The game is similar to the traditional game of tic-tac-toe, but play on four 4 x 4 grids stacked vertically on top of each other. To win, a player must place four of their symbol on four squares that line up vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, on a single grid, or spaced evenly over all four grids. This creates a total of 76 possible ways to win, in comparison to eight possible ways to win on a standard 3 x 3 board.
3-D Tic-Tac-Toe can be played by two players against each other, or one player can play against a built in AI on eight different difficulty settings. The game uses the standard joystick controller.