Here it is... the largest creative project I've ever worked on, period. A 101-gesture version of Rock-Paper-Scissors. It is a game so complex, I highly doubt anyone will actually even want to attempt to play it. It's not just remembering what beats what, but remembering how to actually say all 5,050 outcomes is something only a savant could manage.

Friends, this game has taken me, on and off, almost a whole year to develop, and to be honest, I don't know where the drive to do it originated. It's a fun, almost comforting process, and to analyze the "why" of it any further would be to analyze the nature of insanity, which seems almost as pointless as this game.

With 101 different throws to design, I quickly realized I would need to incorporate many two-handed gestures. Some of these gestures might involve movement as well, which, online, is shown in the form of an animation. I also had to reverse one of the 300 outcomes of RPS-25 in order to get this game to work properly: Wolf and Nuke have been switched! It pained me to do it, but I take heart in knowing that Wolf no longer beats Nuke with an outcome as sketchy-sounding as "Wolf-2 Launches Nuke." Let's face it... Nuke Incinerates Wolf makes a hell of a lot more sense and is thus easier to remember, so I don't mind the switch and hopefully neither does anyone else.

WAYS TO PLAY RPS-101:

1) GET THE POSTER AND BOOKLET. UPDATE 12/16/2016: Due to an error on behalf of CafePress, the RPS-101 poster and booklet are no longer available.

2) PLAY IT ONLINE UPDATE 2/10/2022: This was originally a Flash-based chart that I can't believe took me this long to get rid of. Now however, there's a handy, simple version coded in Python by Adam Clement, an I.T. Leader at Exeter College! It was done as a fun way to educate his students, and is offered online free of advertisements. Enjoy!

3) JUST SEE THE GESTURES & OUTCOMES. If you want to coast through the individual gestures, I set up 101 separate pages for each one. On these pages are the gesture's fifty dominant outcomes, with links to all other relevant gestures! This part took forever to set up... check it out by starting with gesture #1, Dynamite!

4) PRINT OUT THE OUTCOMES. This link takes you to a printer-friendly HTML page similar to the pages in the last option, but with all 5,050 outcomes in one huge document! Printing this out could take a while! This option will allow you to use the interactive chart on your monitor in conjunction with a hard copy of the outcomes.

Copyright © 2006, 2009 David C. Lovelace