If you’ve played 3D Tic Tac Toe on our site, chances are you’ve met Hermiobot—our friendly (but cunning) AI opponent.
Whether it’s blocking your moves, setting up sneaky wins, or just calmly outsmarting you, Hermiobot seems to know exactly what to do. So what’s the secret? Is it magic? Machine learning? A tiny red cube with superpowers?
Let’s pull back the curtain and explore how Hermiobot thinks, plans, and plays.
🧠 What Is Hermiobot?
Hermiobot is the built-in AI player in 3D Tic Tac Toe. It was designed to:
- Give solo players a challenging opponent
- Provide an always-available match for practice
- Teach new players how to spot patterns, blocks, and traps
But unlike most “hard mode” AI in games, Hermiobot isn’t out to crush your spirit. It’s tuned to be strategic, but fair—and it gets trickier the better you get.
🧩 How It Works (Without Getting Too Nerdy)
Hermiobot’s brain is built around classic game AI logic. It uses a decision-making technique known as the minimax algorithm—a staple of many turn-based games.
Here’s a simplified version of what Hermiobot does every time it’s its turn:
- Looks ahead – It calculates all possible moves it could make.
- Simulates outcomes – For each move, it imagines your possible responses.
- Scores positions – It gives each outcome a score (e.g. +10 for a win, -10 for a loss).
- Chooses the best move – It picks the move that maximises its own chance of winning and minimises yours.
This is a simplified version of decision tree logic, and it’s what many board game AIs use—just scaled up for the complexity of a 4×4×4 grid.
🧠 What Makes 3D Different?
Regular tic tac toe has a very small game tree. In fact, it’s been solved—meaning there’s a known “perfect play” strategy. But in 3D Tic Tac Toe, the board has:
- 64 spaces instead of 9
- 76 possible winning lines
- Thousands of possible move sequences from the first turn onward
This means Hermiobot has to do a lot more thinking. It doesn’t just evaluate surface-level threats—it looks for patterns across multiple layers and diagonals.
💡 Fun fact: We’ve limited the “depth” of how far ahead Hermiobot thinks in order to keep gameplay smooth and fast. That means it’s beatable—but not easily!
🛠️ How We Built Hermiobot
Hermiobot was designed with two main goals:
- Be challenging but fair
- Help players improve through repeated play
We wanted it to feel:
- Tough, but not unbeatable
- Smart, but not robotic
- Fast, but not rushed
That’s why it uses a mixture of logic, weighted decisions, and smart shortcuts to evaluate moves quickly. We also gave it a bit of personality—after all, it’s not just an AI, it’s your rival on the cube.
🎓 Why It’s Great for Learning
Playing against Hermiobot isn’t just a solo option—it’s a learning experience.
- See how it responds to your strategies
- Learn how to block smarter
- Get inspired to try new moves
- Use it to teach AI basics in the classroom
For educators and parents, Hermiobot is a fun, hands-on way to demonstrate:
- Turn-based logic
- Simple AI algorithms
- Decision-making in uncertain conditions
Bonus: it never gets bored or distracted!
💬 Will Hermiobot Get Smarter?
Short answer: yes!
We’re planning to:
- Introduce multiple difficulty levels
- Add “personality modes” (aggressive, cautious, experimental)
- Let you review your match afterwards to see what Hermiobot was thinking
Think of it as a living AI that evolves over time—just like the players it faces.
🏁 Final Thoughts: Don’t Underestimate the Bot
Hermiobot may look like a colourful little cube, but don’t let that fool you—it’s got serious game.
Whether you’re just learning the ropes or chasing a flawless win, playing against Hermiobot is a brilliant way to sharpen your strategy and explore the mind of an AI built for fun, not frustration.
Want to test your skills?
👉 Play Now and Challenge Hermiobot