Pencil and Paper Games
Tic-Tac-Toe
At it's heart, Tic-Tac-Toe is a very simple two player game. Many variations have sprung up, however, that can breath new life into this old game. First, lets take a look at the basic version. Start by drawing the playing board on a piece of paper like this:
Now, the first player puts an X in one of the squares. Then the second player puts a O in one of the squares. Players keep alternating like this until one player has 3 X's or O's in a row, either horizontal, vertical or diagonal. If the entire board is filled without either player getting a row, the game is a tie. Here is an example play:
| In this example, the O's have won by getting three O's in a row on the top. When you get three of your letters in a row, denote the victory by drawing a line through the three letters, as in the example above. |
As I mentioned before, there are many variations on this game. You will find that quite quickly every Tic-Tac-Toe game will end in a tie. Here is a variation that will provide hours of entertainment: add two vertical and two horizontal lines to the board. Otherwise, play the game as usual. So the board should look like this:
You can keep adding as many lines as you wish, but at some point you will want to start playing for 4 letters in a row instead of 3.