A little while back, I was inspired by the game Inscryption to make a single-player card game. My idea was to have a very simple card game that expanded its rules as the game progressed. The first part of that game was going to have only 3 cards, Rock, Paper, and Scissors. It was planned that when you played Rock against Scissors, then you dealt damage to your opponent, if your card beats any other card, you deal damage.

I made a couple of ideas for that first part of the game, but nothing else. So, I decided to make the Rock Paper Scissors part into its full game.

The resulting game is RPS Tournament, a game where you battle different opponents in a grand tournament. It is a puzzle game where you have to figure out each opponent's strategy in order to win.

In normal Rock Paper Scissors, your ability to win is based on mind-games and strategy. If you know your opponent and can guess exactly what they will play, then you have a good chance at winning. However, this game is a single-player game, so I had to think of different ways an opponent would work.

The first part of each opponent is their pattern.
Each opponent has a set amount of moves that they choose from. The rule that I made for myself is that the player must know what move the opponent will do next. Opponents can switch up moves due to order or chance. Opponents that use chance as their pattern always have a visual indicator of their next move. An example of this is Actor Avery having a colored mask that indicates her next move. This ensures that the player will be able to learn to defeat an opponent with time and understanding.

The second part of each opponent is player memory.
Many opponents have actions that are based on your last moves. Some even base their actions on their own last moves. While some characters like Plagiarist Pete act on your last move, others will think 2 moves ago. This makes the player keep track of the history of moves, which makes the game an exercise of memory. Once I added opponents that really utilized player memory, I found the game way more engaging.

Finally, each opponent has character.
When thinking of opponents to add, I thought about not only strategy, but also character. Sometimes character came from the strategy, but often the strategy came from the character. Each character has a distinct personality trait or passion that they bring the game.

For two good examples of this are Pete and Avery.
When I first came up with the mechanic of player memory, I made a strategy that copies your last move. The description of "Plagiarist" felt much more unique than something like Copycat. Once I decided on that, the rest of the character fell into place. On the other hand, I came up with the name "Actor Avery" when brainstorming for different characters. Then, the idea of an opponent acting as other characters hit me. I think that Actor Avery, the first difficult opponent, is still one of my favorite opponents in the game.

Overall, RPS Tournament was a big success.
It is a straightforward puzzle game that has a lot of charm and solid gameplay. I used a lot of what I learned from making previous games into making something completely new, (seeing as this is my first puzzle game). If you have not tried it already, you can try out RPS Tournament here: 
Rock Paper Scissors Tournament by WumpleDoodle (itch.io)