
DSiWare is already host to numerous pen and paper games, but out of all of them, Tic-Tac-Toe has got to be most pointless thing imaginable to put into virtual form.
Nobody should need an introduction to what Tic-Tac-Toe is. You have a grid of 3 by 3 squares, and you and your opponent take turns filling one square at a time with either a cross or a circle. If either player can line up three of their icon in a row, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally, they'll win the match.
In this game, that's actually just one of four different modes you can play, called Classic. There's also Quick, which is exactly the same but with a changeable time limit for each player's moves, which defaults to two seconds. Both modes also have a "9" mode (Classic9 and Quick9) which mixes things up a little by giving you not one, but nine different grids to work with.
When you place an icon on a square, the grid that's in the same position in the overall layout will be the grid the next player get to place his icon on. If either player gets three in a row on any of the grids, they win. When playing any of these loose modes, you can play against a friend, or against one of three different levels of AI.
Arguably the game's main feature, however, is the league mode, where you battle your way up from a simple elementary school classroom all the way up to an international tic-tac-toe tournament. In each "league" you play in, you'll have around 30 opponents, and you'll have to play every single one of them one match after the other.

The three players with the most points at the end of it all go on to the next league, while the lowest three drop down one, and everybody else, of course, gets to try again. League mode starts off with Classic games only, but as you get higher you'll also have to play Classic9, Quick and Quick9.
That is seriously just about all there is to the game. We didn't expect that much from a virtual version of a game you can play with a pen and a scrap of paper, but it's still a bit disappointing. The game has a decent look to it, with a blackboard as backdrop and crayon symbols, but the music is a bit grating and repetitive.
Conclusion
There's not much to Academy Tic-Tac-Toe, but we didn't really expect there to be. If you absolutely insist on getting a virtual version of the oldest pen and paper game out there, for 200 Points, there's not much to go wrong with here.
Comments 22
Get fooled once....shame on Gamelion Studios.
Get fooled twice.... SHAME ON GAMELION STUDIOS!!!!!
I only hope the service can recover from games like this one....
Surely you can play all of these modes for FREE? Seriously, what is the point of this?
The only winning move is not to play
Hi Marcel,
Thanks for the fair review!
To let you know, Academy:Tic-Tac-Toe is currently #1 top paid game in UK and France within the Top 20 most popular charts on the DSi stores.
This game could be worse.
Props for making it presentable, but c'mon. Who looked at this as a videogame concept and green-lighted it?
Couldn't it have tic-tac-toe on a larger grid? Like 9X9, as opposed to 3 3X3 games?
Aw, I never battled my way past elementery school in tic tac toe in RL, I must not have produced constant draws hard enough.
Man, look at what DSiWare had degraded into over the past year......
@NintenDude97 Gee, people sure are quick to forget about Shantae now that it's out...
It looks fun (Quick9 mode) and accessible, don't need much else from a 200-point game. Who doesn't like playing Tic-Tac-Toe while on vacation?
I think this team should stop making games. Extreme Hangman's succsess was just luck
@12: Hey, Furry Legends was pretty good. At least they put the effort in.
@Koops3:
Maybe..... Only after Furry Legends for the DSiware drops though. I still have high hopes for that one even though I know little about it. :/
DSiware is either good or bad, nothing in between. But this game managed to create a new branch of DSiware...
the POINTLESS section!
You can get a sheet of paper and play a game with your friend!
X-145... Actually, the same can be said for many DSiWare games. Many people think that the MyNotebook series is useless, as is the Photo Clock, but to each his own, I say I love MyNotebook, hate Photo Clock, and don't really use Flipnote Studio anymore since I just jot notes in MyNotebook.
I've always wondered, why is it called Tic-Tac-Toe in the US? Surely Noughts and Crosses is a much more logical name?
Well said, and I do agree, grumblegrumble, but the flipnote studio is amazing, in my opinion. You can make many things on there.
X-145, I agree that Flipnote is amazing, I just don't use it that much. I'm a writer and use MyNotebook to jot down ideas in between gaming sessions lol... I do use Flipnote but not as much as MyNotebook. B
I'm more of animater, so I guess I use it a lot more, grumblegrumble (cool name by the way).
@X-145 lol love your picture.
I prefer good ol' fashioned pen and paper version of tic-tac-toe. yeah, I'd rather not spend 200 points on this game.
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