How to Create a Tic Tac Toe Game in Android?

In this article, you will learn to build a Tic Tac Toe game in Android Studio. Many of you might be aware of the game and would have played it a lot with pen and paper. Now, we will show you how to create a similar kind of game by developing an app. So, let’s not waste our time and dig into the project.

About Tic Tac Toe Game:

Tic Tac Toe Game app is one of the most common projects that any beginner in Android is recommended to develop. While developing this project, you will gain much exposure to the Android concepts and get hands-on experience. So, let’s understand the game flow first.

Game Flow: So, usually, Tic Tac Toe is played between two players. You are provided with a three by three board with a total of nine cells. Each of the players needs to fill in the empty cells with their assigned symbols. The players can choose either an ‘X’ or ‘O’ as their symbol. The game is played in an alternate turn. In each turn, the player needs to mark an empty cell with their sign.

Winning Criteria: If a player can make a straight-line containing the symbols allocated to him, that player wins. The straight line can be in the row, column or diagonal wise.

Game Draw Criteria: If the whole three by three board is full of symbols and there is no empty cell left out. Along with this, if there are no winners, then the game is considered a draw.

So, I hope you are clear about the game and now let’s see the features we have to provide in the Tic Tac Toe application.

Features of Tic Tac Toe App in Android:

1. You get options to play alone or with some other players. If you select a single player, then you will play against the computer.

2. You can see the player’s turn after each move.

3. You have a restart button to restart the game for the players.

4. You get alerts if anyone wins or if the game is a draw.

5. The app’s UI has a three by three grid with nine cells. You can only put your symbol in a cell that doesn’t contain any character.

The flow of Tic Tac Toe Application:

Now, let’s see the flow of the Tic Toe App and understand the screens you need to build.

• Welcome Screen: You need to build a welcome screen with the title “Welcome to Tic Tac Toe Game”. Provide a button for the player to get started.
• Select Game Type: You need to build a screen to select the type of game he needs to play. You can give options like Single Player and Multiplayer.
• Single Player Screen: You need to design a screen where a player alone can play the game against the computer.
• Multiplayer Screen: As usual, the three by three board will be present. Along with this, you need to have a Textview to display the turn. Also, provide a button to restart the game.
• Alert Dialogs: You need to integrate alert dialogue boxes to indicate win or draw. Also, you can use the alert dialogues to restart the game.

Android Tic Tac Toe Game App Prerequisites:

As this is a beginner-level project, you don’t have many prerequisites, yet some of the required ones are listed below. After getting the hang of these prerequisites, you are ready to develop your Tic Tac Toe app game in android.

1. XML Layout designing
2. Android UI elements
3. Android Activities
4. Android Event Listeners
5. Java and Object-Oriented Programming
6. Android Studio and its tools

Download Tic Tac Toe Android Game App Code

Please download the source code of android tic tac toe game: Tic Tac Toe Android App Code

Description of the project:

Before going to the actual implementation, you need to understand the files present in the tic tac toe project code.
So, let’s see each of them in detail.

1. Manifest File: You get a file called AndroidManifest.xml along with the project source code. This file contains the rules, permissions and declarations for your application. It also defines the name of your Tic Tac Toe Application.

2. Gradle File: In Android, you get two types of Gradle files: the project level and the other is the app level. In the app level Gradle file, you have all the libraries that you might use in the project.

3. MainActivity File: The MainActivity is the first activity of your application.

4. Resources: There are various resources that you may use in your project. Following are the resources which are present in the res directory.

• Colors – All the colors of your project are defined here.
• Strings – All the string literals and phrases are defined here.
• Drawable – All the graphical kinds of stuff like pictures and vector assets are kept here.
• Layouts – All the designs of your activities are present here.
• Dimens – You use it to define the size of the grid you wish to use for this project.

Steps to implement the Project:

Now, as you got the idea of the project, it’s time to implement it. So, to make your task more accessible, we have provided the source code of the Tic Toe App along with this implementation. You have comments present in each section of the code that will guide you through each and everything.

Now let’s see the steps to run the project on your devices.

Step 1: First of all, you need to download the Tic Tac Toe project source code from the download section.

Step 2: You need to locate the file, extract it and then open it from your Android Studio.

Step 3: After your files are loaded successfully, you can simply go through the project structure and explore each file. Then proceed towards last step.

Step 4: After you are done with the exploration, just go to tools and rebuild the project.

After the above steps are done then simply run your application.

Android Tic Tac Toe Game Output

Choose Player Type Screen

Single Player Screen of Tic Tac Toe App

Multiplayer Screen of Tic Tac Toe App

Showing Winner Screen

Summary:

Through this article, you came across a ubiquitous game known as Tic Tac Toe. You got to know in detail about the game and its structure. Later on, you saw the flow, requirements, and description of the game. Finally, you noticed how you could create a tic tac toe app on your own.

I hope you enjoyed and got to know several things from it. Go ahead and share your Tic Tac Toe application with your friends or family and start playing with them.