When I go to a Dave & Busters or any other large arcade there are two games that I will inevitably sink the majority of my money into. The first is Pop-A-Shot, where you simply find the one where the basketballs are a little flat so they don’t bounce off the rim and instead roll in and just collect tickets from your domination, and the second is the giant, light-up Connect Four game.
Both of these games are great and near the top of my favorite arcade games list, but I had never once thought about combining the two together. Thankfully, some brilliant people did have that idea, as the guys from How Ridiculous on YouTube created a full-size version of basketball Connect Four and it looks absolutely amazing.
I would pay an inordinate amount of money to own this thing and would demand anyone that comes over to my house has to play me in it. The logistical challenge that they recognized about midway through the game was that it requires lots of basketballs, or, at the least, someone dedicated to rebounding the misses and bringing them back to the rack. Other than that — which I’m sure could be remedied fairly easily — the game looks like a ton of fun.
The thing these guys lacked was strategy, as they simply hoisted shots up — the one even notes that he has no idea what he’s trying to do other than get buckets — but even so there was some tremendous drama involved. It’s like a game of knockout got mixed with Pop-A-Shot and Connect Four and the result is awesome. The moment when one guy blocks the other from getting four in a row by the slimmest of margins is great, and the walkoff shot was money as well.
It doesn’t look all that expensive to make, aside from the hoops themselves, and I feel like every kid that loves basketball would beg their parents for this — also, grown adults like myself — so they should definitely figure out a way to mass produce these and turn a mean profit.
