About This Game

It started on family vacations: a way to keep my mind occupied on long car trips. I’d convinced the family to let me ride shotgun, since I was a good navigator for the driver. My mind, it seemed, could open doors for me: including the front passenger. So it’s no surprise that I’d eventually turn my attention to mundane things in need of updating.

Poor tic-tac-toe. It never knew what hit it.

The idea to add a row, a column and an “R” came out of nowhere. I think I chose “R” because it looked different enough from “X” and “O” at a glance. And since I was playing by myself, winning with any letter made immediate sense. How else would I win? Before long, the game unraveled with maddening speed: this was FUN, and it was easy to build a strategy around.

Fast forward decades — through college, building my career, moving from place to place — and now I return to that simple game with a tremendous twist. I think the games we play and how we play them say a lot about us. I’m sure creating this game says something about me: hopefully something good. You be the judge.

I hope this gives you as much joy, excitement, exhilaration and angst as it gave me, riding shotgun, exploring new dimensions of the things I thought I knew. Thanks for playing.