The traditional object of the game is to be the first to get five marbles in a straight line including vertically and diagonally Each player takes a turn placing a marble and the peg can be used to show whose turn it is. The expert way to win is to set up either a dual or triple fork of three marbles in a line that converge on a single point. The master will let an opponent setup this fork, then simply block it by taking the focus point. The depth of play lends itself to the planning and preparation of a chess game, with the simplicity of a checker game

The original concept of the game was a popular 70’s game on some mainframe computers called “Cubic”. A Teletype would print 125 dots, grouped in square blocks of 25, each block representing one level of the game. A player competed with the computer and entered a 3-D coordinate to place an ‘X’. The computer took it’s turn and placed an ‘O’ and printed out the new layout. The player was supposed to imagine the dots in a 3-D cube, thereby acquiring it’s name. Ivan Van Dam invented the board concept in 1992. We hope you’ll agree that the game is now easier and much more fun to play with Pentagonal’s rotating 3-D symmetrical design, which easily collapses for storage and durability.

The 5th level makes a dramatic difference compared to other versions of 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe. The number of variations and permutations are mind-boggling. The center position can be declared a ‘free-space’ by placing a clear marble there to start the game. For that matter, any number of holes can be declared ‘free’. You can play with three or four players using additional marbles or two teams.

Somehow it seems like once you get beat, it’s hard to stop playing until you win again. Please play responsibly.