If tic-tac-toe were as simple as it seems,
why has it been around for over 3,000 years?
This classic game contributes to children’s developmental growth in numerous ways
including their understanding of predictability, problem solving, spatial reasoning,
hand-eye coordination, turn taking, and strategizing. Tic-tac-toe is a simple,
two-player game which, if played optimally by both players, will always result in a tie.
The game is also called noughts and crosses or Xs and Os. Tic-tac-toe is a game that is
traditionally played by being drawn on paper, and it can be played on a computer or
on a variety of media.
History
Games played on three-in-a-row boards can be traced back to ancient Egypt,
where such game boards have been found on roofing tiles dating from around
1300 BCE. An early variation of tic-tac-toe was played in the Roman Empire,
around the first century BC. It was called terni lapilli (three pebbles at a time)
and instead of having any number of pieces, each player only had three, thus they
had to move them around to empty spaces to keep playing. The game's grid markings
have been found chalked all over Rome. Another closely related ancient game is three
men's morris which is also played on a simple grid and requires three pieces in a
row to finish,[8] and Picaria, a game of the Puebloans.The different names of the
game are more recent. The first print reference to "noughts and crosses"
(nought being an alternative word for zero), the British name, appeared in 1858,
in an issue of Notes and Queries. The first print reference to a game called
"tick-tack-toe" occurred in 1884, but referred to "a children's game played
on a slate, consisting in trying with the eyes shut to bring the pencil down
on one of the numbers of a set, the number hit being scored". "Tic-tac-toe"
may also derive from "tick-tack", the name of an old version of backgammon
first described in 1558. The US renaming of "noughts and crosses" as "tic-tac-toe"
occurred in the 20th century.
The computer player could play perfect games of tic-tac-toe against a human opponent.
Example Board