Rock, Paper, Scissors Remix
A collaboration with RJ Duran
Growing up I was either frolicking around, climbing trees, or playing silly games like tag or rock, paper, scissors. We all know rock, paper scissors, right?
Rock, paper, scissors is traditionally a hand game played between two people. Each person simultaneously forms one of three shapes:
- ROCK a closed fist
- PAPER a flat hand
- SCISSORS a fist with the index and middle finger extended, forming a “V”
“A simultaneous, zero-sum game, it has only two possible outcomes: a draw, or a win for one player and a loss for the other.”
— Wikipedia
The goal of my final Critical Making project was to create my own version of rock, paper, scissors and spice things up a bit.
THE IDEATION
Originally, this game was a spin-off of the original rock, paper, scissors that would incorporate projection (previously), graphics, buttons, and (previously) 3D glasses.
Instead of projection, the game was displayed on a TV. Instead of 3D glasses, the game’s brand was inspired by the anaglyph 3D style, using red and blue strokes.
There were two large buttons mounted to a wooden box, one blue, one red. The game began with a short introduction video, then prompted each player to press their button letting the system know they were ready to play. The rounds are based on the “best two-out-of-three” rule.
The game will begin and instead of using your hands, each player presses the button in front of him or her. The button will trigger a random code, choosing either rock, paper, or scissors for the player. The results are totally random, and the code/system keeps score. Once the game is over and a winner is chosen, the game resets.
THE BRAND
The look of my game was influenced by retro video games and anaglyph 3D.
The colors include a teal, red, navy and beige. The typography I used was Bebas Regular and Rockness.
THE GAME
There were many, many, MANY steps to creating the actual game. Once the branding and some visuals were complete, I created a visual flow, to confirm the logic, brainstormed, created additional visuals and videos, started coding, and began building hardware.
Now, I definitely didn’t do all these things on my own. RJ Duran, my Critical Making professor, is also an ambassador for Sparkfun. RJ suggested a collaboration and I was in! His goal — to develop something open-source that others could learn from. He focused on the processing and hardware, while I focused on the ideation, design, and some logic.
First was coming up with the visual flow.
The introduction video starts, both players press their buttons when ready, a round begins, a short video then prompts the players to “shoot,” both players press his or her button, hands come in on each side (visualizing rock, paper, or scissors), a winner is determined, an internal score is kept and loops back to the start of the next round. Once a player has won two of the three rounds rounds, the winner is announced and the players are asked if they’d like to play again.
After tons of brainstorming sessions and sketches, coding began! RJ was in charge of this part. He created a fantastic game out of a little bit of code and it worked and played beautifully.
NEXT STEPS
So what’s next? RJ and I will work on adjusting any visuals and timing between game screens. There could be some other game features that make sense visually to work out. We’ll also get the LED lights in the big buttons to function more; maybe producing some sort of patterns, flashing, pulsing, etc. Once a few revisions are made, we’ll put together a good project documentation video.
To go further into the game play revisions, I’d like the hands to “move” while the computer picks one, similar in the way a slot machine rotates and stops on one variable. I’d also like to let the player know the score as the game is progressing (instead of just internally).
I’m excited to see how this project progresses.
