🔴 Connect Four

About this game

Connect Four is played on a standing grid seven columns wide and six rows deep. You choose a column, your disc falls to the lowest free slot, and the first player to line up four of their colour in any direction takes the game. Gravity is the whole design: you never choose a square, only a column.

That constraint is what turns a simple race into a real strategy game. Because discs stack, every move you make also decides what square your opponent can reach next. Strong players spend as much time thinking about what they are handing over as about what they are building.

Controls

Tips & strategy

Play into the centre column early. The middle column takes part in more winning lines than any other, and a disc there contributes to threats in both diagonal directions as well as horizontally. Give the centre away and you are fighting the rest of the game with fewer options.

Think in terms of odd and even rows. Because discs stack, a threat sitting on an odd-numbered row tends to favour the first player and an even-numbered threat favours the second. Experienced players deliberately aim their threats at the rows that suit whichever side they are on.

The strongest weapon is the double threat: a position where you would complete four in two different places at once. Your opponent can only block one. Build toward shapes with open ends on both sides rather than lines that run into a wall.

Watch what your move sets up underneath. Dropping a disc creates a new landing square directly above it, and if that square completes a line for your opponent you have simply given them the game. Before every move, look at the square you are about to create.