Noughts and Crosses Extreme

[davidn]

Yes, quite. Of all the games to make "extreme", I think that Noughts and Crosses would be fairly near the bottom of my mental list, just behind Diplomacy and hopscotch.

But this attempt at it in the MMF Flash runtime by Achronism Studios has taken an unexpectedly interesting approach. The game starts off as you would reasonably expect, with the traditional placement of Xs and Os against the computer - but instead of the game stopping in the inevitable draw when the board fills, another set of squares is added around the existing board and the game continues. The gradual addition of space changes the game a surprising amount, with the need to plan ahead to squares that are about to become available, and I actually felt quite determined to beat my silicon opponent during the board's later tricks.

Part of that was because I was also rather impressed with the AI - I definitely felt like I was competing against something that knew what it was doing rather than a computer taking stabs at random, and it seemed to handle the whole aspect of forward planning rather decently.

Noughts and Crosses Extreme (honestly)

Comments

[kjorteo]

Noughts and... what?

Wikipedia: "Tic-tac-toe, also spelled tick tack toe, or noughts and crosses as it is known in the UK...."

Oh, okay.

[davidn]

It's a very literal name! Really, what other game could it have been?

We call backgammon "Flat round things that nobody really knows what to do with", as well.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

That was remarkable! It takes me back to the days of old Mac shareware, when new ideas were actually something you could count on finding, in simple games with polished delivery....

[davidn]

And that's why I love the independent games community! No imposed deadlines or need to conform to ideas that are deemed safe and marketable.

Although it's something of a paradox that while it's often said that commercial games are stuck in the same genres, the commercial online minigames world seems to be stuck in the same games (recalling especially your struggle to convince people to make the lanterns game actually distinct at all from Bejewelled).

[kjorteo]

"...and it seemed to handle the whole aspect of forward planning rather decently."

It once gave up an easily-preventable point for me in the initial 3x3 configuration only to, when when the board expanded to 5x5, instantly find itself with so many forks (one away from getting 3 here and here at the same time, if you block this one it will just take that one) that it scored on the next three turns in a row with absolutely nothing I could do to stop any of them. I think it handles forward planning just fine. Bastard.

I did finally beat it 12-9, though.

[davidn]

Absolutely... the first time through, it has the advantage of knowing what's going to happen before you do, I think! It seems that in this variation, the best thing you can possibly do is not play the middle square.