser trip wires that are powerful enough to cut through flesh and a quick sand trap.
• Saw - Classic one is probably the reverse bear trap where the guy needed to cut out his own eye to get a key that unlocks the trap. There is also the house from Saw 2 where the mansion is trapped and if people examined the traps before going in them they'd for the most part be able to get the cures to the poisons that they were given, one of them being a hand trap gadget where you can put your hand in, but if you pull out you slice your arm.
• Squid Games - Essentially, games for school kids, but if you fail you die. So many classic ones:
  • Red Light Green Light
  • Tag/Hide and Seek
  • Tug of War
  • Jump Rope
  • Rock Paper Scissors Minus One
  • Squid Game
  • Sky Squid Game
• Alice in the Borderlands - An abandoned version of Tokyo with games spread across the city:
  • Tag
  • Escape Rooms
  • Social Deduction game to find the traitor
  • Capture the Flag
  • Logic Puzzles
• Yugioh Manga - Before the card game, the "Season 0" of Yugioh involved a lot of "Shadow Games" where the loser straight up died.
  • Explosive Hockey - The players played air hockey with an explosive embedded in ice and the table was a hot grill. Whoever's side had the explosive on it when the ice melted blew up.
  • Knife game - The players have a stack of cash placed on top of their hand and they get to keep as much money as they can get with the knife, but if they stab themselves they lose.

Any other games people can think of?

Recently my wife and I have been watching period action dramas like Blue Eyed Samurai. As well as K Dramas and playes the video game Road to Empress which is Chinese.

I'm curious if there are any Asian dramas that are high quality with a lot of politicking and mature. Doesn't have to be explicit, but we are fans of movies like Kill Bill and shows like Game of Thrones where they don't shy away from the gore.

We enjoy thrillers and dramas where people navigate deals and promises. Where slights can turn to feuds. Etc...

Sidebar: I'm curious if there are any High Quality adaptions of Romance of the Three Kingdoms because I've played games like Dynasty Warriors but I want to actually know more about it as opposed to the hyper style-ized version depicted in DWs.