Connect Four

Connect Four (also known as four in a row or four in a line) is a sort of Gomoku with gravity. As the name suggests, you have to line up four pieces in a row, but they are dropped into a grid from above.

The story goes that Captain James Cook took it on his exploration voyages and became so engrossed with it during the long periods at sea that his crew gave it the name Captain's Mistress, a name that has remained till today. Since apart from this anecdote, very little can be found about its history before it was published 1974 by Milton Bradley, this is probably a myth.

Connect Four was quite popular on the Commodore 64 (or, with Commodore 64 programmers), there were at least 40 different implementations on that platform. Given the total number of C64 games, this is not as much as it sounds. PC programmers seem to have discovered it only when a variant was included in the Windows Entertainment Pack as Tic Tac Drop, and it has remained, typically, a Windows game.

Link-Four DOS 86 Ca The Great Canadian Computer Company
Connex Amiga 91 UK Adrian Millett
Connect4 W16 US Brian R. Malcolm
Link Four W16 92 US R&R Engineering
Quadriga W16 Th  
The fantastic 4! W16 De Thorsten Fendel
4-In-A-Row DOS 93 US Keith Cohen & Mike Walston
4 Play W16 UK Andy Smith
Drop-It W16 UK Adrian Millett
Velena DOS 96 It Giuliano Bertoletti
Connect 4 Mac 97 US Miles Michelson
Fyrad W16 Se Peter Sunna
4 en linea W16 98 Es Angel Villoria Marcos
4P W32 Fr Fabien Cabrol
Conecta 4 W32 Mx Carlos Aguilar Mares
Vier gewinnt W32 De M. Sommer
Vier Gewinnt 2.3 W32 CH Richard Fischer
Connect 4 W32 99 US Miles Michelson
Puissance 2000 W32 Fr Frédéric Dubois
Vier Gewinnt W32 De Markus Vosseler
Vier gewinnt W32 00 De SoftwareEdition
Catapults W32 01 Il Ariel Jacob
Tessera W32 Gr Spyros Paraschis