Mike Macgirvin
Diary and Other Rantings
Beyond Silicon Valley
   
Wednesday, Jul 09 2008, 12:51 pm
Jan 23, 2007
3d tic-tac-toe

I've been playing a bit with creating a 3d tic-tac-toe game for the website. Turns out that it wasn't horrendously difficult to program, but I forgot how easy it is to win. There are a variety of popular handicaps. A popular one is to remove/disable the center square on the second level. This makes it marginally more difficult to win easily. Another popular tweak is to turn it into four-square (4X4X4) which also removes the center spot advantage. I haven't yet decided which tweak to go with, or figure out if I can balance the odds even further. 

You can try it out at here, but be advised that I've still got a lot of work to do, and it still has some bugs.  

Comments:

January 23, 2007 12:28
MichaelAnn
At the risk of sounding like a "greenie" I have never played 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe...cool!

January 23, 2007 12:30
MichaelAnn
p.s. If "buggy" means the user can still win... I guess it is buggy then :)

mike (Mike Macgirvin)
January 24, 2007 04:47
[*TOP MEMBER*] mike

As of this morning you can still win without thinking too hard - but I just made it a bit more challenging. The computer player will now nab the center spot if it's available (though you still have the first move). There is also a 'handicap' mode that removes the center spot from the game.

The computer player is still pretty dumb. It's mostly playing a defensive game, and isn't really doing any strategic planning.  


mike (Mike Macgirvin)
January 24, 2007 14:39
[*TOP MEMBER*] mike

'The computer player is still pretty dumb. It's mostly playing a defensive game, and isn't really doing any strategic planning.'

...Yet. I've figured out some really killer 3d-t-t-t strategies. Now I just have to translate them into something that can be parsed by a machine.


mike (Mike Macgirvin)
January 25, 2007 12:33
[*TOP MEMBER*] mike
OK- that has been done. The computer player now has some strategy to work with and is a bit more difficult to beat. 

January 29, 2007 06:11
MichaelAnn
I can't beat it anymore without the handicap :)

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