Java tic-tac-toe game coding tutorial

One of the best ways to learn Java is to challenge yourself with mini-projects, and without a doubt, the most fun projects to build are games.

In this coding tutorial, we build a two-player tic-tac-toe game in Java. Doing so explores a variety of fundamental and advanced Java programming concepts, including the following:

• Primitive type arrays.
• While loops.
• User input validation.
• Break and continue statements.
• String formatting with printf.
• Complex conditional logic.
• The ternary operator in Java.
• Exception handling.
• And my favorite: the hidden, integer nature of the char.

How to code a tic-tac-toe Java game

To begin the Java tic-tac-toe game tutorial, we code the happy path where we assume the input is valid and no exceptional situations occur. We then iteratively and incrementally enhance the code to produce a bulletproof tic-tac-toe game in Java.

The specific steps are as follows:

1. Create a runnable Java class called TicTacToe and declare required elements: board[] array, char[] array, and variables numberOfSquaresPlayed and whoseTurnItIs.
2. Print a tic-tac-toe board using a printTheBoard() method.
3. Obtain user input from the two players.
4. Check for a winning play using an if statement or math operation on the char array; if no winning play, switch players.
5. If all squares are taken with no winning moves, end the game.
6. Run the Java tic-tac-toe app.

If you want to advance your Java programming skills and experiment in a way that's fun, coding games like tic-tac-toe in Java is one of the best ways to do it.

The source code for this tic-tac-toe game is available on TheServerSide's Coffee Talk blog.

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