Creating Games in Minecraft: Connect Four

My son is something of a Minecraft power user. Whenever another member of the household needs something done with “red stone” (electricity) and can’t figure it out – they come to him. So when he told me he had figured out how to build a working Connect Four style game – I was all ears.

This is our Connect Four Game built Minecraft-style. It runs on electricity (red stone) and automatically places each player’s piece at the push of a button. The players are forced to alternate because of a switch Jonathan embedded. (So no cheating.) This is pretty slick.

Besides replicating this Connect Four game, you can also build a Minecraft chess board, and come up with your own game boards using Minecraft engineering. You could do a family challenge, or work together to build the game of your choice. You could even invent a new game! Building games in Minecraft encourages thinking skills, visual spatial skills, and even teamwork.

I took a video where Jonathan actually walks you through how this Connect Four game works, and how it was built. Hopefully, this will give you a good starting point for your own Game-Building Crafting Adventure in Minecraft!

Here is a more detailed description of how the Connect Four Game works. First, each player has an area to sit, kind of like a big box. This box has four buttons – one for each row on the Connect Four board. These buttons are connected by electricity to the top of the game board on that player’s side. This electricity travels to pistons, which push three blocks into the corresponding column. These three blocks fill the square, and this constitutes one turn.

As the piston activates, a switch inside the box below actually switches the electricity from one player to the other, lighting up the Player 1 or Player 2 sign above the game board. In this way, it is always clear who needs to play the next turn.

Win by connecting four squares in a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Want more Minecraft ideas for your homeschool? Check out our 31 Day series!