🎮 AI Tic Tac Toe

A desktop Tic Tac Toe game built entirely in Python using PyQt5 — no HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or backend server involved. Everything is native Python GUI. Play against an AI powered by the Minimax algorithm, or challenge a friend in 2-player mode. 🧠✨

---

🚀 Quick Start (No Python Needed)

Don't want to install Python? A pre-built executable is already included in this repository:

1. Go into the dist folder
2. Download / run TicTacToe.exe
3. Double-click to run — that's it! No installation, no dependencies required ✅

⚠️ Windows Defender or your antivirus might show a warning since the exe isn't code-signed. Click "More info" → "Run anyway" — the app is safe, this is common for PyInstaller-built executables.

---

✨ Features

• 🤖 Single Player vs AI — powered by the Minimax algorithm (50% perfect play, 50% random, so it's beatable)
• 👥 2 Player mode — play locally against a friend, turns alternate automatically
• 🏆 Winning line highlight — the winning 3 cells light up green
• ⏱️ AI "thinking" delay — a short pause before the AI moves, so it feels more natural
• ⬅️ Back navigation — return to the mode-selection screen anytime, with a confirmation prompt if a match is in progress
• 📊 Live scoreboard — tracks Player, AI, and Draw counts
• 🎨 Dark UI theme with cyan accents

---

📁 Project Structure

tictactoe/
├── main.py             # Full application: UI + game logic + entry point
├── ai.py                # AI logic (Minimax algorithm)
├── requirements.txt     # Python dependencies
├── icon.ico              # App icon
├── dist/
│   └── TicTacToe.exe     # Pre-built standalone Windows executable
└── README.md            # This file

---

🛠️ Running from Source (For Developers)

If you'd rather run it from the Python source code instead of the exe:

Requirements

• 🐍 Python 3.8 or higher
• 🖥️ PyQt5

Steps

git clone https://github.com/0xfa-ni/TicTacToe.git
cd TicTacToe
pip install -r requirements.txt
python main.py

On some systems you may need python3 instead of python.

A window will open showing the mode-selection screen. Choose Single Player (vs AI) 🤖 or 2 Player 👥 to start.

---

🧠 How It Works

ai.py

• check_winner(board) — checks all 8 winning lines and returns "X", "O", "Draw", or None
• minimax(board, depth, is_maximizing) — recursively simulates every possible future move to score outcomes
• get_best_move(board) — the AI's move-selection logic: 50% of the time it plays a random move, 50% of the time it plays the mathematically optimal move (via Minimax)

main.py

Class	Responsibility
🖼️ ModeSelectScreen	The landing screen — choose "vs AI" or "2 Player"
🎲 GameScreen	The board, scoreboard, status text, and all gameplay logic
🪟 MainWindow	Uses QStackedWidget to switch between the two screens

---

📦 Rebuilding the .exe Yourself

If you modify the code and want to rebuild the executable:

pip install pyinstaller
python -m PyInstaller --onefile --windowed --icon="icon.ico" --add-data "icon.ico;." --name "TicTacToe" main.py

The new executable will be generated in dist/TicTacToe.exe.

---

🔮 Possible Future Improvements

• 🎚️ Difficulty selector (Easy / Medium / Hard)
• 📝 Player name input for 2-player mode
• 🔊 Sound effects
• 💾 Persistent score storage across sessions

---

📄 License

This is a personal project, created for learning purposes. Feel free to explore the code.