602 GT 0001 - Tic Tac... Go?

As mentioned yesterday, Kevin and I did our first Game Testing session. Kevin is working on many different coding projects at the moment, and one of them required a simple version of Tic-Tac-Toe. We spent some time trying to come up with an interesting alternative to its rules.

We first did some testing of the game, and discussion about the obvious issue of ties that happen often when playing the game. After discussing dozens of aspects of the design, it became clear that Tic-Tac-Toe’s simplicity is also it’s downfall. The board size (9 space grid), and the alternating turns pretty much means that strategic decisions are limited beyond the obvious.

It also was quickly clear that essentially the first player to get two in a row was on offense, and causing the other player to be forced into a defensive position. Being forced into doing something by the nature of the game design isn’t very good design (nobody said TTT was well designed though, just a simple/fun distraction).

We went on to play with interesting variations that included expanding the board slightly, or requiring the players to make specific patterns or orders on the board. These didn’t really pan out.

All said and done, we didn’t come up with a solid alternative. Although, [later that week] Kevin did mention an interesting alternative where you play TTT with the tiles facing down, including an aspect of memory into the design. I like this.

[ Today I Was Playing: nothing… ]

#classic-game, #game-revision, #game-testing