Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
card is powerful enough to defeat one of the cards from the deck but can lose to
another. Thus, it has a potential chance either to win or to lose, and it all depends
on the situation. The game can be tied too: if the competitive cards are equal. So,
as you can see, there theoretically is no safe card in the deck and there is therefore
always an element of suspense.
The important point is to note is that a player can try to read his opponents, trying to
predict which type of card they will choose. This creates a basis for some psycholo-
gical strategy rather than mechanical choosing of cards and this element makes the
game more exciting.
By default, rock-paper-scissors has only three elements to play with. Can its prin-
ciples be scaled up for more elements? The answer, of course, is yes. There is a
wonderful extension of the game, called rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, which is
played with five elements (cards, in our case). Although many people attribute the
invention of this game to
Dr. Sheldon Cooper
from the amusing TV series
The Big
Bang Theory
, where the game was mentioned several times, in reality it was created
by
Sam Kass
with
Karen Bryla
(
http://www.cafepress.com/samkass
) long before the
show was run. The rules of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock are easy to remember
and pronounce (try to make it fast):
• Scissors cut paper
• Paper covers rock
• Rock crushes lizard
• Lizard poisons Spock
• Spock smashes scissors
• Scissors decapitate lizard
• Lizard eats paper
• Paper disproves Spock
• Spock vaporizes rock
• Rock crushes scissors
