Remixing Tic-Tac-Toe...

 
                

What is Tic-Tac-Toe?

Now everyone knows about the classic game of Tic-Tac-Toe set up on a 3x3 grid and played by people of all ages. The goal of the game is to get 3 of the same symbol – this is whatever symbol is yours (X or O) – in a row, whether vertically, horizontally or diagonally. The game is fairly simple and was initially designed to aid young minds to practice reasoning and problem-solving on a smaller scale. Parents often encourage their children to play Tic-Tac-Toe with each other as a stepping stone to stimulate brain activity. As a result of the simplicity involved in the gameplay, Tic-Tac-Toe is often neglected by adults and not really seen as a fun pastime in their books. This tends to be due to the fact that a certain set of moves can guarantee a tie, or at most a win against an unskilled player. The more you play, the more the simplistic patterns emerge and soon the gameplay gets stagnant and boring. So, being given the task of re-mixing the gameplay of Tic-Tac-Toe to make it more chance-based as well as more skill-based was an interesting task.

The Modification

There are only so many variations of the classic gameplay that can be implemented into a more challenging game with incentive for adults to play. My modification is shaped on making the game more of a luck-based challenge through the introduction of a dice as well as skill-based elements while maintaining the basic game mechanics from the original Tic-Tac-Toe.

My mod is called the Territorial Mod and works on the basis of gaining the most territory on a 10x10 grid. The rules are to follow.

Set Up & Rules

• A 10x10 grid must be drawn out.

•  A dice is rolled to determine who will go first – player with the highest roll goes first.

• On each turn the player rolls the die and performs the corresponding action based on the table below.

Dice Roll	Action Performed
1	Block off an entire patch of the board (vertical or horizontal) to prevent your opponent from progressing.
2	Place 2 symbols vertically anywhere on the board.
3	Place 3 symbols horizontally anywhere on the board.
4	Place 4 symbols vertically anywhere on the board.
5	Place 5 symbols horizontally anywhere on the board.
6	Place 6 symbols diagonally anywhere on the board.

• If there isn’t sufficient space for you to move the required number of spaces, you must forfeit your turn.

• The symbol for a block is a 2-headed arrow placed across the spaces it is blocking.

•  A block may be as small as one space or as big as 10 spaces.

• A vertical block is skipped over when progressing horizontally and a horizontal block is skipped over when progressing vertically.

• When a block is being skipped over (refer to previous condition), the player must no place a symbol on the blocked space but on the empty space following the block in the same direction.

• On any given turn your symbols must form a straight line.

• The game ends when players reach a stale-mate (no dice roll will help either player progress) or when players decide to draw. This may happen when 5 or less spaces are randomly scattered throughout the board, or when 3 dice rolls in turn have yielded nothing for either player.

• The winner is the player with the majority of their symbols on the board.

Game Overview

A typical game of Tic-Tac-Toe with my Territorial Mod can take anywhere from 5 – 7 minutes, but no more than that. The game manages to make things more challenging and interactive as the majority of the game is now luck-based. If you roll the right numbers on the die, the game can end sooner than expected. The premise of the game is to cleverly block the other player’s progress by reducing the number of spaces they can occupy. This concept largely focuses on territorial acquisition which was the foundation of the modification that came out of hours of thinking the assignment through.

To roll 1 on the die is bittersweet. This stems from the fact that blocking your opponent’s progression in turn blocks your progression if not planned out right. To avoid this occurrence the player must be strategic about his placement of the block. Diagonal placement on the board can be very helpful in terms of obstructing the progress of your opponent as well as covering as much space as possible on the board at any given time. However, this comes with a cost. 6 diagonal spaces to move are hard to find once well into the game, in turn making the roll of a 6 on the die void.

The game ends considerably quick (much like traditional Tic-Tac-Toe) keeping things simple and interesting.

Creative Process & Playtesting

When trying to figure out how to put together a modification for Tic-Tac-Toe, I kept coming back to the same conclusion, it’s such a simple game, what more can you add to make it more fun for adults. I did some research and thought about why I don’t play Tic-Tac-Toe anymore either. The answer was one in the same – it just gets too easy after a certain age. It was said that one step up from Tic-Tac-Toe is Chess which encompasses far more than ordinary game mechanics. I mean the gameplay itself is simple; any child of 8 or older can pick up Chess relatively quickly. Each piece has certain rules and restrictions to movement while the board is the battlefield where it all takes place. The real challenge, then, comes from strategizing a takeover of territory; planning out moves with your pieces in such a manner that the opponent can’t comprehend your game plan which reveals the challenge from which stems the fun of playing a good old game of Chess.

So what I was looking to create was something along the lines between Tic-Tac-Toe and Chess - easy enough for kids to pick up, but strategic enough to challenge adults. The result comes from working with the idea of acquiring territory in a strategic manner.

I spent hours upon hours designing games where rolling a die determines how many spaces you must move or where you can move on a given number of spaces. No combination seemed to work too well. In a lot of my prototypes I had managed to incorporate the aspect of luck using a die, but none of them were effective enough. I toyed with the idea of introducing pieces on a grid and having them move around based on a die roll to form an X or an O instead of simply having 3 symbols in a like to win. I went through a grid set up with a row of X’s and a row of O’s on either side for a game based on advancing across the board to get to the other side. Then I began to break down Tic-Tac-Toe to its bare components and figured out how basic the gameplay was – you either block or progress and you know you’re really good when you can turn a blocking move into a winning move.

I continued to ponder how to implement a blocking mechanic and use progression to hinder your opponent. My dad kept bringing up the idea of segregating the even and odd numbers on the die to alter their influence on your movement. I worked continuously playing around with all the idea in my head and created at least 4 different prototypes based on my latest idea, until I finally got it right and working. I then playtested it with my dad, my sis and a good friend from school, finally deciding that I was happy with the modification the way it turned out.

Conclusion

Remixing Tic-Tac-Toe was harder than I had initially anticipated. My mod began with an idea on a bus to Waterloo and I figured that I was done with my planning there and then. However, it proved to be quite tedious when I began playtesting and working out the bugs and kinks of my design. The result was a completely revamped game of Tic-Tac-Toe with similar elements to my original idea that the young and the young at heart would both enjoy if they’re up for a quick game of Tic-Tac-Toe.