Janken Battle

Janken Battle: Paper beats Rock!

I recently released a novelty iPhone game to the App Store: Janken Battle.  It is a networked Rock Paper Scissors simulator. You connect to an opponent, either nearby with Bluetooth, or anywhere in the world by Game Center matchup. To play, simply shake the device 3 times, like the kids do in real life. The game handles the rest!  On the 3rd shake, a result is chosen for you and matched against your opponent's result to determine the winner.  The game keeps track of scoring until the end of 3 to 9 rounds.


The result (rock, paper or scissors) is chosen randomly, with equal waiting for the 3 choices by default as you would expect.  However, an option for "advanced" users (if you could call them that) allows you to change the percentages, skewing the result towards your preferred choice.  Or, select a result outright by swinging the percentage to 100% for that choice, leaving the others at 0%.

Janken Battle: Strategy control

This release of the game is really a prototype of an idea I had and a good excuse to play around with and learn the iOS Game Center & GameKit APIs. One of my goals is to see how many modern game features and technologies I can fit into a Rock Paper Scissors game!  It already has:



• Bluetooth wireless play
• Remote Internet play
• Live in-game voice chat
• Online Leaderboards
• Achievements


The graphics & sound (and let's face it, gameplay) are still fairly basic, just what I could put together to get a release out the door. I have a bunch of interesting ideas in mind which should really enhance the game and novelty factor, assuming I get a chance to implement them.  I will probably push them out incrementally as time permits. 


For now, Janken Battle is free, so no excuses not to grab it for a quick play. I have embedded iAds while I consider options for how best to monetize enhanced versions down the line.