9 Best Games like Tic Tac Toe You’ll Love! [2024]

Games like Tic Tac Toe: Are you one among us who has spent your childhood winning and losing in the famous tic-tac-toe game? If that is actually the case, don’t you think it is time for you to step out of your borders and try something different and more fun games like tic-tac-toe?

About Tic-Tac-Toe

Tic-tac-toe is a worldwide famous game commonly played by every age group. It also goes by other names like Xs and Os and Noughts and Crosses. The game is played by two players and then take turns marking the spaces in the three-grade box. The one to successfully make a sequence of three initials is the winner of the game.

It surely does bring back several memories. However, if you want to know more about tic-tac-toe alternatives, we would suggest you go through our list of best games like tic-tac-toe mentioned in the following article.

Dots and Boxes

Dots and Boxes is a popular pencil-and-paper game like Tic Tac Toe that two players can play, the number of players can be expanded depending on the situation.

The game was first played and introduced to the world by a French mathematician in the 19th century. It goes by many names like pigs in a pen, boxes, dot-to-dot grid, the game of dots, dots and dashes, etc.

How to play?

The goal of the game is to make as many boxes as possible. All the players will take turns and draw either horizontal or vertical lines to create boxes.

Once you have completed a box, you'll write your initial inside the box to claim it as yours.

1. Take a piece of paper and with the help of a pencil or pen, draw a grid of dots. They should be at least four dots wide and four doors long each.
2. Decide who will start first and start the game by drawing a line anywhere.
3. Draw vertical or horizontal lines to connect to the dots.
4. Draw the force wall, the last wall of a box, and write your initials inside to win it.
5. You can take an extra turn if you complete the box. Make sure to decide this before the game starts.
6. Once the grid is filled, count each member's boxes.

Highlights 

• The game is very easy to play.
• You can draw a grid with a pen and use a pencil to play. This way, you can erase the things you did with a pencil and use the grid for more games.

Sim

Similar to tic-tac-toe, Sim is a pen and pencil game. The players are required to join doors on a hexagon. The goal of this game is to avoid competing for a triangle in the players on color. If one completes a triangle in their own color, he or she will lose the game.

To start the game, the players are required to draw a hexagon full of dots. The gameplay mainly involves every player drawing a line on their turn.

How to play?

1. Start by drawing a hexagon of six dots on a sheet. Drawing it with a pen and using a pencil to play can avoid you from making more hexagon grids for different plays.
2. The players can connect to dots and draw lines on the uncolored part.
3. As soon as the triangle is completed, the person to draw the last line of the triangle loses.

The game will not drop into a tie as there is no way or the lines will be drawn no triangle will form.

Highlights 

• The game can help you get familiar with triangles of different shapes and hexagons.
• It barely takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete one game.

Pictionary 

Pictionary is a fun-filled charade-like game that was first invented by Robert Angel in 1985. It is one of the best games like tic tac toe, though the gameplay and style of the game are different.

The gameplay involves simple actions like moving a piece on the game board where a sequence of squares can be seen. Every square will have a letter or shape above it to show the type of picture which is to be drawn.

How to play?

1. Set up the board and split the players into equal teams.
2. Decide which team must go first. 
3. The First Team's player will stand out and the other team will write a common sentence on a piece of paper and show it to the other team's players.
4. The player then is required to draw something similar to the sales and help their team members know what the phrase is.
5. If its members guessed correctly within the time, the team wins. If the team cannot guess within the time given, they lose.

Highlights 

• It requires only one minute to set up the game.
• One game can take up to 30 minutes.
• You must have basic drawing, wordplay, vocabulary, and image recognition skills.
• The game can be played by many players but they will have to split into two teams.

Battleship

Battleship, also known by the name battleships and Sea Battle is a strategy guessing game played between two players. You have to play this game on a ruled paper or board where every player's fleet of warships will be marked.

The catch of the game is, the other player will not know where the opponent's Leads are located on the board. The turns in the game are called shots while the objective of the game is to destroy the opponent's fleet.

How to play?

1. Every player’s fleet must include 1 aircraft carrier for 5 squares. One battleship for 4 squares. One cruiser for three squares. 2 destroyers for 2 squares each. 2 submarines for one square each.
2. The game will start with players taking turns and making a shot at the opponent. While taking the turn, you have to shout the name of the square you are aiming at.
3. The other player has to respond as a hit if it hits the part of its fleet and shout miss if it misses the end.
4. Whoever sinks all the battleships of the opponent member wins the game.

Highlights 

• The game is an ideal game for guessing and aiming.

Sprouts

Sprouts is a pen and pencil game which is famous for its mathematical properties. It was first invented by a mathematician named John Horton Conway and Michael S Patterson at Cambridge University in the early 1960s.

The game is played by only two players. It is one of the similar games like tic-tac-toe because of its unique gameplay and strategy.

How to play?

1. The game will start by drawing more than one spot on a paper on the board.
2. The players then have to take action and move around.
3. They are required to draw a line that will join to spots which is the single spot to itself back.
4. They have to make sure the line must not cross another line or pass another spot in any way.
5. They can draw a spot on the line.
6. They have to make sure no more than three lines are emerging from one spot.

Highlights 

• The setup of the game is easy and similar to the dots and boxes game.
• The gameplay will develop artistically and organically.

Bulls and Cows

Bulls and Cows guessing game is also known as pigs and bulls and cows and bulls. It is a code-breaking mind or paper and pencil game played between two or more players. 

It is a predating commercially marketed board game like a mastermind and the famous hit word game Wordle. It is one of the best tic-tac-toe alternatives.

How to play?

1. The player who is going to go first will have to think of a four-letter word. 
2. The other player has to try guessing the four-letter word.
3. While the guesser is guessing, the chooser has to give him hints. If the guesser tells one correct letter but at the wrong position, the chooser has to say Cow. If the guesser says one correct letter and at the right position, the chooser has to say bull.
4. The objective of the guesser is to try and guess the answer in the fewest number of turns.
5. If the word contains one to the repeated alphabet, the rule says it has to be counted as only one point to the score. 

Highlights

• Bulls are counted before cows at the time of total scores.

Mastermind

Mastermind is a difficult puzzle game like Tic Tac Toe that is played between two players usually. The objective of the game is, the first player has to try and guess the code narrated by their opponent.

The game can be played on the board or also by pen and paper. The level of security of the game depends on your opponent’s intelligence and creativity.

How to play?

1. Start by asking the opponent to come up with a code. 
2. As a code breaker, you have to place your first guess.
3. Ask the code breaker to tell you if you are going correct or not by using the white and red small pegs to say how good the hint was.
4. Continue guessing and tell you to guess it right or there are no guesses left.
5. If the opponent guesses the correct score, he or she wins.

Highlights 

• The game is for people 8 years and older.
• The game can only be played between two players.

Paper Soccer

Paper soccer, also commonly known as paper hockey, is an abstract strategy game that is played on a square grid who is the President of a soccer or hockey field.

The main actions in the game involve the players taking turns and extending a line that represents the position of a ball. This goes on until it reaches a grid’s two-goal spaces. Because of its unique gameplay, it is one of the amazing games like tic-tac-toe to play with a pen and paper. 

How to play?

1. The players have to take turns and move the ball boy drawing a line from its current position to the new one according to them.
2. Players are allowed to move diagonally, vertically, or horizontally by only one square.
3. Players are not allowed to move on an already drawn line along with the pitch’s lines.
4. The first one to reach their goal will win.

Highlights 

• Two players can only play the game.
• Only one goal is required for you to win.

Pops

Pops is a similar game that has similar gameplay, style, and outlook to most of the games mentioned in this list. 

The objective of the game is to take turns and add O or P in any box in the grid. The player has to make POP. The last player to add any letter from the aforementioned word can claim it as his or her. He or she can take an extra chance after making one POP.

How to play?

1. Make a grid box on paper.
2. Make sure you and your partner have different pens or pencils to understand who did more pops in the end.
3. Anyone can start the game.
4. Try to make as many pops as you can.
5. Once the game is over, whether it is for the time limit or the paper getting filled, you all will count who made more pops.
6. The one to hit more pops will win.

Highlights 

• You can use one P or O from the sequenced POP to create. Another one. The same letter can be used for making a POP vertically, diagonally as well as horizontally.

Conclusion 

All the above-mentioned games are the best games like Tic Tac Toe. The list includes both types of games, ones that need hard work from the mind and ones which have super easy gameplay.  

We hope by reading our article, now you have plenty of games to play if you are bored with tic-tac-toe.

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