US-born Wellington designer Allison Jochim saw a person in a rock, paper, scissors (RPS) t-shirt and had a flash of inspiration.
“I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be a better idea to have three t-shirts, so you could fight each other?’” she says.
From what seemed a fun little project, The Great Rock Paper Scissors Battle was born. On March 5, 100 fluorescent yellow t-shirts printed with weapons of choice will roam the streets of Wellington’s CBD battling for points and prizes. There are 33 of each t-shirt, which can be bought online, and every player starts with ten points displayed on their t-shirt as badges. The game’s based on the classic hand game, so if, for example, a rock-wearer encounters a scissors-wearer, the rock automatically wins a point, stealing a badge from the loser.
Participants get to choose their weapon of choice, but one unknowing t-shirt buyer will be allocated the wild card, aka the ‘Double Shocker’.
“We were taking photographs of hands for the t-shirt, and when we asked our model Jeremy to do ‘scissors’ he did the ‘double shocker’ instead. I asked ‘what is that?’ I could tell by how they looked at me that I was being totally naïve,” she says.
We’ll let you do your own Google search on ‘double shocker’, but in the RPS battle it’s a glow-in-the-dark shirt that automatically wins every battle, if the wearer can catch you.
“If the double shocker tags more than half the contestants, he takes all the prizes,” says Jochim.
There’s zones where you can win bonus points automatically just for going there at certain times (but where the Double Shocker will certainly lurk) and if you find Jochim herself and win a battle – you can double up your points. The game starts at 12am, and finishes at 10pm for the prize giving.
Get your t-shirt from rpsbattle.com before February 25 to join in the fun.