Connect 4 (Full size and travel mini with quarter for size)
About
The classic 4 in a row game from 1974. Players alternate dropping chips in slots until someone gets 4 in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
Interestingly this is a rather modern game which is interesting given how simple the basic premise is. I found a few pages online that mention the history of the game and some of them reference a book by Robbie Bell who thought the game might have been invented in the early 1900's but this seems to be unlikely.
While searching I also found a great interview on YouTube with the designer who does a great job explaining exactly how he came up with and adjusted the idea.
After watching the interview I started wondering about how many other "vertical" games there are, and with a quick trip to Board Game Geek the answer is "not many". So if you are an aspiring game designer that needs something unique, I think there is still some room for something new.
Thoughts
Tim:
Still a very fun game. Deep enough to make you think, but incredibly simple. There are only two rules in the directions which is rather amazing when you think about it.
Laura:
I'd played it very little in elementary school, with other kids, so I didn't have any strategy or didn't know any tricks that Tim knew from years of playing with nieces and nephews. It was fun playing with an adult and trying to create a strategy on the fly.
Trivia
- This is "solved" game and was done so in 1988. A solved game, is one where the winner or loser can be predicted from the start if both players play perfectly. (Think tic-tac-toe). At the time brute force was not an option given the computer power of the day so a set of strategies was developed that allowed for perfect play. Computing power caught up in 1995, and a brute force method of testing every single possibility was also created.
7-14-2020