Rock, Paper, Scissors - the Board Game.

https://www.instructables.com/member/wbaca/Everybody loves a simple game made overly-complicated!

Here's my version of Rock, Paper, Scissors, in a set that can be played by two or three players.

It's a quick play, ideal for a coffee break in the office (printed on office supplies, of course), in a quiet time in your school lunch break or between bands at a festival.

I have added the files in PDF versions, but also in DXF format, in case you fancy making a set with a laser cutter...

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UPDATE: November 2014:

If you are playing the two-person version with younger players, the game runs more quickly and generally "better" if, when a piece is taken, both pieces are removed from play.  thanks to wbaca for working that one out.

This is why instructables have comment sections!

Comments

[ElectricF]

gosh this is so fun

nice work on the rules

[Kiteman]

Thank you.

[wbaca]

I made and played it with my son. He had an absolute blast. Now he can't wait to teach his sister.

My only question is when playing two player do you remove both your piece and your opponents piece? when you take a piece

[Kiteman]

That's cool, thanks for letting me know!

Regarding two-player, I hadn't intended that you remove your piece if you take another piece, but if you find that removing both pieces makes the game better, carry on. You could try it both ways, let us know which is best.

[wbaca]

So we tried it both ways. It works either way but it seems it works better for children if you take both pieces away.

[Kiteman]

Cool, I'll add that to the text.

[jbrecken]

What are the six white pieces for?

[Kiteman]

The colours are only for the two-player game. The three-player version ignores the colours of the pieces.

[jbrecken]

On page 2, there are 9 yellow pieces, 9 green pieces, and 6 white ones. It seems like whether you're playing the two or three-player version you only need 18 pieces, so what are the extra ones for?

[Kiteman]

Tactics.

You'll notice that, in the two-player game, players take turns to select and place pieces - the choices each player makes will influence what the other players decides.

Spares.

They're cardboard - some are bound to end up disappearing under the sofa or up the vacuum cleaner.

[PKM]

I see a potential problem with the rule

as soon as a player takes a piece, they may immediately move that same piece again, in any direction, as far as they like, and if that extra move also results in a capture, they may carry on moving

Surely this means that the start player (rock) will take all of their opponents' pieces using the moves illustrated?  At this point, scissors have been eliminated and rock and paper can take each others pieces.  However, at this point paper can take all of rock's pieces so this is not a winning play for rock.  They could leave one scissors piece, which could then take all of paper's pieces, but then scissors will surely lose to rock so this isn't a winning play for scissors. 

It seems like in the general case, beating the player you are allowed to take from in the three-player stage is a recipe for defeat- the strategy becomes too knotty to hold in my head at this point and I haven't drawn a decision diagram yet, but it seems like it's going to become one of those games mathematicians love and board game players don't love so much... I might have to write a bot and let it play against itself for a while to see what comes out :)

[Kiteman]

You may be right, but I also said that, once one player is eliminated, the other two can take each other (so paper could take scissors).

[RoboTronics21]

Hey i dont understand why the pros at HQ get to enter the contest if they win then they get the prize then wats the use of hosting or is just to make peeps aware that a good project from the pros is there to make and so u put it in the contest so people can see what u guys make?

[Ninzerbean]

I just want everyone to know that I was able to play this deceptively simple game with some very smart kids about a year ago - thanks to Kiteman's letting me print out a prototype version, and it is really quite a challenge to win. Strategy and surprises await!

[Kiteman]

Indeed - have you noticed the changes I made to the rules, thanks to your feedback?

[ChrysN]

Cool! I bet a laser cut wood version would look really nice. (Don't they have one at HQ?)

[Kiteman]

They do, but it's getting a bit tired. I hope to have a stab at something on Monday, but I have a bunch of other, less material, stuff to do as well.

[PotatoCoffee]

Oh, beauty!

[Kiteman]

Thank you.

[PotatoCoffee]

No problem, I'm suprised this hasn't been made before! You should send your degsign to a game company such as Hasbro, you could make money off it!