Make your choice
| Tap your throw | Choose one of the five options. |
| Mode | Play the computer or pass the device to a friend. |
| Reset | Clear the running score. |
Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock adds two extra throws to the classic and, in doing so, fixes its biggest flaw. With three options you draw a third of the time; with five you draw only a fifth. Every throw beats two others and loses to two others, which makes the whole thing neatly symmetrical.
The variant was invented by Sam Kass before The Big Bang Theory popularised it, and it is genuinely better designed than the original. The rules sound absurd until you notice the elegant structure underneath: five options in a perfect cycle, each with exactly two victories and two defeats.
Learn the two things each throw beats. Rock crushes scissors and lizard; paper covers rock and disproves Spock; scissors cut paper and decapitate lizard; lizard eats paper and poisons Spock; Spock smashes scissors and vaporises rock. Once that clicks, the game is much faster.
Notice that draws are rarer here. With five options you only tie a fifth of the time, so rounds resolve more often and matches move faster than in the three-throw version.
Watch for human patterns against a person. As in the original, people are poor at being random and tend to avoid repeating a throw, which makes their next choice partly predictable.
Spock and lizard are chosen less often by casual players, simply because they are less familiar. That makes throws which beat them slightly less useful and throws they beat slightly more so, at least until your opponent adapts.
Each throw beats exactly two others: rock beats scissors and lizard, paper beats rock and Spock, scissors beat paper and lizard, lizard beats paper and Spock, and Spock beats scissors and rock.
To reduce draws. With three options you tie a third of the time; with five it drops to a fifth.
Sam Kass, some years before a television sitcom made it famous.
Yes, passing the device between turns so each choice stays private.
No. Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock runs entirely inside this page, so it starts the moment the page opens. There is nothing to download, no plugin, and no account to create.