How to Create a New Pencil and Paper Game

Creating a new pencil and paper game is easier if you use an existing game as a starting point. Take for example Tic Tac Toe.

Tic Tac Toe is played on a 3-by-3 grid of squares formed by drawing two horizontal lines across two vertical lines. Two players take turns playing, each drawing a symbol on an empty square on his or her turn. One player draws an 'X', and the other player draws an 'O'. The 'X' player moves first.

The game is won by the first player to get three symbols in a row, called 'tic-tac-toe'. If neither player gets three in a row, the game ends in a draw.

Children play Tic Tac Toe until they discover simple strategies that lead two experienced players to constantly play to a draw. Then they move on to other games.

One of the problems with the standard game of Tic Tac Toe is the existence of a center square through which half of the possible tic-tac-toes can go. Another problem is that the starting player has an unfair first-move advantage.

So take the 3-by-3 grid, and expand it to a 4-by-4 grid. This eliminates the center square.

Then to take some of the first-move advantage away from the 'X' player, play the game on a 4-by-4 grid located somewhere within a 7-by-7 grid. (Draw six horizontal lines over six vertical lines.) The location of the smaller grid is determined by the placement of the 'X's and 'O's by the two players.

The 'X' player starts by drawing an 'X' in the center square of the 7-by-7 grid. Then the 'O' player draws an 'O' in any empty square. The two players continue taking turns drawing symbols, but they must play within a 4-by-4 grid defined by their previous moves.

Neither player can draw a symbol in a square that would make the area in which they are playing more than four squares wide, or more than four squares high. And at the end of the game, the 16 squares in a 4-by-4 grid will be filled.

The players then each look for tic-tac-toes within that 4-by-4 grid. Four symbols in a row count as two tic-tac-toes. The player with the most tic-tac-toes wins the game.

To conserve paper, this game can be converted to a board game played on a checkerboard.

The 'X' player uses the dark checkers and the 'O' player uses the light checkers. The 'X' player starts by placing a dark checker on one of the four squares at the center of the checkerboard. The rest of the rules are the same as the pencil and paper game.

You can change the rules to make variations of the game. You can allow each player to move one of her or his checkers before a turn once during a game. Or you can allow two tic-tac-toes that share a checker to score an extra point. Or you can require that each checker played is adjacent to a previously played checker horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Or the player with the least tic-tac-toes wins the game.

Copyright (c) 2009 - Paul Hoemke. All Rights Reserved.