Building a simple Tic-Tac-Toe game May 02

Yesterday, I found myself needing to pass some quality time with my daughter and we decided to play tic-tac-toe. To my surprise, there weren’t many options for a simple tic-tac-toe game that allowed two people to play remotely by just sharing a link. Sure you have lots of options if you download a game or want to go to a website and tap through 438 ads before playing, but I was looking for a straightforward page where you could click “new game,” and then easily invite someone to join by sharing a link.

Seeing this gap, and also wanting to dive back into programming with Ruby on Rails—a framework I hadn’t touched in over a decade—I decided to take it upon myself to create just what I needed. I called this new project Tic-Tac-🦶🏼, where players can choose fun emojis instead of the traditional X and O symbols.

This project was not just about creating a game; it was also an exploration into the latest real-time communication in Rails. I used this opportunity to experiment with Action Cable, Rails’ integrated feature for WebSockets. It was interesting to see how seamlessly it facilitated real-time updates, a crucial component for a responsive and engaging two-player game.

Through building Tic-Tac-🦶🏼, I reacquainted myself with Rails after 10+ years of not really touching it.