Three in a Row

A handful of posts ago, I wrote about how every competitive game can, in part, be traced to Rock Paper Scissors. Recently I found myself locked in combat in a certain game, and it struck me then that I may have failed to acknowledge that game as the other base competitve game patriarch - or matriarch, if you will; Tic Tac Toe.

Tic Tac Toe is, for all intents and purposes, the shittiest excuse for a game this side of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Everyone knows how to play TTT; simply get three of your mark, X or O, in a row on a 3x3 grid, and you win. And as you likely know, Tic Tac Toe has been solved. What this means is, it is possible to ensure a win or draw for yourself, regardless of what your opponent does, starting from the beginning of a game. And if you sat down for ten minutes tops, you too could solve Tic Tac Toe (if you haven't already). If you play first, your best move is any corner square; if your opponent doesn't respond by taking the center, you have won. If you play second, the best you're likely to do is a draw even against unknowing players, so just play to not lose and avoid maximum shame.

Now, TTT is one of the first games you teach your kids; it's not designed to be a competitive game. Still, it's important to note that someone playing TTT for the very first time has zero percent chance of beating someone who has the maximum knowledge of the game, someone who has solved it. The newcomer might luckily or intuitively fight his way to a draw, but that's the best he could hope for. And in games with more complex rulesets, the further away a possible human solving sits, and the more likely it is that the player who is more knowledgable within the system will win.

Tic Tac Toe can be forced by both players into a draw, Connect Four is a guaranteed win for whoever plays first, and Checkers is also technically a game that ends in a draw. Computers are still working to solve games like Chess, Othello, and Go, with some partial success. Computers, however, will never be able to solve Rock Paper Scissors (harrdy harr); bringing in that distinctly human guessing / prediction element. Both knowledge and prediction are integral in successful competitive games; and the most basic examples of those two concepts are easily found in Tic Tac Toe and Rock Paper Scissors.

Rock Paper Scissors: Game Patriarch

Competitive games all boil down to decisions. In essence, Rock Paper Scissors is the Kevin Bacon of competitive games; every game and its decisions can be traced back to good ol' RPS. Take a look at these examples.

First Person Shooter: There is a heavy degree of aim and mobility for success in FPS, but RPS certainly exists. In Unreal Tournament, if I have just a Flak Cannon, you have just a Lightning Gun, and we're looking at each other on opposite sides of the map, guess what, you're rock and I'm scissors. On the other hand, if we're face to face, you're going to be riddled from head to toe with flak. So there is a weapon hierarchy that exists, but it's all based positionally. You don't want to be using the Shock Rifle at close range, but at long and especially mid range, it is one of THE guns to have. Granted, if all I've got is the close range Flak Cannon and you're packing a long ranger at long range, I'm getting the hell out of your line of sight and play that RPS game when it's more convenient for me.

Real Time Strategy: In RTS, you have access to all kinds of units with their own strengths and weaknesses, and it's up to the player to figure out what kind of units he'll need to win the match. For instance, you are playing Terran in Starcraft. If you discover your opponent building lots of air units, you could get to work building Goliaths, which are fantastic ground to air. However, they're pretty terribad ground to ground, and thus your opponent can respond appropriately.

Fighting: As a fighter evolves, a matchup list eventually emerges. A matchup list is a chart which shows you how many wins a character should get against another out of ten. Nowadays, it's rare that the cream of the competitive fighting game crop has 8-2 or worse matchups in their systems, but certainly 6-4s and 7-3s exist. SF4 is a great example of this. Zangief has a lot of 6-4s, but a few characters like Sagat and Blanka are extremely problematic for him (7-3). This is a much softer version of RPS, and in Japan especially players are encouraged to stick with their character from start to finish of a tournament. It's awesome watching a skilled player beat scissors with his paper.

The RPS will always rear itself in any competitive game, one way or another. In sports games; do you know what play I will run? What pitch I will throw? In tactics games; where will I move my characters? What kind of abilities I will use? In the end, it all boils down to determining what your opponents options are, determining what he will do, and countering it appropriately. But more importantly, it's what separates competitive games from one another and makes them more intriguing; the choices you both have access to, the ways you can gather information, and the sick mind games you can pull on your opponents.