[015] Making Games Every Day for a Month, Day 3 of 31: Fractal-Tac-Toe

"Though you like your ale with ceremony in the drinking-halls, I like better to snatch a drink of water in my palm from a spring. Though you think sweet, yonder in your church, the gentle talk of your students, sweeter I think the splendid talking the wolves make in Glenn mBolcáin. Though you like the fat and meat which are eaten in the drinking-halls, I like better to eat a head of clean water-cress in a place without sorrow." - unknown Irish author, 12th century

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Before we begin, I want to show you the final product of yesterday's project ! After the milk paint dried overnight, I added a layer of walnut oil. Look at how lovely!

Today's game is known by many names: Fractal-Tac-Toe, Hyperdimensional Tic-Tac-Toe, Naughts and Naughts and Crosses and Crosses, and Giant's Toe, to name a few.

The best explanation for this game comes from Ben Orlin's book Math Games with Bad Drawings , which is a wonderful book of curious diversions. He calls this game Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe.

Ben does such a good job explaining the game, I'm going to just show you his description here:

Trust me, this game is exceptionally fun. Everyone knows how to play (and win) Tic-Tac-Toe, and so teaching them this extra level of the game is very easy. But it is very hard to predict how the game will end until the very final moments! I've never played a boring game of Fractal-Tac-Toe.

As you can see here, I (J. Feeeeeeeee) was thoroughly whooped by my friend (G. Webster), even though I thought I was absolutely conquering until the final maneuver.

Obviously, you can play Giant's Toe with just a pen and paper, so I don't really "need" to make an artisinal, organic, handmade version. Similarly, I don't "need" to be drinking a grapefruit soda pop at 10:04 in the morning.

Let's begin. I'm going to cut a linoleum stamp to create a printable Naughts and Naughts and Crosses and Crosses board.

Something I really love about simple games like this is that they could have been invented at any time in history. As we learned yesterday , Tic-Tac-Toe variants have existed for thousands of years. Anyone, at any time, could have picked up a pencil, or a nub of charcoal, or a stick, and sketched a Fractal-Tac-Toe board on a piece of paper / scrap of parchment / roadside mud patch, respectively.

I feel that way about needle felting, too. Needle felting seems like such an old craft but it was only invented in the middle 20th century. Wet-felting, of course, is as old as wool itself. But nobody bothered to cut some notches in a needle until the hippie generation.

It gives me great hope to think that there are so many simple worlds still undiscovered. Simple recipes, simple crafts, simple songs, simple games that anyone can learn and enjoy, waiting just out of reach for thousands of years, ready to be discovered.

What's next? Martian Tic-Tac-Toe ?

Hollowing out these little tic-tac squares is a fiddly challenge, but I am Hephaestus's strongest soldier.

Look at that lovely board! Finished already?? No!!

Everybody knows that the only real point of any game is: TO KNOW WHO WON.

I would really love to do some crazy Celtic knotwork around the border. I got this book on knotwork ages ago and I want to give it a try!

Something I find really interesting about Giant's Toe is that every turn takes away a choice.

I guess the same is true of Tic-Tac-Toe or any other space-filling game, but Fractal-Tac-Toe feels different.

Every time you lay down an X or an O, you send your opponent to another section of the gameboard. It's a miniature set of coordinates, and you are bouncing around the grid constantly.

And every time you get sent from one coordinate to another, that pathway is used up. Every turn, you lose a future choice, until victory or failure is inevitable.

Many other games ebb and flow in the freedom of play during a game. In chess, movement begins very constricted, and then play is much more free in the midgame, and then your choices become limited again in the endgame.

In Fractal-Tac-Toe, the game is continuously constricting. You and your opponent tighten around each other's futures, squeezing their chances, until the final triumphant victory.

Fractal-Tac-Toe is a very dramatically satisfying game. Try it out next time you have a pen and a napkin and a friend.

See you tomorrow for the next game!

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"Personally, I say man's greatest game is 'the floor is lava,' but I get a kick out of encompassing the infinite now and then. I cordially invite you to join me." - Ben Orlin, Math Games with Bad Drawings