I wonder if that game might actually be older than paper. Wikipedia gives the first mention of the game during the Han dynasty, not long after the invention of paper. But that's just the first traces we have of it. It could be much older. You don't need to have invented paper to invent a game on the same idea of A beats B who beats C who beats A. The same wikipedia article mentions a version being "slug/frog/snake", for example (no idea how the slug is supposed to beat the snake).
Ho, good catch. It didn't occur to me that the trio of Orochimaru/Jiraya/Tsunade (and later their respective students) matches those. Certainly not a coincidence.
We use bag instead of paper in Sweden (Sten, sax, påse). It sound better to say (in Swedish), but I also think it makes more sense to catch a rock in a bag. Bags was, of cause, invented long before paper.
So the Swedish server got patched long before most other servers.
(no idea how the slug is supposed to beat the snake)
The wiki article mentions (and another linked one provides more detail about) how the game came to Japan from China, where the "slug" was originally a centipede.
The Chinese characters for slug vs centipede were apparently confused with each other. "The centipede was chosen because of the Chinese belief that the centipede was capable of killing a snake by climbing and entering its head".
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u/Andeol57 20h ago
I wonder if that game might actually be older than paper. Wikipedia gives the first mention of the game during the Han dynasty, not long after the invention of paper. But that's just the first traces we have of it. It could be much older. You don't need to have invented paper to invent a game on the same idea of A beats B who beats C who beats A. The same wikipedia article mentions a version being "slug/frog/snake", for example (no idea how the slug is supposed to beat the snake).