A sequel to Rock Paper Scissors, colloquially known as Rock Paper Scissors 2, has taken the world by storm thanks to its surprise arrival online.
Long-awaited sequels in the world of gaming are nothing new. For years, fans have been waiting for follow-ups to popular series like Animal Crossing to no avail.
One such game that has not been eagerly awaiting any sort of evolution or revolution though is the schoolhouse classic, Rock Paper Scissors, but that has not stopped someone from giving it the sequel treatment.
What Is Rock Paper Scissors 2 and How To Play?
A new viral game is gaining popularity online, giving people the Rock Paper Scissors sequel they never knew they wanted.
What Beats Rock, or as some are calling it, Rock Paper Scissors 2, is a browser-based online game putting a new spin on the classic rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, paper beats rock action the game is known for.
Available now on whatbeatsrock.com, this time waster sees the player inputting whatever they can think of to take on rock and seeing it wins.
From there, if whatever was chosen beats rock, the player gets to decide what they think will beat the previous winner.
That cycle continues with the player devising winning matchups until whatever they input cannot "beat" their last fearless competitor.
With each successive win, the player builds up a combo counter, with the goal being to get the score as high as possible.
While it may seem simple at first, the game's complexity quickly presents itself with it getting harder to harder to think of stronger items to put up against whatever was thought of last.
The online game seems to be the product of programmers @dragon_khoi and @qualiaspace, who developed the software as a way to work on AI decision-making.
Will New Versions of Rock Paper Scissors 2 Be Released?
At the time of writing, What Beats Rock (Rock Paper Scissors 2) is listed on its site as v1, meaning there could be more versions of the program to come somewhere down the line.
No release information on any future versions has been made public, but many have wondered if there are ways for the game's two creators to mix up the fun should it continue to stay at the heightened popularity it is enjoying at launch.
One way the game will likely not change is in the list of prompts it keeps in its memory banks.
In the official Discord for the game, creator Khoi was asked if names like Chara from the hit game Undertale could be put into the game in the same way new characters appear in titles like Fortnite (read more about potential Fortnite crossovers here).
In response to this question, the Rock Paper Scissors 2 creator admitted that they cannot add updates to the game as "it's all determined by an Al trained on the internet," meaning if the program does not recognize a prompt, there is nothing they can do about it:
Q: "If you read this please add what Asriel drimmurr beat Chara(he is god chara is human) and they from"
Khoi: "we sadly cant add stuff to the game, it's all determined by an Al trained on the internet so if it doesnt know it then sorry"
What Beats Rock is available online now.
