h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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The traditional Connect Four game with a twist. Instead of dropping a disk in the top you can use your turn to drop an entire row by one space instead, either breaking up a potential four-in-a-row or solidifying your own.
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Annotation:
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So, removing the entire bottom row? Or do you mean "entire
column" (which would make more sense & be easier to
implement in the real game)? |
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Ah sorry. You'd make an entire column drop down one space and the bottom disk in that column would be put back into play. |
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I'm still not entirely clear on what the game you're
proposing is.
Is it a physical tabletop game, or a computer game? |
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I think your idea is based on the tabletop game, where
players take turns to drop in one disc at a time from the
top. You want to run a game like that in reverse, somehow.
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If you want a physical game (as opposed to a computer
version), you need to have a reasonably
simple physical mechanism to make it dispense one disc
from a row reliably.. One way to do this would be to have a
set of rotating
dials along the bottom of the grid, each similar to the
dispensing device on a gumball machine. More complicated
than connect four, but not
impossibly so. |
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Furthermore, I think you need to define what state the
board starts in. Perhaps totally full of player discs, in a
random distribution? That can be done trivially, if you trust
players to mix the same number of discs of each colour
in a bag and insert them fairly (i.e. without looking). A
more interesting (complicated and halfbaked) solution
would be to include a pachinko-style device above the
board. |
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You'd also need a rule about what happens when the
starting position didn't have a run of four for either player. |
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Regardless, I suspect it would need some tweaking of the
rules to actually make it fun. |
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I think he's proposing an either/or. You either add a
disc or drop one out. I'd play it. |
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Mods required to existing game grid:
A row of holes (a little off-centre, as the discs touch in the
centre) between the 1st & 2nd rows, to "hold" whatever
discs are above that; & a pin each.
Individual "release" levers (instead of the "all at once"
release the game normally has).
To take the "drop" turn: insert pin, release bottom disc,
remove pin (to drop remaining discs one row). Done.
<anecdote>
A friend & I used to play Connect 4 on paper (high school
could get a bit boring...). We developed a bunch of mods,
but our favourite was "single anti-gravity"; only one turn
per game (per player), a disc could "float" at a particular
spot (rather than falling to the disc below). I never got
around to modding an actual game grid, but I would have
used the same "pin in hole" idea.
</a>
[a1], sorry, didn't click your link before typing. I haven't
met that version. |
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Nice find [a1]. Guess that make this dead in the water but I still plan to build a large version with the gum-ball column drop [Loris] was talking about. |
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You'd still be starting from scratch and trying to connect four, but by dropping a row it would let you foil potential runs while slipping your colour disk into a slot previously occupied a row above adding a level of complexity to the original game. |
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I never considered removing disks from just anywhere. That might be better. |
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You could do it with boring touchscreen electronics
pretty easily. A dedicated electronic game board
probably doesn’t make sense to manufacture in
this day and age, but the analog style would be
interesting to work a mechanism for. |
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I quite like the idea of the pachinko mixing device above
the board. If you overfilled it, loaded it randomly and
blanked most of it off, maybe you wouldn't have to worry
about getting every pin exactly fair. Or maybe it would just
clog, I don't know. |
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//A dedicated electronic game board probably doesn’t
make sense to manufacture in this day and age// |
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It is however the sort of thing which might make a fun
homebrew project. My electronics isn't really there, but
with a microcontroller like a Pi Pico you could code it in
python. |
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