Damson Drop

What is four in a row?

Four in a row is a two player strategy game played in an upright frame. Each player has discs of one color. You take turns dropping a disc into one of the columns, and it falls as far as it can. The first player with four of their own discs in a straight line wins.

The rules take thirty seconds to learn, and the game still rewards a lot of thought. Gravity is what makes it interesting: you can only ever play the lowest open cell of a column, so a threat you set up high on the board can sit there for ages waiting for the cell under it to fill. We built Damson Drop so the discs feel real, the house players feel like people, and the expert is honestly hard. It's free, it runs in your browser and there's nothing to download.

How to play

1. The frame. The classic board has 7 columns and 6 rows. One player has damson purple discs, the other honey gold ones (you can change the colors).
2. Dropping a disc. On your turn, pick a column that isn't full. Your disc drops to the lowest empty cell in that column.
3. Winning. Line up four of your own discs in a straight line: across a row, up a column, or on either diagonal. Five or more in a line counts too.
4. Draws. If all 42 cells fill up and nobody has four, the game is a draw.
5. Who goes first. Players alternate. In our game the first player swaps from game to game unless you choose otherwise, because moving first is a real advantage.

Playing Damson Drop

Tap or click a column to drop a disc. With a mouse, hover over a column to see the disc waiting above it and a faint one where it would land. On a keyboard, the number keys 1 to 7 drop straight into that column, or Tab to the board and use the arrow keys and Enter.

• Undo takes back your move and the house player's reply.
• The light bulb gives our pick and says what it does: wins by force, holds a draw, or is the best defense when every move loses.
• The review after a game marks the moves that changed the result, such as "this move turned a win into a loss".
• Settings include disc speed, a landing preview, tap twice to drop on touch screens, shapes on the discs, high contrast and less motion.

When someone wins, the four discs glow and a line runs through them. Start the next game and the bar at the bottom of the frame opens, and every disc drops out with a clatter.

Boards and Drop or Pop

In Drop or Pop you can either drop a disc as usual or pop one of your own discs out of the bottom row. Every disc above it slides down one cell, which can finish a line for you, or for your opponent. Our house rules: if a single pop makes four for both colors, the player who popped wins. If the same position comes round a third time, or 100 moves pass with no winner, the game is a draw.

The house players

Five animals from the orchard, each with a personality and a different way of going wrong. They see only the board you see.

Rowan is the real thing. On the classic board our engine knows a winning move for the first player from the very start, and after the opening it works the game out exactly. So when Rowan moves first, expect to lose, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. When you move first against him, the win is there to be found, but a single slip is enough for him.

Daily Harvest and the ladder

The Daily Harvest is three puzzles on the classic board, the same for everyone each day: a win in 2, a win in 3 or 4, and a win in 5 to 7 of your own moves. Rowan defends every one perfectly, always choosing the reply that holds out longest. A win on par scores 100 points, a slower win 60 and a draw 20, so a perfect harvest is 300. Your first harvest of the day goes on the daily leaderboard, and you can play the puzzles again just for fun.

The ladder is a rating that starts at 1200 and moves after every game against a house player. Beating a stronger player moves it more. The leaderboard keeps your best.

Play with friends

Pass and play puts two people on one phone or tablet, and the first player swaps every game. To play a friend on another device, one of you hosts and gets a four letter room code, and the other types it in or opens the shared link. The host picks the board. If the connection drops, we hold the game for two minutes while you reconnect, and a rematch is one tap. Online games use a few friendly reactions instead of chat.

Tips and strategy

Take the middle

The middle column is part of more possible lines than any other, so discs there do the most work. On the classic board, perfect play for the first player starts in the middle. Starting next to it is only a draw, and starting on an edge column loses.

Look above every disc

The most common mistake is dropping a disc right under a cell where your opponent would win. Before you play, check the cell your disc creates on top of it. If your opponent wins there, play somewhere else.

Make two threats at once

One threat gets blocked. Two at once usually win. A three in a row with open cells at both ends, or a seven shape that threatens along a row and a diagonal, gives your opponent two holes to fill with one disc.

Odd and even rows

Late in a game, columns fill up and someone is forced to play under a threat. Counting rows from 1 at the bottom, the first player wants unfinished threats on odd rows (1, 3 and 5) and the second player wants them on even rows. Get that right and the end of the game often plays itself.

Stack threats in one column

Two of your threats one above the other in the same column win outright: when your opponent blocks the lower one, you take the cell above.

In Drop or Pop, count before you pop

A pop moves every disc above it. Before you pop, slide the column down in your head and check every line through it, for both colors.

Questions