Yep—people have played with “spin” mechanics a lot. A few ways it shows up:
- Rotate a sub-board after every move (Pentago-style). You place a piece, then rotate one quadrant 90°. Classic example is Pentago (6×6 made of four 3×3 sub-boards; goal is 5-in-a-row). It’s been strongly solved as a first-player win, but it’s still a great twisty abstract. entertainment.howstuffworks.comperfect-pentago.netarxiv.org
- Spin the whole position as a move. On your turn you may either place X/O or rotate the entire 3×3 board 90° (which permutes all marks via the C₄ cycles). This isn’t a published “standard,” but it’s an easy house rule that actually uses the rotations we listed:
(1 3 9 7)(2 6 8 4)(5). To avoid silly loops, add a “no immediate repetition” rule (ko-style) or limit each player to one spin per game. - Rotate rings (outer ring spins, center fixed). Treat the 8 outer cells as a dial you can rotate one step CW/CCW as a move. That’s a nice middle ground: more tactical than plain 3×3, lighter than Pentago.
- Rotate 2×2 blocks on a 3×3. There are four overlapping 2×2 blocks; a “spin” permutes those four cells. This makes forks appear/disappear in tricky ways. (On larger boards this basically morphs into Pentago mechanics.)
- Add gravity + rotation. In some variants you can rotate the board and then let pieces “fall” in the new down direction, so spinning does change the position (think Connect-Four physics). You see this idea in commercial and digital spins on tic-tac-toe/cubic versions. noisynitgames.comwww.coolmathgames.com
- Bigger boards with rotation. There are forum variants where you play on 6×6 or more, place a piece, then rotate a chosen 3×3 or 2×2 area—essentially “tic-tac-toe with a twist,” i.e., Pentago-like gameplay on different sizes. boardgamegeek.com
If you want a clean 3×3 “spin” ruleset to try tonight
- On your turn choose one: (A) place your mark on an empty cell, or (B) rotate the whole board 90° CW or CCW (permuting all marks).
- Win with three in a row after your action.
- Anti-loop: you can’t recreate the exact previous position (no 2-cycle).
- Optional spice: each player may spin at most once per game. Why it works: rotation preserves counts but rearranges threats—center is invariant, corners cycle among corners, edges among edges—so tempo and parity get interesting fast. Forks that were blocked can re-materialize after a spin; conversely, a defensive spin can defuse two threats at once.If you want something meatier and proven fun, just play Pentago—it’s the gold standard for “rotate while playing.” (First-player win with perfect play, but most humans won’t hit book lines.) entertainment.howstuffworks.comperfect-pentago.netIf you want, I can sketch a tiny Python minimax for the 3×3 spin variant so you can poke at solvedness and openings.