Explore Quantum Mechanic properties such as superposition and entanglement with this upgraded version of the classic game "Tic Tac Toe". The rules are a little complex, but give it a try. Im sure youll love it.
**NOTE** This game is not finished. I am a high school student doing this as a side project. If you have any suggestions or crash reports, feel free to email me at [email protected]
Rules (also found in game):
“Classic Piece”: Large X or large O with no subscript. These are unmoving and final. Getting three in a row is a win.
“Spooky Mark”: Small X or O with a subscript. These appear in pairs of two and connect boxes together.
The objective of the game is to place three “classic pieces” in a row, just like Regular tic tac toe.
On each move, the current player marks two squares on the board with their letter (X or O). A subscript that denotes the number of the move (beginning counting with 1) will be added to the bottom of the letter. This letter/subscript combination is called a spooky mark. Because X always moves first, the subscripts on X are always odd and the subscripts on O are always even.
For example, player 1s first move might be to place "X1" in both the upper left and lower right squares. The two squares thus marked are called “entangled squares”. During the game, there may be as many as eight spooky marks in a single square (if the square is entangled with all eight other squares).
Things get interesting when a cyclic entanglement occurs. A cyclic entanglement is when a series of squares are connected by their entanglements in a loop; for example, if
• Player X places X1 in Box1 and Box 4, and
• Player X places X3 in Box 4 and Box 8, and
• Player O places O6 in Box 8 and Box 1
These three squares form a loop. Once a loop is made, the boxes with the last connection made will be colored red, all related connections will be colored orange, and then the player who did not place the last connection gets to decide how the boxes collapse. A related connection is any box that will be affected by the loop collapsing. For example,
• Player X places X1 in Box 2 and Box 5, and
• Player X places X3 in Box 2 and Box 3, and
• Player O places O4 in Box 3 and Box 2
Box 2 and 3 are now in a loop and Box 5 is a related connection.
A collapse is made when the player selects which way he/she would like the loop to resolve. There are only two options, and selecting one of the red Boxes decides which option will occur. By selecting the red box, the spooky mark of the last connection becomes dominant in that box, becoming a large ‘classic piece”. This is called a collapse. A Classic piece cannot share a box with a spooky mark, so it forces all spooky marks connected to it to collapse, thereby becoming dominant in their other box. This chain reaction will force all related boxes to collapse until only unrelated spooky marks are left. The game ends with one player getting three classic pieces in a row. By the nature of the games, it is possible for both players to get three in a row at the same time. If that happens, whichever player has a three in a row with the lowest average subscript wins. For example if player X has X3, X5, and X1 (an average of (3+5+1)/3 = 4.5) in a row, and player O has O2, O6, and O4 in a row (an average of (2+6+4)/3 = 6) in a row, player X wins because 4.5 < 6.