Cozy Classic
Free Tic Tac Toe
Cattail Landing Tic Tac Toe
The classic 3 by 3 game and its bigger cousin, ultimate tic tac toe, against a computer opponent at three levels (the top one never loses) or a friend on one device, with hints that say why, undo and a tally for every level.
Read the full Cattail Landing Tic Tac Toe guide
How to play
- Press Play. On the title card choose Classic or Ultimate, and Percival or two players. By default you play X and go first, against Gentle Percival at classic.
- Classic: tap an empty square to place your mark. X and O take turns, one mark each. The first to get three in a row, across, down or corner to corner, wins. If all nine squares fill with no three in a row, the game is a draw.
- Ultimate: the board is nine small boards in a 3 by 3 grid. The first move can go in any of the 81 squares. After that, the square you mark sends the reply to the small board in the same position: mark the top right square of a small board and the next move must be in the top right board. The boards you may play in have a lamplight edge.
- Three in a row on a small board wins that board, and it counts as your mark on the big board. A small board that fills with no three in a row is tied and counts for nobody. If you are sent to a board that is won or full, you get a free move in any open board.
- Win three small boards in a row on the big board to win ultimate. If every board is decided with no such line, it is a draw. Start a new game from the menu, or change the game, the mode and Percival’s level in Settings.
Controls
- Touch or mouse: tap a square to mark it. In ultimate, a tap outside the boards you are sent to gives a small shake and says where to play. Undo, Hint and Menu sit on the shelf below the board, or beside it on a wide screen.
- Keyboard: the arrow keys move between the squares, and Enter or Space marks the square in focus. In classic the number keys 1 to 9 mark that square, counting across from the top left; in ultimate they mark that square of the board you are sent to. U undoes, H shows a hint, and Escape clears a hint or closes a card.
- Restart in the toolbar starts a new game. Menu starts a new game, opens Settings (the game, Percival or two players, his level and who goes first) and shows your statistics and the rules. The toolbar also has pause, help, optional sound and fullscreen.
What you do
Cattail Landing Tic Tac Toe is the classic game of X and O on a 3 by 3 grid, and ultimate tic tac toe, nine small boards in one, played on an oak board with brass inlay lines on the porch of a lakeside boathouse at dusk. The sky over the far shore is going from ink blue to amber, there is one lit window among the pines across the water, the cattails stand still in the shallows, and a lantern hangs over the table and its linen runner. The marks are things you could pick up: X is a cross of two ink-blue slats held with a brass pin, and O a ring of terracotta clay. Your opponent is Percival, a gray crane with a red crown, round brass reading glasses and a sage cardigan, who stands behind the table, or on the dock beside it on a wider screen, tips his head while he thinks, nods at a good block and raises an eyebrow at a fork. At classic he plays Gentle, Steady or Perfect, and Perfect has checked every possible game to the end, so he never loses. At ultimate he plays Gentle, Steady or Sharp. Or let him referee while two players pass the screen.
- Classic tic tac toe against Percival at three levels: Gentle often misses a win or a block, Steady always wins and blocks when he can but does not see a fork coming, and Perfect has worked out every possible game and never loses.
- Ultimate tic tac toe: nine small boards in one, where the square you mark sends your opponent to the matching board, won boards count as marks on the big board, and a full or won board gives a free move. Percival plays it at Gentle, Steady (two moves ahead) and Sharp, which usually searches about nine moves ahead.
- Two players on one device for both games: pass the screen between X and O, with undo and hints for whoever is to play and a separate two-player tally.
- Choose who goes first against Percival: you, him, or taking turns every game. X always moves first.
- Hints with a short reason: a win, a block, a fork, blocking his fork, the center, a corner, a square that keeps the draw when others would lose, or in ultimate a board win, a block or a move that does not hand him a free move.
- Undo as often as you like, a lamplight edge around the boards you may play in, a brass bar across the winning line, and statistics for each level (played, won, lost, drawn and your best run without a loss), saved on this device with the game in progress.
Tips worth knowing
- As X, open in a corner or the center. Against careful play both lead to a draw, but a corner leaves O only one safe reply, the center, and every other reply loses.
- As O, answer a corner opening with the center and a center opening with a corner. An edge reply to a corner opening loses against best play.
- Before every move, check each row, column and diagonal for two of the other side’s marks with the third square empty, and block it.
- A fork wins: a move that makes two lines of two at once, so a single block cannot stop both. Look for one, and look for the square where your opponent would make one.
- In ultimate, look at where your move sends your opponent before you look at the board you are playing in. Sending them to a board they can win at once, or to a won or full board for a free move, often costs more than you gain.
- In ultimate, the center board and the center squares matter most, because more lines run through them, but a board won late in the right place on the big board is worth more than an early one in a corner nobody can line up.
Accessibility
- Everything can be played with a keyboard: the arrow keys move between the squares, Enter or Space marks one, the number keys 1 to 9 mark a square directly, U undoes, H shows a hint and Escape clears it.
- Every square is labeled for screen readers with its place (and its small board in ultimate), what is in it, whether the board it is on has been won or tied, and whether it is the hinted square. The turn and the tally are read out as text.
- X and O differ in shape as well as color: X is a cross of two slats and O a ring. The boards you may play in have a bright edge, the others are dimmed, and the winning line is marked with a brass bar.
- Nothing is timed. Percival waits while a menu is open, and undo is unlimited.
- Reduced motion places each mark at once, keeps Percival and the fireflies still and keeps the lights of a win small. Sound is optional and never needed to play.
Questions
How strong is each level?
We measured Percival with our own simulation of 1,000 games for each pairing (500 for each pairing with Sharp, who takes longer to think), with the two sides swapping who goes first every game. At classic, against a player that marks squares at random, Gentle won 725 games, Steady 900 and Perfect 939, and Perfect lost none. Perfect against Perfect drew all 1,000. At ultimate, against the random player, Gentle won 777 of 1,000, Steady 974 of 1,000 and Sharp 500 of 500. Steady beat Gentle in 952 of 1,000 ultimate games, and Sharp beat Steady in 497 of 500. These are computer players, not people, so treat the numbers as a guide.
Can a beginner beat Gentle?
Yes, that is what Gentle is for. In the same simulation, a scripted beginner that completes three in a row when it can, otherwise blocks, and otherwise marks a square at random, leaning toward the center and the corners, beat Gentle in 540 of 1,000 classic games and drew 324 more. It won 88 of 1,000 against Steady, every one of them as X, by stumbling into a fork, and none against Perfect. At ultimate, a beginner that takes a winning board, blocks one and avoids sending the other side to a board they can win at once beat Gentle in 752 of 1,000, Steady in 123 of 1,000 and Sharp in 1 of 500.
Does Perfect really never lose?
Yes. Tic tac toe is a solved game: with best play from both sides it is always a draw. Perfect Percival works out the value of every square from every position to the end of the game and only plays a square that keeps at least a draw. The game’s tests play him against every possible sequence of replies, as X and as O, and he never loses a game. He does win a lot of them, because among the squares that hold the draw he prefers the one that leaves you the most ways to go wrong.
What are the rules?
Classic: two players take turns marking one empty square of a 3 by 3 grid, one with X and one with O, and the first to get three in a row across, down or on a diagonal wins. A full board with no three in a row is a draw. X goes first. Ultimate: nine small boards make one big board. Your square inside a small board sends your opponent to the small board in the same position. Three in a row on a small board wins it as a mark on the big board, a full board with no line counts for nobody, a player sent to a won or full board may play in any open board, and three won boards in a row win the game.
How many games of tic tac toe are there?
By our own count, made by playing out every possible game in the game’s tests, there are 255,168 different games of classic tic tac toe, counting every order of moves and stopping when someone wins. X wins 131,184 of them, O wins 77,904 and 46,080 end in a draw. They pass through 5,478 different positions, the empty board included.
Can two people play on one device?
Yes, at classic or ultimate. Choose Two players on the title card or in Settings. X goes first, and the players pass the screen after each move. Undo takes back the last move, hints work for whoever is to play, and the statistics keep a separate two-player tally of wins for X, wins for O and draws.
What does the game save?
Your settings, the game in progress with every move, and your statistics for each level of each game (games played, won, lost and drawn, and your best run without a loss) plus the two-player tallies, all in this browser’s local storage. There is no account.
Guides and roundups
Game details
- Genre
- Cozy Classic
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Session
- A minute a classic game, about ten minutes an ultimate game, saved as you go
- Inputs
- Keyboard, Mouse, Touch
- Devices
- Desktop, Tablet, Mobile
- Made by
- CozyWorld
- Updated
- 2026-10-31
A calm board game against a friendly computer opponent or a friend, with no purchases, accounts, timers or streak pressure.
