Oh you could do what I’m talking about in C, no problem. By console and keyboard only, what I mean is that this is a game done in the shell with a REPL using printf() and scanf(), it was not graphical or anything. The programming problems weren’t about game programming, it was just design a little data structure to hold the board state, implement valid move checking, detect win/lose states. Really simple stuff, I guarantee it wouldn’t be hard for you.
Re: ridiculous C++isms and embedded C, I’ve been in the same spot for my entire career. After learning C++ in college, I joined a CG film company that had banned C++ (dumb story) so I learned how to write object oriented C. Working in console games after that, we weren’t allowed to use any built-in memory management or exceptions or a current compiler, so very restricted C++. (And the worst bug I ever fixed was when someone tried to get clever with their C++ copy constructor.) These days I use CUDA, which is also technically C++ but basically C.
