Super Smash Bros. (series)
Gameplay
The main game mechanic of Smash mirrors a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. How so?
A character has three main options during gameplay, which span from defensive, offensive, or pacifist. These options are also known as shielding, attacking, or grabbing.
Grabbing beats shielding, shielding beats attacking, attacking beats grabbing. This creates a constant push and pull system with your opponent, who may dish out any of these options at any given time. The unique and fast-paced nature of Smash force players to account for minutely unique situations during every second of battle. That is to say, it is usually rare for any two matches to involve the exact same scenarios.
Competitive matches start off with opponents at opposite sides of the stage. A state like this is referred to as "neutral", where neither fighter has any tactical advantage over the other. This neutral can be lost by a fighter, who would then be put into a disadvantage state, wherein their opponent has overwhelming factors that contribute to the loss of the disadvantaged player's player stock.
There are many factors that influence this match state, such as stage position. A player at center stage has more free reign for attacks and can more easily dictate where characters coming from either side end up. Players off-stage have a singular goal of returning back to the stage, and players near the edges of the stage are justified negatively towards the blast zones of the stage.
The character state also contributes towards the match state, as any action has a penalty of some kind. Furthermore, outside of the RPS analogy, any animation will have an unactionable duration period (start/endlag) and a criteria of probable actions which occur after the animation.
"Winning the neutral", which generally means to get your foot in the door in this context, involves attaining an advantage state where a competitor is able to limit the actions of their opponent to unfavourable scenarios. Factors that change the tide of battle to favour a competitor can include the positions of fighters on the map, and whether or not they are vulnerable to being attacked.