Daniel Solis

You've heard me discuss this whole notion of " Gamer's Tic Tac Toe " all last week. Of course, my first impulse was to find some way I could make a commercial product out of this idea. That's just where my head's at this year, since it's kinda how I pay the bills now. But... If this were to be true to its roots, it would be a game that could be played with nothing more than pen and paper. So, here's a bizarro remix of Tic Tac Toe incorporating area control, set collection, and even a little worker placement, all with nothing more than paper and two writing implements. Tyc OVERVIEW OF PLAY This game takes basic Tic Tac Toe and adds several eurogame advancements to make it less predictable. Players take turns drawing A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, or I. The color of the letter indicates who drew that mark. Players guide each other’s moves and constrain their opportunities to score. While there are points to be earned from traditional Tic Tac Toe strat...

Picking up on yesterday's thoughts about converting classic games to something gamers might enjoy, let's talk about the one game possibly more dismissed than roll-and-move: Tic Tac Toe. It's a solved game, as any fans of Matthew Broderick movies will know. The only way to win is to not play. Then I recently learned about Ultimate Tic Tac Toe . It's played on a 3x3 grid, with each cell containing a standard 3x3 tic tac toe board. On your turn, you place your mark on one of the tiny boards, which in turn forces the next player to make their mark on the corresponding big board. Whoever wins a tiny board lays claim to that entire cell. If you're forced to play on a cell that is already won, you can play in any cell. If you claim three cells in a row, you win! You can see why this is also called "Inception Tic Tac Toe." Alas, like regular TTT, UTTT has been sort of solved . There are optimal moves that will eventually lead to a tie. The trick with any ...