TicTactics

TicTactics
Also known as: 3-D TicTacToe, Qubic Developer: Robert Donner Publisher: Microsoft Platform: Windows Released internationally: October 8, 1990 This game has unused code. This game has unused graphics. This game has a prototype article

It's Tic-Tac-Toe in 3D glory!

Options screen

This options screen isn't used at all in the game, which instead has the options available from the drop-down menu. The developers probably thought it was useless to have a dialog box for the two features that can actually be changed.

The "Computer Player" part references two non-existing icons, which would have denoted the difficulty level. Interestingly, it can be unchecked - maybe the game once featured a two-player mode?

Interestingly, the missing icons are present with the game's source code (included in the leaked NT 4 source), along with 2 icons depicting the 3x3x3 and 4x4x4 modes.

Source Code Oddities

In 2004, a large portion of the Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 source code was leaked. Despite most of them not being in NT 4.0, the source code for several Microsoft Entertainment Pack games were included as well. These oddities are also present in Rattler Race and Minesweeper.

Alternate Names

/****************************************************************************

    PROGRAM: 3-D TicTacToe   (a.k.a. Qubic, TicTactics)

****************************************************************************/

At the start of tictac.c, a couple alternate names for the game are mentioned.

Misc.

NO NO NO NO NO
Please copy tic.exe and aboutwep.dll to your machine and run it from there.

In an early version of the game this message would appear if it was ran from "X:\\WINGAMES\\TICTACTO\\TIC.EXE".

SORRY
This game has expired. Please obtain an official copy from the Windows Entertainment Package.

This would appear if an early version of the game was ran after October 1990.

Disable menu option

Adding Menu=1 to the [TicTactics] section of entpack.ini disables the menu. Minesweeper has the same hidden option.