Rapid-Fire Rock Paper Scissors

SpindleyQ's picture
RapidFireRps.png
Game File: 

So, PurpleChair, TheCube, squidlarkin and I all met up last night for beer and game-related conversation, which was totally awesome and inspiring and great. While I was watching PurpleChair and squidlarkin duke it out in BlazBlue, I was thinking about how to make a more accessible fighting game. Clearly the need to learn and perfect arcane joystick moves to pull off special moves and combos was out. And clearly it was too hard to learn which moves would be effective when. I figured I wanted to make a game which was purely about trying to predict your opponent's next move within a fraction of a second.

So this morning on the bus I fired up Construct and made Rapid-Fire Rock Paper Scissors. You play Rock Paper Scissors against a friend twice per second, every second. (The speed is adjustable for the hardcore.)

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Comments

ExciteMike's picture

"a game which was purely

"a game which was purely about trying to predict your opponent's next move within a fraction of a second" immediately made me think of Pizza Time's amazing game.

Danni's picture

Screw actually _deciding_

Screw actually _deciding_ which move to make. It all boils down to random chance in the end.

Hence I once programmed a game in TI-BASIC called "Rock Paper Scissors Speedplay" and it basically consisted of pressing Enter a bunch. Your hand and the opponent's hand would be chosen automatically at random, and winning gave you 1000 points, while losing took away 100 points, and these values were multiplied by the current streak. By mashing Enter you'd play approximately twice a second. I also had a ranking screen that would give you small and big dots depending on how many millions of points you had accumulated... of course, this required tons of time grinding and mashing Enter, so press, press, press!

SpindleyQ's picture

A common misconception!

A common misconception! Humans are terrible at making random choices. Anecdotally, I can tell you that almost everyone I have played Rock Paper Scissors against chooses scissors as the first move. Two people ever have chosen rock. Since I have begun paying attention and testing this theory, no one has ever chosen paper. When I first discovered this, I crushed my brother for six straight months of regular play before he caught on.

Of course, if you are playing against a computer or a person that is actually choosing randomly, it doesn't matter what you choose; the outcome will be random. My brother recently got tired of constantly losing to me and decided to take himself out of the equation. He devised a system whereby the second hand of his watch would dictate his move. At this point I declared that, since he was choosing randomly, it no longer mattered what I chose, and that I would always pick rock while playing him from then on. This ritual amused us for much longer than you might expect.

sergiocornaga's picture

I just challenged the

I just challenged the nearest person to a single game of Rock Paper Scissors to test your data, and they chose paper.

SpindleyQ's picture

MY LIFE IS A LIE :(

MY LIFE IS A LIE :(

edit: Did they think about it first?

sergiocornaga's picture

It's possible... but it

It's possible... but it would have to have been quick thinking. I will join you in your studies and report back when I have collected more data.

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