Tic Tac Toe is an elegant game that quickly loses its appeal due to the fact the it is solvable. Moreover, it is quite easy to play optimally.

While thinking of a way to extend the game and make it enjoyable again, I considered how the second player can often be forced to make a specific move to prevent loosing on the following move.

I considered how it would be interesting to be able to place a symbol over one of your opponent's, but that would obviously require limitation.

So while thinking of a fair way to be able to overwrite your opponent's counters, I remembered the famous Russian Doll toy also known as a Matryoshka Doll. This is a decorated container that holds another smaller version inside it.

With Matryoshka Dolls in mind, I had the idea to asign values to the counters (almost as if they were the different sized dolls). You are able to place down a counter on top of an opponent's if your counter is larger.

I'm not currently sure whether this variant is solvable (though I would guess that it is) but my hope is that it is complex enough that it's not easily solvable; that casual players can't find it just from playing.

This is a demo created in about two hours for a Game Design course at Lucerne University.

Result of the above move