Tic-Tac-Toe Variation 1 - “Nine-Square” (v 1.1)

A game for two players

Materials: One piece of paper, pencil, one die

Setup:

Create a grid of 3x3 Tic-Tac-Toe boards on a sheet of paper.

Each player rolls the die. The person with the highest number goes first and is the X player. The person with the lowest roll is the O player.

Game Play:

At the beginning of your turn, roll the die. The number on the die indicates how many marks on the grid you must fill in.

You cannot place fewer marks on the grid than the number of number on the die and you cannot place more marks on the grid than the number on the die.

Players can place marks anywhere on the grid. The marks do not have to be on the same Tic-Tac-Toe board but can be placed on multiple Tic-Tac-Toe boards if you have that many marks to make. Players do not have to finish one board before starting on another.

After all a player's marks have been made, that player's turn ends and it becomes the other player's turn.

Players who get three in a row on a Tic-Tac-Toe board get one point.

Players who get three in a row on three Tic-Tac-Toe boards in a row in the same row or diagonal get an additional three points.

Players who completely fill a Tic-Tac-Toe board get no extra points; however, completely filling a board is worth 8 points (three horizontal rows, three vertical rows, two diagonals).

After the board has been completely filled, the player with the highest number of points is the winner.

Players may also declare the game finished and tally up the points if it is impossible for either player to either complete another row or prevent the other player from completing a row.