TIC-TAC-TIE
Tic-Tac-Tie takes the world's most familiar game and flips its objective making it a game of strategy and chance (like Blackjack or Poker). Instead of trying to get three in a row, you must force a draw. It's a game of defensive strategy, layered with a betting mechanic that adds tension to every move.
Role
Product Strategy, App Design & Development
Timeline
2025 - Present
Stack
The Premise
When I was first learning how to code, I decided to build a tic-tac-toe game. While I was iterating, I made the AI play randomly, and to make the goal to draw against the computer. I found this surprisingly challenging and fun. I realized, like in Blackjack, this is a game strategy and chance. Unless you deploy the perfect strategy, over time you are very likely to lose more than you draw (win).
Betting Mechanics
I created 2 modes of this game. 1) Standard mode is where the user can try to deploy the optimal strategy to see if they can get close to achieving the optimal drawing percentage (which is counter-intuitive, and just approaches 50%). 2) Points Bet mode where you place a bet every round. This mode incentivizes a different strategy than standard mode. With leaderboards and accomplishment badges, both modes are fully gamified.
The Architecture
This is a full-stack React + Vite application synchronized with a real-time Firestore backend. Global game state is managed by homegrown state management architecture. Google and Firestore services are heavily utilized for authentication, database, storage, app telemetry, and ads.