✂️ Rock, Paper, Scissor in the Console

I've been running commands in the browser console more than usual lately and I was thinking last night that it might be fun to write some code that runs a game in there. No webpage, or fancy styling, just JavaScript. So here it is. (I spent more time writing this readme than writing the program, so please don't judge.)

— Jason, September 10, 2021

But Why

I feel like everyone goes through the practice of making a Rock, Paper, Scissors game when they start out programming, and that's who I hope can get something out of this. There's a million ways you could write this game, and here's just one more. Now there's some wacky stuff in here that you'd never do "in real life", but I think this is still a fun toy that brings in some neat tools and concepts with literally zero barrier to entry – You've already got a web browser; here's some code you can run right away.† Once you've played the game (or before!), have a look through and try to follow the paths of the program, and why I might've done things this way or that way, or how you might do them differently.

How to use this

• Open a new tab in your browser
• Open the developer tools panel: View > Developer > Developer Tools (On Chrome)
• Go to the JavaScript console, if it's not already open:
  • Select the 'Console' tab at the top.
  • There's a chance it might be hidden in a see more menu. It looks like this >> in Chrome.
  • You should now see a blank area with a prompt (> ) and your typical blinking text cursor

    > you can type in there|
    

• Paste the contents of game.js in there and hit ENTER†
• "Call" the function that starts the game:
  • Enter this into the JS console:

    playRockPaperScissors();

• Enjoy

⚠️ Note

† In general it's probably not a great idea to paste code into your console unless you know what it does. But there's no funny business in here, I promise!