Fun Tac Toe: A Multi-Platform Game-Based Learning Approach Integrating Trivia with Classic Gameplay

Fun Tac Toe is presented as a multi-platform educational game that merges the rules of classic Tic-Tac-Toe with trivia-based learning. Players must answer a knowledge-based question correctly before placing a mark on the board, a design intended to combine retrieval practice, immediate feedback, and sustained engagement without the complexity of immersive serious games. The paper positions this approach as a response to a perceived gap between heavyweight serious games, which can impose high cognitive and development costs, and simple quiz applications, which offer limited interaction and motivation.

The platform is built with Flutter for a single codebase spanning mobile, web, and desktop, and uses Firebase for authentication, real-time multiplayer synchronization, and cloud-based content management. Its question engine organizes more than sixty categories into disciplinary groups, with some categories containing over 500 questions, and the architecture is designed so new question banks can be added without altering gameplay. The system architecture separates the client presentation and gameplay services from backend functions such as authentication, purchase verification, and security rules, and the authors note that logged gameplay events support empirical research.

The evaluation is preliminary. An initial classroom deployment involved voluntary students in an undergraduate Data Structures course, who used a bank of more than 300 curriculum-aligned items in a pre-test, revision, and post-test sequence. The proposed framework measures academic performance alongside user experience dimensions such as engagement, motivation, and usability, and the authors report high student acceptance and positive perceptions of engagement and usability. The paper explicitly acknowledges that the sample was small, the question difficulty was not controlled, and no definitive evidence of learning gains or knowledge retention has yet been established, positioning the work as a feasibility study and foundation for larger controlled experiments across multiple courses.