gregowen / meta-tic-tac-toe Goto Github PK

Author: Gregory Owen
Date: 1/3/12

These files create a game of meta tic-tac-toe.
GUI libraries used are available as stdlib.jar at http://introcs.cs.princeton.edu/java/stdlib/

Rules:

Board:
The game board consists of a three-by-three grid of tic-tac-toe boards.

Winning:
The goal of the game is to win three of the tic-tac-toe boards in the same
row, column, or diagonal - a meta tic-tac-toe. Each individual tic-tac-toe
board is won by the usual rules of tic-tac-toe.

Play:
On the first move, a player may place a mark in any of the available slots. 
After the first move, however, players may only make marks in the
tic-tac-toe board whose position in the game board is the same as the
position in the smaller tic-tac-toe board of the previous player's mark.
For example, if the first player were to play in the top left corner of the
center tic-tac-toe board, the second player would have to place his or her
next mark in one of the slots of the top left tic-tac-toe board.
Note that it is perfectly legal (and, in some cases, a good strategy) to
send your opponent to a tic-tac-toe board that has already been won.


UPDATE 1/8/12:

Fixed bug that would stall game:
It is possible for a player to be legally directed to play in a grid that is already full. The first player may play in any grid, leaving 8 open slots in that grid however, there are always 9 slots on the board that will direct a player to play in a given grid. This means that it is always possible for a player to be directed to a full grid.
The game previously did not take this into account, and would not let the player play anywhere, stalling the game indefinitely. Under the new rules, any player directed to a full grid will have their pick of the whole board. This may be too powerful, so another fix may be necessary.