The game of Connect Four is a classic "board" game most often played by children. Introduced in the 1970's, it is essentially a less complex variation of checkers.

Two players can play at one time. Each player amasses checkers of a particular color, most often red or black. The game board is a vertically oriented grid with slots in the top. Players take turns dropping their checkers into the slots. When one player has four checkers in a row (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) then he or she is the winner.

The massively multi-player version of this game will apply the following modifications:

• The game board will be rendered in Flash and will be deployed on one or more screens including [ideally] at least one plasma screen in a public place
• The Flash Com Server will maintain the game state, so that every screen is watching the same game
• The screen will display the current state of the game, as well as an indicator of which color (red or black) has the next move
• Players will put the virtual checkers in the virtual slots by sending an SMS to an e-mail address displayed on the screen
• The SMS will be simply a number, 1 thru 7, indicating into which slot the checker should be deposited
• When someone sends their first move to the system, it will log them as having joined the team (red or black) whose turn it was
• In the future, this person can only send moves for the team which they have joined
• When the game ends, a counter on the screen will increment which team won, and will reset the game
• A given game could take minutes, hours or days to complete, depending on how many people participate
• A core idea is that this is a game that requires minimal effort to play - this is meant to encourage more people to play it
• A typical play experience would be someone sending in a move as they pass by the screen and then going about their day