3D Tic-Tac-Toe
The landscape of coding has always been shifting beneath our feet. The work of Occurrent Arts began with Java, Javascript, and PHP. We grew through creative coding libraries like Processing, Cinder, and Open Frameworks. Eventually, we branched into game engines such as Unity and Unreal, enabling us to achieve bigger goals more quickly with powerful tools while continuing to write familiar code in C# and C++.
Then nodal development emerged with tools like Max/MSP, Unity Shader Graph, TouchDesigner, and ComfyUI. Afterward, large language models began generating usable snippets of code, moving quickly from autocompletion into creating entire functional scripts. Now, AI agents are transforming this landscape again, revealing entirely new possibilities for creative technology.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if tic-tac-toe had a third dimension?
We decided to test the capabilities of two AI code-generation tools, Cursor and OpenAI Codex, by creating a fully functional 3D tic-tac-toe web application without writing a single line of code by hand. It wasn't seamless; these tools don't always give you what you want and sometimes overwrite things you want to keep, but with careful prompting, frequent backups, and thorough testing, we discovered how rapidly and intuitively these AI tools could turn concepts into reality.
Try playing the game yourself, or explore the full source code on our GitHub repository to see how AI-driven coding is reshaping what's creatively possible.
