What's the name of this Connect 4 variant?

Question

I'm being trying to find this variant. It's a variant where, when you have a full column, you can place a disk into that column and push downwards, causing all the disks to go down one row except for the bottom disk with then falls out of the bottom?

Answer 1

This is not an official variant of the game. It's similar to the "PopOut" variant by Hasbro, and seems like a totally viable house-rule variant if you have a Connect 4 Revised Edition board.

Hasbro released a new version of Connect 4 in 2008, the Connect 4 Revised Edition, that has the ability to remove the bottom checker from just a single column without messing up the rest of the board. The intention of this was to support two new game variants (PopOut and Pop 10). The one most similar to the rules you describe is PopOut:

Play PopOut just like the Original Connect 4. However, on your turn, you can choose either to drop a counter in OR pop one out of the bottom row.

Note: You can only drop in or pop out counters of your own colour.

There is also Connect 4 Revised Second Edition, which adds two more official variants (Five in a Row and Power Up), but neither of these are relevant.

The rules you describe are unlikely to show up as on official variant for the game without a hardware update. On the classic Connect 4 board, trying to push a checker into a full column could very easily reset the whole board by accident. Meanwhile, the Revised Connect 4 boards are designed to allow for removal of the bottom checker, but you do so by popping it out of the column, not by pushing a new checker in at the top. While the Revised boards fully support this style of play, you would need to pop out the checker first and then add the new checker second.

Don't let any of this stop you! House rules can be great. It seems like a cool rule, and if you have a Connect 4 board that supports it, go for it.

Answer 2

This is not a well-known variant.

But it sounds like an interesting House rule

If it was a common variant it would be mentioned in one of the Connect4 variant lists which appear on BGG, Wiki, ultraboardgames, Hasbro-rules.

Searching through lists of Connect4 variants, I spotted two variants with some similarity to the push-down rule you are looking for:

1. "Popout" allows to drop a disk from the bottom:

The game play is like the original Connect4 except on your turn you can do:

1. Drop a checker, or
2. Pop one of your own checkers out of the bottom row.

2. In "Power Up" each player have several special disks, one of them is the Anvil, which when placed immediately pops out all the checkers below it, leaving only the anvil on the bottom row.

Sources:

1. BGG: Variations on four-in-a-row
2. BGG: the Tic Tac Toe Family Reunion
3. Wiki: Connect_Four #Rule_variations
4. ultraboardgames: variations
5. Hasbro rules archives