The primary aim of this project was to create a Tic-Tac-Toe game that can't be beaten. I enjoyed breaking the game down into a system and I was interested in solving games anyway as someone who enjoys some chess from time to time. Not that we are likely to ever solve chess with how many different game boards are possible!
I opted to think about the game's symmetry to eliminate large groups of the initally many different permutations of the game. On top of that, having the computer play optimally eliminates many more potential paths, so it isn't as daunting a task as it seems from the outset.
I've come to the conclusion that I succeeded in making the game unbeatable by creating a function that selects random moves on behalf of the player and records the result of the game. I then ran this function in a loop, which in the end ran as many as a million at a time with no losses. This testing was quite taxing for my poor old computer! I have also been unable to beat it the old fashioned way, playing against it myself. This testing was only slightly taxing for my poor old brain.
I also seized the opportunity to get a bit creative with icons, firing up the lowly Microsoft Paint to create a few fun variations of the classic noughts and crosses along with the opportunity to choose your colour. A fun project.
