Because demonstrating Minimax through Tic Tac Toe is too mainstream
NOTE: since this was my first attempt at gaming, pardon the hairballs :-/
Nine Men's Morris is a strategy board game for 2 players (or 1 player against computer) that has its roots in the Roman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Men%27s_Morris
Concepts I want to demonstrate through the game:
1. Object Oriented Game Programming
2. SVG (and maybe D3.js, but I'm not really a UI guy, so graphics are minimal)
3. Minimax Algorithm
4. JavaScript Concepts & its Optimization
5. Online multiplayer (in future, will include FB login + Node&Express&Mongo on back end)
6. Nine Men's Morris
I don't give 2 shits about:
1. Responsive site design
2. Using game frameworks (I'm not making a full-blown adrenaline-inducing game. I'm just making a piece of software to teach a couple of skills for you to add to your repertoire)