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Nine boards in one. Your move picks theirs. 1 player or 2 on one phone.
Ultimate XO is tic tac toe with a twist that changes everything. The board is nine small boards inside one big board. Win a small board the usual way - three in a row. Win three small boards in a line, and you win the game. Here is the rule that makes it a strategy game: the square you play in decides which board your opponent must play in next. Play in the top-right square, and they must answer in the top-right board. Every move you make is two decisions at once - where you want to be, and where you are willing to send them. And if you send them to a board that is already won or full, they may play anywhere. Sometimes that is a gift. Sometimes it is the only way out of a trap. WHAT YOU GET - Four opponent levels, from Calm to Hard. Calm is genuinely easy - it is there for your first game, not to punish you. - 2 player mode on the same phone. Pass and play, no accounts, no waiting. - Stats that follow you: games played, games won, your best run. - Free. No purchases. - A hint when you are stuck, and an undo when you misclick. - Board themes and mark sets to unlock: X and O, circles, diamonds, peaks. WHY IT IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS Regular tic tac toe is solved. Two people who know what they are doing draw every single time, and after ten minutes there is nothing left to find. Ultimate tic tac toe is not solved. The redirection rule means a winning square can be the worst move on the board, because of where it sends your opponent next. Sacrificing a small board to control the next three moves is a real strategy, and learning to see it is most of the game. A match runs five to fifteen minutes. It is a thinking game, not a tapping game. HOW A MATCH GOES The opening is wide open - anywhere on the board. By the tenth move you are already choosing between two bad options, because every good square sends your opponent somewhere you do not want them. Around the twentieth move the first small board falls, and the shape of the whole game changes: that board is now a hole, and anyone sent into it plays wherever they like. That is when it stops being tic tac toe and starts being chess-shaped. TWO PLAYERS, ONE PHONE No accounts, no invites, no waiting for someone to take their turn. Hand the phone over and play. It is the same board and the same rules as the single player game, so whatever you learned against the computer works against a person - which is not true of most party games. BUILT FOR PHONES The whole board fits one screen - no zooming, no scrolling, no dragging. Every square is a target, and the gaps between them count as targets too, so a near miss still plays the move you meant. The opponent thinks while the screen keeps moving. No freezing, no waiting on a spinner.