AREFOLIO

Tick Tock Toe

Classic Tic Tac Toe with an attitude

Tick Tock Toe is a playful version of the classic Tic Tac Toe game. It was built to experiment with micro-animations, high-contrast retro borders, sound synthesis, and screen-shake visual feedback in web browsers.

[THE CHALLENGE]

Building a Tic Tac Toe game is a beginner rite of passage, but most implementations look identical and feel lifeless. The goal was to take a trivial game and make it feel incredibly tactile and punchy.

[THE SOLUTION]

I styled the game board with 4px solid borders, a retro neon color scheme, and custom click handlers that trigger screen shakes (CSS animation offsets) and localized audio pops generated via code.

[TECHNICAL DEEP DIVE]

Uses pure React state to track game turns and win lines. Incorporates a custom hook that fires short audio bursts at different frequencies (low pop for 'O', high pop for 'X', slide effect for win). Board vibration is triggered using a temporary class containing a keyframe animation.

// DEVELOPER'S RETROSPECTIVE

"Renaming it 'Tick Tock Toe' for no reason was a great marketing strategy for my local peer group. People actually clicked it to see if it had something to do with clock timers. It didn't. It's just a game, but making the game feel heavy and clicky taught me a lot about CSS transitions."

BACK TO PROJECTSAREFOLIO // CASE STUDY // LAKSHMIPUR