Four-in-a-Row

Alternate Names

Connect Four™, Captain's Mistress, Four Up, Plot Four, Find Four, Fourplay and Four in a Line

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

A 7x6 square grid and twenty-one each of black and white counters are required for play.

History

Connect-4™ was first published by Milton Bradley in February 1974.

Objective

The objective is to make an orthogonal or diagonal row of four counters of one's own color, the first player to do so being the winner.

Play

The grid is placed with the longer side at bottom and counters are played in the cells. Milton Bradley marketed the game with the board standing up to allow gravity to make the counters fall to the lowest possible position when placed in a column. This gravity mechanism can easily be emulated by noting which side of the board is the bottom at the start of the game and making sure that any counter placed is as close as possible to the bottom row in its column. Alternate turns entail each player placing one counter in a cell in the bottom row or stacked directly above any previously-placed counter until one player achieves four counters of the same color in an orthogonal or diagonal row.

Variations

Variations on the Connect-4 theme utilized 8×7, 9×7 and 10×7 grids for the game board.

Sources

1. Pentagames. Compiled by Pentagram. 1990. Fireside, Simon & Schuster Inc. ISBN 0-671-72529-7.