One day, I stumbled across a Sony PlayStation game called Finger Flashing, a Japan-exclusive title released in 1999. Fun fact: you can still find it on eBay in good condition... for a whopping $399.99! O_O Intrigued by its concept, I decided to create a prototype in Adobe Flash (now Adobe Animate), purely out of curiosity.

The original game followed the classic Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic. The player, positioned at the bottom of the screen, automatically walked along a straight road, encountering monsters that resembled mutated hands. To defeat them, the player had to use the correct finger gesture - mutated scissors hands, for example, could be defeated with a 'rock' spell.

In my prototype, I kept the core gameplay but reimagined the enemies and spells. Instead of mutated hands, the enemies were made of Fire, Water, and Ice, and the player could cast matching elemental attacks (e.g., Water beats Fire). If the player used the wrong spell, the results varied: the attack was nullified (a draw), or a new enemy instantly appeared (a loss). To make things more dynamic, I also implemented a chain combo system for players to rack up points with consecutive correct hits.

Fun fact: The player was originally envisioned as an apprentice magician, flying on her broom and casting Fire, Water, or Ice spells. However, since I didn't design the sprite, the large gameplay screen below is cropped before the player becomes visible.