Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe

June 18, 2013 8:01 PM

Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe: understand the rules then play it online.

Via via

posted by Foci for Analysis (16 comments total)

When I was in school I invented a version of ultimate tic tac toe that just involved a large grid, the exact size didn't matter except it determined how long the game would be.

You scored a point for every group of three you made on the grid, horizontal, vertical and diagonal, but you could only re-use one X or O in any given direction when making a line.

You had to balance aggressively blocking groups with the fact that your best bet was to try and scatter your squares widely so that you had groups to develop. Kind of a very simplified version of Go actually. I think some friends of mine used it as an exercise for programming AI players.
posted by Grimgrin at 8:15 PM on June 18, 2013

oh wow, this game is incredibly good. I hope they get multiplayer going soon because I feel like getting my toes tic tacked
posted by rebent at 8:24 PM on June 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

("A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.")^2
posted by radwolf76 at 8:25 PM on June 18, 2013

The Tic-Tac-Toe variant we've played the most is Pente (a trade name, itself a variant of Go-Moku), which is basically five-in-a-row on a Go board with captures. This seems like it might be interesting though, I'll introduce it to everyone here soon.
posted by JHarris at 8:30 PM on June 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

Pretty sure there'll be three dozen awfully designed ad supported apps for that in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to proposing to play this game, on paper, with my 10-year-old on our long planeride this coming weekend -- and him rolling his eyes, "tic-tac-toe, dude, really?"
posted by monospace at 8:55 PM on June 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

And WarGames reference in 3 moves. Slow, Metafilter. Slow.
posted by maryr at 9:04 PM on June 18, 2013

I need someone to play this with me!
posted by MoxieProxy at 9:22 PM on June 18, 2013

This must be what Obama plays to warm up for 8-dimensional chess.
posted by spitefulcrow at 10:30 PM on June 18, 2013

I'm under NDA, but I will say that I have been testing a game of this nature by a game studio who has had positive reviews of their previous work. Their version was the first time I've seen the concept, and now I see this. I will say that their version was made, as far as I know, without knowing anything from these sites. Furthermore, I can guarantee that it will not be an "awfully designed ad supported app".
posted by symbioid at 11:34 PM on June 18, 2013 [1 favorite]

The two UTTT versions at the Khan Academy (perfect - not so perfect) will give you someone to play with, but you won't like them because they are winning pretty regularly (also via the same HN-thread).
posted by KMB at 12:39 AM on June 19, 2013

I used to play Super 3 with my sister. This sounds much better. Plus it doesn't matter if you lose the dice
posted by doiheartwentyone at 2:22 AM on June 19, 2013

I just played a game of this with a workmate. He beat me, but it was great! The strategy isn't really clear to either of us, but I think my mistake was to focus too hard on forking at the small-board level. Because you aren't playing in strict alternation on the small grids you might not be able to capitalise on those - it's better to have two in a row just to keep pressure on your opponent. That provides more of a constraint to where they can play on other grids.
posted by wilberforce at 7:13 AM on June 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Neat!

We always played "SOS" as kids, which I guess is sort of a super tic-tac-toe.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:31 AM on June 19, 2013

They'll have to change the name. "Ultimate®" is a registered trademark of --

No, wait . . .

 
posted by Herodios at 7:48 AM on June 19, 2013

That Khan Academy AI is brutal. I've played about 6 games and it's relentless.
posted by yeti at 1:04 PM on June 19, 2013

We used to play a version of this that was Connect Four. You could play with as many people as you like, four or more was best. Everyone had their own board, and every turn you had to put one of your marks in your home board, and one in any other board you chose. You won by getting a normal connect four.

It got intense because you could see that someone would win on their next turn, but if it was still far away, you could pass the buck and assume somebody else would step up and block them. I wish there was a flash or Facebook version of the game, I think it could be pretty fun.
posted by JoeGoblin at 9:32 AM on June 26, 2013