Had a nice night at Mark's art preview last night. I miss painting. I miss visual art and artists. My life feels like a treadmill of hope and isolation at times, but I am creating something with my treadmill.
Today's creation is an idea for a 'sequel' of sorts to the simple game of Noughts and Crosses, known as Tic-Tac-Toe in the US. This thought was probably inspired by my mural, and my recent work on games. How it plays I don't know, but here is an outline of Tic-Tac-Two:
As in the normal game, the game is played on a 3x3 grid. Players choose X or O as their side, and the aim of the game is to make a line of 3 symbols either or orthogonally or diagonally.
The game would be best played with tiles (perhaps with X on one side and O on the other) rather than pencil and paper, as the grid is more dynamic.
Players take turns, but this time a 6-sided dice is rolled first. The sides determine the player actions and are as follows:
1. Place. The player must place their symbol in an empty space on the grid. This is the normal play for the classic game.
2. Move. The player can move any existing symbol on the grid to an adjacent square (orthogonally or diagonally). The symbol moved can be the player's or their opponents. Moving into the same square as another symbol will destroy/subsume it.
3. Remove. The player must remove one symbol (of any sort) from the grid.
4. Flip. The player must swap a symbol for its opposite; an X becomes O, an O becomes X.
5. Skip Turn. The turn is skipped to the other player without action.
6. Change Side. The players swap sides, the X player now becomes O, and the O player now becomes X.
For these actions, if a play is not possible (eg. if the grid is empty on a Move, Remove, or Flip action, or is full on a Place action) then no action is taken and the turn is skipped. Action must be taken if an action is possible.
Notes:
Rule 6 is the most interesting, as it could upset any strategy and would require some empathy with the opponent (if it's disruptive, this roll could be Roll Again instead). The game may play better on a larger grid for reasons of strategy; 4x4, 5x5, or larger. It could also either win with a longer line (line-of-4 or line-of-5) or use shorter lines, eg. 3, which score points rather than end the game. Play could continue until the entire grid was full. It could also be used for 3, 4, or more players, with some rules to govern the symbol-flip and change-side rolls (a second die-roll could indicate the destination symbols perhaps).
I thought last night that this might make for a fun game called Battle of the Sexes where the male and female symbols were used. It would make the Change Side roll particularly amusing, if not overtly topical.
