Rock Paper Scissors

Rock Paper Scissors is a unique game that’s really pretty amusing and a novel twist to the classic pastime that filled my schoolyard years.

In a kind of mixture between the classic board games Chess and Stratego, you are armed with an equal amount playing pieces; in total you have 14 pieces each. As you would expect, you have the usual rock, paper and scissors but you also have a flag and a trap piece to place on your board. The object of the game is to place your pieces accordingly (you have control over the trap and flag locations – but have only a random control over where the other three types of weapon are situated and can cycle through them until you’re content).

The aim of the game is to move around the board and fend off the opponents advances by placing the right defensive or attacking piece in place. And yes you guessed it, paper wraps rock, scissors cut paper and rock blunts scissors. Of course, if you find yourself up against a soldier with the same weapon as your piece you quickly have to re-select a weapon and hope that they have picked the wrong choice! In a bit of a Russian roulette styled approach you must try and move your pieces accordingly to capture the opponents’ flag and win the game. It goes without saying that the second rule of the game is to prevent your flag being captured at the same time.

The battles are animated in a very simplistic but quite stylish way which adds a bit to the game yet doesn’t take forever to go through unlike ‘Battle Chess’ where the animation would be fun but take ages to move the pieces and could be quite distracting.

In the easy levels you get to see the opponent’s weapons when they’ve been revealed after fighting them, in the advanced games this is not the case and instead you must try to memorise the pieces’ whereabouts should you care to act out some retribution rather than simply look for the flag. I found the easy and intermediate level AI pretty tame and would not go in for the kill should I have left the flag available for the taking. Indeed as both the flag and trap piece don’t move it can become quite obvious where they are located if you’ve got a keen attention to detail. Another factor about the easy game is that sometimes the flag will be located at the front row of your opposition’s forces – making it a very quick game indeed should you pick the right one.

It’s a nice addition the game programmers put in place allowing you to choose to have advanced mode or timed mode on or off during any of the three difficulty settings. The timer means you have a maximum of 15 seconds to pick and move your piece. Advanced mode allows you to see the opponents’ weapons either briefly or all the time. As you can imagine, these game toggles can make the difference between an easier and trickier game.

Rating 86%

Positives

Enjoyable game which is simple but appealing to all

A nice board game which will kill a few minutes of your day

Negatives

Stupid AI

Novelty factor wears off quite quickly