4-PLAY

It's like Vulcan Connect 4!

4-PLAY is an abstract strategic board game implemented for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Physical Game Paks are available as well as a  download of the .nes file for play in an emulator under most operating systems. 

4-PLAY is a near variant of the game, Quarto™️, which was created by Blaise Müller in 1989 and is published by Gigamic. I highly recommend buying a set, as it is beautiful and fun, and has won countless awards. Blaise Müller is a Swiss mathematician and game designer best known for Quarto, but has also developed other games like Quits(2000).

4-PLAY is a two player game, but supports AI opponents of various levels  (novice-best). The board is a simple 4x4 grid. There are 16 unique pieces each defined by four binary attributes: blue/white, round/square, shiny/dull and drilled/undrilled. At the beginning of the game the board is empty and the pieces are grouped together off the board into a common pool.  The goal is have 4 pieces in a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) on the board sharing an attribute, so 4 blue pieces, 4 drilled pieces, etc.

The twist is you don't pick the piece you play, your opponent does!

An introductory version of the game is included, which uses only one attribute (blue/white).

You can read the manual here.