Tic-tac-toe with a twist!
Test your reflexes in a game of tic-tac-toe where time runs out faster and faster after each round! Challenge a friend or fight against a CPU that gets more intelligent with every move!
Instructions
- Move your cursor with the D-pad/arrow keys (E/S/D/F keys for player 2).
- Mark your space with the Z/X keys (A/Q for player 2).
- The faster you make your move, the more points you get. The bar in the bottom of the screen shows how much time you have left.
- In VS CPU mode, the skill of the CPU opponent goes up with every round. The bar in the right side of the screen shows how good the AI has gotten.
- In VS CPU mode, game's over when the CPU wins, or when the time runs out before you made a move.
- In P1 VS P2 mode, game's over when one of the players gets three in a row, or when they fail to make a move before running out of time.
- The higher your score, the better the rank you're awarded!
Fight your way to the S++ or PERFECT-MAX ranks! (is it even possible?)
Graphics
This game is mostly an excuse to explore making cool graphics on the PICO-8. Some of the graphical effects include:
- An arcade-style intro/attract screen.
- Vector graphics for the title screen and game marks (X's and O's).
- A couple of demoscene-like effects as game backdrop.
- A funky text printing routine called "locoprint", used in the game over screen.
Notes
My first PICO-8 game! As many people have already discovered over the years, working on PICO-8 games is extremely rewarding and fun. Making a flashy, 16-bit arcade style title screen was my favorite part. Future improvements include adding a full-on attract mode with built-in tutorial. Sound and graphics seem to be more in sync when playing on a non-browser instance of PICO-8. Let me know what you think!
Despite it being Tic-Tac-Toe, it's actually kind of interesting. You have the opportunity to go first and you have can choose the center.
The game goes until you lose a single round, then your score is tallied. While you may win most rounds eventually you are going to make a mistake and that's when it's game over.
Neat 3D terrain as well. Reminds me of the opening to Disney's Black Hole.
Nicely done, @dansggg. Gold star.
its a real good game i say it should be on Steam or other video game platforms :).
The devs have done the impossible; made tic tac tow actually interesting!
Bumping to announce the 2P version is almost done! It should be a fun addition. I'll update the top post once it's ready.
Also, I'm beginning to notice some slowdowns mid-game even though the performance monitor shows the CPU at less than 60% most of the time. I wonder if it's the garbage collector doing its thing, since I haven't been too careful about allocating new objects (a conscious decision - I wanted to take the functional paradigm to the extreme and see how it turned out).
If anyone reading this has any complaints regarding performance please let me know!
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