Drop discs, stack four in a row, and beat a friend in real time — share one link, no signup, free.
Want to play Connect 4 online with a friend? Create a private room on Play Lounge, share the link, and your opponent drops straight into the game — no account, no download, no waiting. Both of you see every disc land in real time over a live connection, whether you are in the same room or on opposite sides of the country.
Prefer a quick solo game? Play Connect 4 vs the computer at three difficulty levels. The AI uses minimax search, so the hard setting will punish a lazy center rush. Everything runs free in your browser, installs as an app, and works on phone, tablet, and desktop.
Create a private room and send the link. No account on either side.
Real-time over WebSocket, comfortable even on a slow connection.
A built-in AI opponent with three difficulty levels when nobody is around.
Browser, installable PWA, and native iOS and Android apps.
The board stands upright: seven columns, six rows, 42 slots in total. Players alternate dropping a disc into a column, and gravity does the rest — the disc lands in the lowest empty slot. You choose a column, never an exact square, and that single constraint is what makes the game interesting.
The first player to line up four of their own discs wins, in any direction: horizontal, vertical or diagonal. If all 42 slots fill with nobody connecting four, the game is a draw.
More winning lines run through the middle column than any other, and fewer through the outer two. A disc in the centre contributes to more potential fours than the same disc played on the edge, which is why strong players fight for it from the first move.
Connect Four is a solved game: with perfect play the first player wins, and the winning first move is the centre column. Every other opening move either draws or loses. That is theory rather than practice — nobody plays perfectly — but it tells you where to start.
A single threat gets blocked. The way to win is to build a position with two winning squares at once, so your opponent blocks one and you take the other. The classic form is a row of three with both ends open — sometimes called a seven trap — where either end completes four.
Stacked threats work the same way: two winning squares in the same column, one above the other. Your opponent cannot block the lower one without handing you the upper one.
This is the mistake that decides most casual games. Because discs stack, playing into a column raises the landing square for the next disc in that column. If your opponent has a winning square directly above where you are about to play, your move hands it to them.
Before dropping a disc, look at the square immediately above it and ask whether that square completes anything for your opponent. Experienced players use this deliberately: they leave a column alone for a whole game because touching it loses.
Horizontal and vertical threats are easy to see. Diagonals are the ones people miss, because the eye does not naturally track them and the discs that form them are spread across different columns and heights. Most unexpected losses are diagonal.
Connect Four is also known as Four in a Row and 4 in a Line, and in various markets as Puissance 4, Vier Gewinnt, Cuatro en Línea and Quatro em Linha. The rules are the same everywhere: seven columns, six rows, gravity, four to win.
It is worth not confusing it with Gomoku, where stones stay exactly where you place them on a much larger board and you need five in a row. Connect Four’s gravity rule is what gives it its own character — you are always choosing between columns, never squares.
Yes. Open a private room and share the link; your friend joins instantly and you play the same board in real time. It is free, there is no signup, and they do not need to install anything — the link opens straight in their browser.
Choose Connect Four, create a room, and send the invite link or the 6-character code to the other player. They open it, join automatically, and you alternate dropping discs.
Seven columns by six rows — 42 slots. You pick a column and the disc falls to the lowest empty slot in it.
With perfect play, yes — Connect Four is a solved game and the first player wins by opening in the centre column. Between real people this rarely decides anything, but it is a good reason to alternate who goes first.
The centre column. More winning lines pass through it than any other column, and it is the only opening move that wins with perfect play.
A position with two winning squares at once. Your opponent can only block one per turn, so the other one wins. Building one is the main way games are decided.
Almost always because you played directly beneath one of their winning squares. Discs stack, so filling a slot raises the landing point for the next disc in that column — and hands your opponent the square above.
Yes. Four in a Row, 4 in a Line, Puissance 4 and Vier Gewinnt are all the same game: drop discs into a seven-by-six grid and be first to line up four.
Yes. You can start a practice game against the AI at Easy, Medium or Hard while you wait for a friend to join your room, then switch into the real game when they arrive.
Yes — free, with no account and no download. It also installs as an app on any device if you want it on your home screen.
Play these online with a friend too — same room links, same zero setup.
Native apps for iOS and Android. Same games, same room codes.
