nesdev.com

No, that's not a type on the title...I changed the 5th character to avoid any potential legal issues.

Anyway, here's my second submission. Programmed, beginning to end, in one week. I only spent a few hours on the music...which can be changed, if it makes it onto the multicart.

Controls: Left: Rock
Up: Paper
Right: Scissors
B: Lizard
A: Sbock
Start: Begin the Round

Options: 1 or 2 player
Classic Rock Paper Scissors or...
Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Sbock

Also note. The computer AI is not exactly random. I thought it would be boring if there were literally no way to guess the computer's next move. I don't want to give too much away, but I can guess the computer's next move occasionally...maybe 25% of the time.

(ROM removed, see next page for latest)

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

Some screen shots...

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

It seems to be susceptible to my "always bet on Lizard" strategy.

Lizard. Ha. I get it.

The AI isn't smart. It's very dumb. I didn't have time to put much into it.

Incidentally. On Big Bang Theory... everyone always started by playing 'Spock'. Also, Bart Simpson always plays 'Rock'. "Good old Rock. Nothing beats it."

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

A long defunct click adventure work in progress had you face a rock paper scissors guardbot you had to beat a number of times in a row to gain entry. It used a rotary sequence. If you figured out the length of the sequence, you could 'cheat' (that was really the intended solution), but it also had a trick up its sleeve the next time you would face it: if you had won all rounds up until the last, it would also 'cheat' by resetting its sequence to frame 0.

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http://www.frankengraphics.com - personal NES blog

Oh yeah!!
An "olympic" sport with an added bonus!!
Power to you!!

Maybe you can try what was done for Henny from a 2001 RPS bot compo, which basically is "randomly choose a past opponent move and play to beat it, unless it's the first move then choose random". It's dumb, but not dumb enough to fall for the "always play X" strategies.

For the Lizard Sbock variant you might try "Randomly choose 2 past opponent moves, and play to beat both".

I was going to rewrite the AI...but after coming in next to last...I'm thinking it it probably needs a total redo... or more likely (with my schedule), sweep it under the rug and move on with my life.

Agreed?

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

Ok, well, there was a week left in the competition, and I wanted to do 2 entries. For some reason, I thought it would give me an advantage if I did a second entry. Of the 10 ideas I had, only this and a mini-piano simulator could be done in a week, and I thought this would be more fun.

So, you get how Rock Paper Scissors works. Right? You try to guess what your opponent will choose and you choose the option that will defeat that move...but, people who play this game competitively tend to follow set patterns. Guessing those patterns is fairly easy, making the game tend to have lots of 'ties'...thus, not so fun. (according to someone, about 60-70% of each throw ended in a tie)

By adding 2 more choices, only 20% of the throws end in a tie, and with 5 choices, it is much more difficult to guess what you opponent will choose next. Making it more interesting.

Anyway, I thought people might have fun trying to guess what the computer was going to do next. There are hidden patterns.

It was also featured in 'Big Bang Theory'...and I thought, would appeal to fans of that show. I see about a dozen 40 apps in the app store of this game, so...it seemed like people were interested.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

The fun of rock paper scissors can come from the natural tendency of humans to repeat patterns and the ease of seeing such patterns on opponent's behaviour. A typical human-vs-human rock paper scissor rapidly make you think "I know that he will want to go paper next, I should play scissors, but he's possibly aware of that I may play paper or rock to be sure ..." And that's good, for some lecture: David Sirlin theorized a lot on that.

With more options patterns become harder to see and control, we tend to just throw guesses as "random" without thinking too much. This explain the low numbers of ties, but it rapidly becomes as fun as rolling a dice. It could still be fun against an human based of emotions/reactions, but is rapidly boring against a computer that we naturally suspect to be completely random. Against that suspicion of random, maybe a difficulty level could be something great with easiest using super simple patterns, hardest being practically random.

An other point that can help your game is another background. That's personal, but the full black all the time do not help me not to sleep.

Anyway, for the good points, the game enjoyed me from the begining: seeing the title made me smile (I was not aware that the game existed prior to that.) And I loved the descriptions of action shown at the bottom "paper disproves Sbock" was excellent!

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Super Tilt Bro.: https://sgadrat.itch.io/super-tilt-bro

I noticed you left A560-BFFF,C860-FFF9 unused. Would it be hard to rebuild the ROM as NROM-128 so that another game can fill the other 16K in the bank?

That one took me 5 minutes. NROM 128. (note, I might make changes, if time allows).

EDIT: also, I wouldn't be offended if you left this one off the cart, as it apparently was unpopular, and I only spent a week on it.

(ROM removed, see next page for latest)

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

I spent an hour trying to write a new theme song...this is what I ended up with. Is there any talented Famitracker musician here who can make this not so 'dark', maybe more 'fun'.

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nesdoug.com -- blog/tutorial on programming for the NES

I wouldn't dare to call myself "talented", but a few things that might help:

- Rewrite in major (or lydian or mixolydian) instead of minor
- Retime into some other time signature other than 4/4
- Make it a little faster
- Swing the 8th notes
- Add grace notes
- Outline chords instead of using arpeggios
- Consider more use of pizzicato; don't be afraid to have brief moments of silence

If you always do spock you will get even more dramatic wins every time.