How to play Noughts and Crosses
Nine numbers laid out three by three. Hit a square's number and the square is yours. Three squares in a row - across, down or diagonally - wins. Fill the grid with no line and it is a draw, exactly like the paper game. Two players. If you grew up calling the paper game tic-tac-toe, this is that - same grid, same lines, same draw - played with darts instead of pencil.
Also played as Tic-Tac-Toe Darts, Tic Tac Toe, Noughts & Crosses.
Chuck Darts scores this game to exactly the rules on this page, and keeps the card open mid-match so anybody at the board can check one. A full leg of 501, a board of Cricket and six practice drills are playable right now with no account at all.
THE GRID
The app deals a fixed grid. Top row 20, 19, 18. Middle row 17, 16, 15. Bottom row 14, 13, 12. There is no bull and no choosing your own numbers - every square is a plain number with a triple bed, so no square is harder to take than any other.
CLAIMING A SQUARE
One hit claims it. Any part of the number will do - a single 16 takes the center exactly as a triple 16 does, and the extra marks on a double or triple are simply wasted. Three darts can take three squares. A claimed square is LOCKED. There is no stealing in this game: once a square is taken, every dart either player throws at that number is a dead dart. Choose carefully, because a square you give away is gone for the rest of the game. Darts at a number that is not on the grid do nothing, and neither does a miss.
WINNING
Three in a row wins: any of the three rows, the three columns or the two diagonals. The win lands on the dart that completes the line - the rest of that turn is dead, and so is anything thrown afterwards. If all nine squares are claimed and nobody has a line it is a draw, and the app records it as one: the board announces the full grid with no line, no winner is declared and no placements are written. A drawn match will not advance a tournament bracket - the host settles that side of it. Claiming five squares to your opponent's four earns nothing - squares are territory, not points. A game ended before the grid is decided is different again: it is recorded as an ABANDONED game, not a played one - no winner, no places, and it does not count in anyone's win/loss record, however many squares anyone held.
ROUND LIMIT
The host can cap the game at a set number of rounds when creating it — a round is one turn each — and with the Round limit left off, nothing on this card changes. It is this app's option, not a rule of the game. With a limit set, the app takes no turn after the last capped round. A line inside the limit wins and a full grid is a draw, exactly as above; a grid still undecided at the limit is recorded exactly as if the host had ended it at that moment — as an ABANDONED game: no winner, no places, and outside everyone's win/loss record.
WHAT THE APP MAKES YOU DO
Every turn must be entered dart by dart. Nothing is scored in this game, so a turn total tells the app nothing at all and it will refuse one. Log all three darts, including misses and darts at squares already taken. Only the player whose turn it is can enter a score. If a turn timer is running in a ranked online game and it expires, that turn is recorded as three misses and claims nothing. In a local game nothing is auto-forfeited. That timed-out turn is the clock's own record: it cannot be undone or corrected afterwards, by you or by the host.
UNDO AND THE PENCIL
Both doors unclaim the square, and the grid lands in exactly the same place either way. Undo removes the last turn completely and replays the game without it, so a square it claimed goes back to open and the turn comes back to whoever threw it. Correcting that turn to 0 leaves it on the record with its darts rewritten as a single miss: the square still opens, but the turn counts as thrown, so the turn is spent and it is the other player's throw. Without a Round limit the throw itself is the only thing the pencil costs that undo does not; with one set, that throw was also one of the rounds left. A correction typed as a number is refused: nothing is scored in this game, so a total says nothing about which square you hit. Correct it with the darts as thrown — typed T20 D10 5, M for a miss — and the grid recomputes from those darts. 0 is the single exception among totals - it is how the pencil records a turn as a miss. In an online game your darts show as progress on the grid straight away, but no square actually changes hands until your opponent confirms the turn.
HOUSE RULES AND VARIATIONS
There is no governing body for this game and the published versions disagree with each other, so what the app plays is one variant of several. Before you start, know what you have agreed to: - The price of a square. The app charges ONE hit. The other widely published version charges three marks, cricket-style, where a single is one mark, a double two and a triple three - that is a much slower, more defensive game. - What goes in the squares. The app uses nine plain numbers, 20 down to 12. British scoreboards traditionally put the bullseye in the middle and a specific target in each other square - "triple 9", "double 2", "small 14" - which makes it a game of nine different shots rather than nine different numbers. Some houses give a weaker player singles and a stronger one doubles to even it up. - Stealing. The app locks a claimed square permanently. No published version says otherwise, but it is the first thing people ask. - Players. The card is written for two, neither setup screen will seat a third, and a third player trying to JOIN is refused by the server, as is a game created with three in it. A nine-square grid does not divide fairly between three anyway.