About TicTacWhat

What is TicTacWhat?

TicTacWhat is a full-featured tic-tac-toe platform where you can play against friends or an AI opponent — with a twist. Beyond classic tic-tac-toe, the game offers three alternative modes that inject randomness, mystery, and chaos into every match. No two games play the same way twice.

Game Modes

🎯 Normal

Classic tic-tac-toe. X goes first, players alternate turns. First to get three in a row wins. A full board with no winner is a draw. Perfect for a quick, clean match.

💥 Chaos Mode

After each turn, the server randomly decides whether the next player gets skipped. Skips can chain — both players might get skipped multiple times in a row. You'll see a notification when skips happen, and the total skip counts per player are tracked throughout the game.

• Mild: 25% chance of a skip after each turn
• Moderate: 50% chance of a skip after each turn
• Mayhem: 80% chance — complete bedlam

Skip totals for each player are shown at the end of the game.

🗡️ Betrayal

Before the game starts, a number of squares are secretly chosen as betrayal squares. You won't know which ones they are. If you place your piece on a betrayal square, your piece is immediately swapped to your opponent's symbol — turning your move against you.

Choose how many betrayal squares are hidden on the board:

• Just One: 1 hidden betrayal square
• A Couple: 2 hidden betrayal squares
• Mayhem: 4 hidden betrayal squares

You'll be told how many betrayal squares exist — but not where they are. Move carefully.

🔀 Switcheroo

Before you pick a cell, fate decides your symbol for the turn. If fate swapped you, you'll see a notification — then you choose where to place your opponent's symbol instead of your own. No surprises after the fact; the twist is revealed upfront.

• Mild: 25% chance of being swapped each turn
• Moderate: 50% chance of being swapped each turn
• Mayhem: 80% chance — expect to play your opponent's symbol most turns

Playing with Friends

• Create a profile and search for friends by email address or phone number (exact match required — ask your friend what they registered with)
• Send a friend request; they can accept or decline
• If someone declines your request, they must re-initiate — you can't re-send to them
• Once friends, challenge them to any game mode from the Play screen
• Multiplayer games use live polling — the board updates automatically when your opponent moves
• Pause a game at any time and resume later from your Paused Games list
• View your full game history together from the History page

Playing vs Computer

The AI opponent uses a minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning — it plays optimally in Normal mode and will not make a mistake if one exists. In Chaos, Betrayal, and Switcheroo modes, the same randomness rules apply to the AI as to you. Even a perfect strategy can be undone by a betrayal square or a well-timed skip.

The AI always plays as O. X always goes first.

Game History

Every completed game is saved to your history. You can view all your games, or filter by a specific friend. The history shows:

• The final board state with the winning line highlighted in green
• In Chaos Mode: how many times each player was skipped
• In Betrayal and Switcheroo: the move log annotates every swap so you can see exactly where fate intervened

Accounts & Profiles

• Usernames are at least 5 characters by default — shorter usernames are available via admin-generated invite codes
• Set your first and last name, email address, phone number (with international country code selection), and a profile picture (up to 5 MB)
• Phone numbers are stored in E.164 format internally — enter yours in whatever format you're comfortable with and the app normalizes it
• Your email and phone are used for friend discovery — they're how other players find you

Playing as a Guest

No account needed to play vs the computer — just jump in and try the modes. Guest games are not saved to any history and you can't challenge friends without an account.