HN Showcase
Back to browse
Tic-Tac-Toe

Tic-Tac-Toe

by ArneVogel·Feb 25, 2026·2 points·1 comment
Visit ProjectView on HN

AI Analysis

●MidCozy

Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe with bots using Monte Carlo instead of Minimax, but audience is vanishingly small.

Strengths
  • •Monte Carlo bot simulation (random playout evaluation) is a valid workaround for games without chess-like evaluation functions.
  • •Matchmaking and ratings infrastructure suggests production mindset beyond a hobby project.
Weaknesses
  • •Founder-only user base; no evidence of community traction or competitive depth beyond friends-group play.
  • •Game rules themselves are niche; even among board game enthusiasts, Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe adoption is minimal.
Category
Gaming
Target Audience

Casual gamers, Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe enthusiasts

Similar To

Chess.com · Lichess

Post Description

Playing Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe with my friends on pen and paper I wanted wondered if there is a online community like for chess but I didn't find any for multiplay with ratings, or any match making at all.

So here is my try to build a ultimate tic-tac-toe online community.

Since there are basically no players outside of me and my friends I have also added bot support. Something interesting here: the usual Minimax algorithm doesn't work since there is no evaluation function like with chess. The bot simulates X games with random moves and picks the move that wins the most.

Similar Projects

Gaming●●Solid

Adding playable bots to a multiplayer game with OpenClaw

The author replaced brittle LLM scripts with OpenClaw-driven bots that actually compete in a live multiplayer game — not just follow canned heuristics. The demo looks playable and charming, but the project reads like a promising experiment: I'd want to see latency handling, how the bot hooks into the game loop, and quantitative match performance before calling this a breakthrough.

Niche GemShip It
petersonh
113mo ago