Blog Post 8

AdvancedRPS is a puzzle game based off of the fundamentals of Rock Paper Scizzor and inspired by the 1v1 format for Pokemon battles on Smogon.

The 1v1 format is where each player selects a team of 3 Pokemon and after matching up with their opponent they get to see their opponents team before choosing the one pokemon that they will use to battle. This essentially booils down to an asymmetrical game of Rock Paper Scizzor.

However, due to the inherent randomness and certain Pokemon that are able to run alternative sets the player that made the better Pokemone choice could still end up loosing. Thus, AdvancedRPS seeks to provide a more tactical approach to an asymmetrical Rock Paper Scizzor game.

AdvancedRPS does this in several ways:

-first is that each of the twenty one options is exactly what it says and this removes the variance from hidden knowledge

-second is that each of the twenty one options ties only with itself (the way of telling whether an option [marked in light blue] is superior or inferior to another is by reading them from left to right [rock beats scizzor, scizzor beats paper, and paper beats rock]. If their left most word ties then proceed to the middle word. If both the first word and the middle word are tied then compare the right most words with each other [i.e. scizzor,rock,rock would beat paper,paper,paper but would lose to either rock,scizzor or to scizzor,rock,paper]). Thus enabling for a quicker turn over due to the lack of ties (since AdvancedRPS does not allow for the AI to pick an option that a player has already chosen and every other option either wins or loses)

-third is that due to the asymetry of there being nine paper,X,X options, seven scizzor,X,X options, and five rock,X,X options. Thus weighting certain options with asymetrical value and enabling a meta of picking and counter-picking

-fourth is that both the player and AI draft 3 options before entering the “battling phase” begins, which is were the player can show off their skill in prediction, as opposed to each player simply selecting one of the 21 options.

in the end the tl;dr is that AdvancedRPS is a serves as a relatively simple introduction to highly intellectual asymetrical Rock Paper Scizzor genre and is a fun game in its own right if you are interested in games about out metagaming your opponent.