I’m currently iterating on an idea that I first drafted during #promptober last year. It’s a game about the monologuing, posturing, and perseverance that characterizes shounen-style duels and duelists. It was one of my favorites to write during the month, partly because the inspiration for it was so fresh in my mind.
Last summer I watched Hunter x Hunter for the first time, following along with the podcast Media Club Plus as my viewing companion (I didn’t catch up to the podcast till after they had finished covering the show). I’m not typically big on shounen battle anime, so it was initially out of fondness for the podcast’s hosts and their commentary that I was prepared to give it a chance.
But then, it turns out, I found myself enjoying Hunter x Hunter quite a bit. Gradually, my notes filled with little game ideas inspired by it, including the one I prototyped in #promptober and that I'm working on now.
A frequent observation on the podcast is how much Yoshihiro Togashi (the creator of the Hunter x Hunter manga) seems to adore games of all kinds. An element that appears often in the anime is the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (Janken by its Japanese name): it's used to settle a one-on-one contest during the Hunter’s Exam, a mentor invokes it later as part of a lesson, and eventually the protagonist develops a technique that’s directly inspired by and named after it.
In many ways, Janken is something like a recurring motif in Hunter x Hunter, but it’s also a lens through which Togashi explores stories about fighting and struggle. Throughout the show, anticipating an opponent’s mental state proves to be a critical part of succeeding in a fight, especially when at a disadvantage in terms of power or experience. The show tends to bounce around between internal monologues, often sharing more of the villains’ inner thoughts than the heroes’ during tense moments. It is, quite straightforwardly, getting in their heads as the heroes try to outsmart them. While there’s plenty of classic power scaling stuff, too, and the line between hero and villain often blurs, Togashi’s understanding of what makes a fight interesting seems to center on the mental sparring, the ability for combatants to understand their enemies and respond proactively.
So, fittingly, my HxH-inspired TTRPG (which I’m calling Janken Duel at the moment) uses a modified version of Rock, Paper, Scissors that’s played with three suits of playing cards: diamonds (defense), clubs (attack), and spades (power up). Defense beats attacks, a well-timed attack beats powering up, and powering up beats needlessly defending. Ties go to whichever card is the highest rank. After each round, players work together to define the fiction: the winner monologues about their success and the loser answers a prompt about renewing their resolve or explaining why they can’t give up the fight just yet.
I hadn’t yet playtested this game when I shared the draft back in October, but in my imagination, the mind games of Rock, Paper, Scissors would ultimately be a vehicle for delivering the story of the fight. They would work mostly as a form of randomization, like rolling a die or drawing a card. Under normal circumstances, the decision between "rock", "paper", and "scissors" is totally arbitrary. Unless your opponent is truly predictable, your best play would be to choose your highest-rank card every time—it has the best odds of winning a tie, and equal odds of winning or losing otherwise. I assumed that what would happen is that each player would either play somewhat randomly, or sincerely play to win at Rock, Paper Scissors. The result of this largely arbitrary game outcome could then be shaped into a story of a dramatic fight scene.
What I didn’t anticipate, though, was that it was very possible to fall into more nuanced tactics than simply playing optimally or choosing at random. If one player is winning too decisively, they might attempt to take a loss and balance the scales. Often, players will take the most in-character choice based on the backstory they’ve established, even though it makes them more predictable. Ultimately, it becomes unclear whether the tactics are shaping the story, the story is shaping the tactics, or both.
What’s fun about this is that it causes the mechanics and the story to bleed into each other and function at every level of the exchange. Whether you’re playing to win above the table, playing to your character’s sensibilities and habits, or trying to even the score and extend the bout, you will inevitably bump into the same mind games that Togashi fixates on when he deploys Rock, Paper, Scissors in Hunter x Hunter. No matter your goal, you still need to try to figure out what your opponent will do. You still need to guess what they think you’ll do. Even if you’re not in your character’s head… you’re still in your own head, trying to get into your opponent’s head. It's mind games all the way down.
I see a lot of wonderful potential for game mechanics that can overlap character motivations with player motivations like this. A more polished example that comes to mind is Caro Asercion’s excellent Last Train to Bremen, which accomplishes something similar (yet distinct!) with the game of Liar’s Dice. For now, Janken Duel still has a lot of fine tuning to be done. But it already feels distinctive and seems capable of going from 0 to Anime Feelings within a snappy 30-40 minute playthrough. If that’s a promise I can keep, I’ll be really proud of how it turns out!