The Tetris Thread.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

My absolute favorite PC version is Acid Tetris. Good music, excellent colors, and my high score NO-ONE WILL EVER BEAT!!!!

[notzeb]

I was playing petris the other day, and for the first time in my life I broke 400 lines on it.

Then, all of a sudden, the game just froze. Well, the pieces stopped moving, unless I specifically moved them. At first I was thinking that continuing would be cheating, since it froze, but I kept playing anyways.

Ten minutes later, I looked at the score/lines/level box, and it was claiming that, although I had 20,000 points, I was still on level 5. The I realized what was going on - I guess, every 400 lines, it resets the lines counter to 0. It hadn't frozen at all - level 0 is just that much slower than level 9.

So here's the question: why in the world would it do that? Why would they specifically add that code to the game? "Hey there, it looks like you've been playing a lot of tetris, why don't you take a ten minute break?" "Now that the pieces are moving so slowly, maybe you'll be able to fix the giant mess you got into because of the difficulty level." "Hey, let's fuck up your rhythm. Suddenly level 9 will seem hard again!"

Edit: ok, I guess that wasn't what happened at all. It happened to me again (just now), and this time for some reason, every line I got was counted as 10 lines, and every hundred lines was a level (???). It was saying stuff like "lines: 525, level: 5"... I am now completely confused...

Edit2: OH! I was looking at the final score, and it said "lines: 53, level: 5", and then I figured it out. It must have reset the lines to 0 when there where actually **5 lines, and it never erased the 5 at the end. This means that this doesn't happen every 400 lines. Maybe...... maybe it's every 255 lines? THEY STORED THE NUMBER OF LINES IN A... A... wait, short is big enough... A CHAR! (also, I found out why I thought it was 400 lines - during the game, before it froze, I had looked over and saw 355 as the number of lines, and now I realize that it was actually writing 3 lines, and the number of lines hadn't passed 10, so the level wasn't being reset to 1 yet...)

[Ondore]

The first game I got for my DS is Tetris. Such is the way it should be.

I've gotten to 200 lines on DS with over-spinning like a madman, but my best on the original is about 135.

And I had the joy of playing Tetrinet with a former Nintendo World Champion finalist. Those were fun times, except for when he built up a giant stack and then pulled out a Field Switch as I was about to finish the job. That cheeky bastard...

[Alasseo]

Tetris blast was the only real tetris, itt.

[Cheese]

I was playing petris the other day, and for the first time in my life I broke 400 lines on it.

Then, all of a sudden, the game just froze. Well, the pieces stopped moving, unless I specifically moved them. At first I was thinking that continuing would be cheating, since it froze, but I kept playing anyways.

Ten minutes later, I looked at the score/lines/level box, and it was claiming that, although I had 20,000 points, I was still on level 5. The I realized what was going on - I guess, every 400 lines, it resets the lines counter to 0. It hadn't frozen at all - level 0 is just that much slower than level 9.

So here's the question: why in the world would it do that? Why would they specifically add that code to the game? "Hey there, it looks like you've been playing a lot of tetris, why don't you take a ten minute break?" "Now that the pieces are moving so slowly, maybe you'll be able to fix the giant mess you got into because of the difficulty level." "Hey, let's fuck up your rhythm. Suddenly level 9 will seem hard again!"

Edit: ok, I guess that wasn't what happened at all. It happened to me again (just now), and this time for some reason, every line I got was counted as 10 lines, and every hundred lines was a level (???). It was saying stuff like "lines: 525, level: 5"... I am now completely confused...

Edit2: OH! I was looking at the final score, and it said "lines: 53, level: 5", and then I figured it out. It must have reset the lines to 0 when there where actually **5 lines, and it never erased the 5 at the end. This means that this doesn't happen every 400 lines. Maybe...... maybe it's every 255 lines? THEY STORED THE NUMBER OF LINES IN A... A... wait, short is big enough... A CHAR! (also, I found out why I thought it was 400 lines - during the game, before it froze, I had looked over and saw 355 as the number of lines, and now I realize that it was actually writing 3 lines, and the number of lines hadn't passed 10, so the level wasn't being reset to 1 yet...)

Wow. I need to get this version of tetris. Where do I look?

haha, I play tetris on my TI-84 SE during class

Would this be the one that's two-player-compatible? With the "X, T, theta, r" button instantly dropping the block?
That's the one that makes me annoyed that I have no tetris-loving friends.

[Jorpho]

Tetris blast was the only real tetris, itt.

Oh yes, I quite liked Tetris Blast, particularly the Bug mode. Very, very satisfying, blowing those bugs to kingdom come. Sadly, the drop-blocks-on-stuff-crawling-over-your-stack genre seems to be limited to this individual game. There was a SNES version named Bombliss in Japan, as I recall.

[Alasseo]

Tetris blast was the only real tetris, itt.

Oh yes, I quite liked Tetris Blast, particularly the Bug mode. Very, very satisfying, blowing those bugs to kingdom come. Sadly, the drop-blocks-on-stuff-crawling-over-your-stack genre seems to be limited to this individual game. There was a SNES version named Bombliss in Japan, as I recall.

I quite possibly went though more double As purely on tetris blast than most modern cameras take..

[Syntax]

Do you ever feel like saying this to random people? specifically, random people in your CSE 231 class who sit in front of you and downright refuse to stack the stupid blocks in any sort of discernible order?! "NO DON'T PUT THAT THERE!".




So yeah. my eyes have dried up, my wrist hurts, I've not eaten in many hours and my brain is unconsciously trying to stack up all the furniture in my room. I hereby dedicate this thread to the love of Tetris.




(unless there's one already.)

[Cathode Ray Sunshine]

What sucks is when you have a really high score in Tetris on your cellphone and then you delete it by mistake.

[AngrySquirrel]

YES! I mean come on, why do some people insist on making huge gaps or pretty patterns with colors when playing tetris instead of going for the high score, IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY. There are certain people that always makes me want to scream when observing them playing. It's so insanely frustrating to know that you can just do a simple lil thing in a game to advance but the person playing insists on repeating the same mistake again and again and again. NO! Jumping off the cliff will kill you, it did the first time and it did the 29 other times you've tried, now please stop it and just follow the god damned path right under your nose.

Err... yeah, tetris, frustrating when others play it badly.
Greatest time-killer ever <3

[Antimatter Spork]

I'm only in this thread to post Tetris Yaoi.

[|Erasmus|]

I agree... <3 tetris.

I also don't know anyone else who has noticed that the scores on the version from the windows entertainment pack from back in the day will overflow when you reach 32,767, and becomse -32,767, continuing to count up (gogo signed integers). So my high score on that one is -28,160

[Yummy Tree Sap]

I don't, because I'm terrible at games like that. Tetris, Puyo Puyo, Lumines, etc. The part of the human brain that can do visual puzzles like that must be lacking in mine. I do like that one SNES version of Tetris with the puzzle mode or whatever it's called though. I like that more than normal Tetris.

[Mathmagic]

(unless there's one already.)

Did you try searching within the Gaming forum?

[benjhuey]

Played it all through Calculus. Helps me arrange many everyday objects into tightly packed spaces.

So, not only do I hate how you play Tetris, I hate how you placed those canned beans on a completely different shelf than your Harry Potter books, when , obviously, you could easily fit them both in this bread box.

[Cornelius]

I didn't know how to play tetris until like the eighth time I played it.

It was actually quite a revelation that making a line made blocks disappear.

[Freakish]

I loved the N64 version with 4 people battling it out.

[Narsil]

Played it all through Calculus. Helps me arrange many everyday objects into tightly packed spaces.

So, not only do I hate how you play Tetris, I hate how you placed those canned beans on a completely different shelf than your Harry Potter books, when , obviously, you could easily fit them both in this bread box.I have nothing else useful to add here.

[Joeldi]

I'm only in this thread to post Tetris Yaoi.

On topic, nah, not with Tetris - I suck at Tetris, but other video games, I do get that way.

[Numzane]

I get this with my dad. Generally because he refuses to get lines when he can, and instead tends to stack similar blocks on top of one another and wait for a line block to come round so he can get more lines at once, and then by the time it DOES come hes already stacked his blocks 8 or 10 rows up. Kinda annoying.

[l33t_sas]

I get this with my dad. Generally because he refuses to get lines when he can, and instead tends to stack similar blocks on top of one another and wait for a line block to come round so he can get more lines at once, and then by the time it DOES come hes already stacked his blocks 8 or 10 rows up. Kinda annoying.

I do that. I thought it gave you more points?

[Numzane]

I do that. I thought it gave you more points?

Indeed it is worth it, up to a point. And that point is definitely long gone when someone requires 3 lines in a row to get rid of all the stuff they have piled up. In general, I believe it's weak to base your whole strategy around one piece. For two rows it works better since then you can use three pieces to achieve the same thing.

[l33t_sas]

I do that. I thought it gave you more points?

Indeed it is worth it, up to a point. And that point is definitely long gone when someone requires 3 lines in a row to get rid of all the stuff they have piled up. In general, I believe it's weak to base your whole strategy around one piece. For two rows it works better since then you can use three pieces to achieve the same thing.

Well I go the first few levels for four and then as they start coming faster and I don't want to screw up, I reduce it to two. I think it's a good strategy.

[Numzane]

As long as you avoid the above mentioned situations (preferably not through luck alone (I don't mean to imply that this is what you do)) you're fine in my books.

[Cassi]

See, that's why the hold feature in tetris ds is so brilliant -- I put every line piece I get there, as a rule, so I can safely build up pretty nicely, generally.

As for broken counting, I don't know about points, because I pay attention to lines, not points, but in tetris ds it stops counting after 999 lines. However, it does keep counting levels (though they don't get any faster after a point), so you can sorta keep track of how many lines you have.

[Hoshi no Kabii]

I recently picked up Tetris for the Gameboy. Not having played Tetris for the NES, I really can't complain about the supposed terrible controls. I generally start at level 7 and get as many Tetrises (Tetri? Tetre? 4 blocks) as I can until level 8. Then I tone it down and settle for 3 blocks, and have little problem with getting a lower amount. Highest score so far is ~130,000.

[|Erasmus|]

I do that. I thought it gave you more points?

Indeed it is worth it, up to a point. And that point is definitely long gone when someone requires 3 lines in a row to get rid of all the stuff they have piled up. In general, I believe it's weak to base your whole strategy around one piece. For two rows it works better since then you can use three pieces to achieve the same thing.

I do this constantly. It's not hard to lower it if it's going to get too high, even without getting a line.

['; DROP DATABASE;--]

See, that's why the hold feature in tetris ds is so brilliant -- I put every line piece I get there, as a rule, so I can safely build up pretty nicely, generally.

As for broken counting, I don't know about points, because I pay attention to lines, not points, but in tetris ds it stops counting after 999 lines. However, it does keep counting levels (though they don't get any faster after a point), so you can sorta keep track of how many lines you have.

I hate when games cap stats at silly levels like that. It's a 32-bit system, I should be able to get up to 4294967295 lines dammit.

[Numzane]

Well I suppose it depends on the rest of your stuff. It just irritates the me when he could be doing something to lower his monstrosity but instead he just lets it keep building up and waiting for a line. And then he loses when the line comes too late or not at all.

I usually aim to keep the thing fairly low, but perhaps thats more of a style thing.

[Cassi]

Oh, if there's another piece that you could use to lower it all without then ending up with a covered gap for more than a couple pieces, then it's silly not to. (Another thing I like about tetris ds is that you can see the next 3 pieces, and plan accordingly. I would probably be rubbish at tetris on the gameboy now that I am used to that and the hold feature. ) As a personal preference, I don't normally let it build up to more than about 5 lines unless I can see that I'll be able to lower it soon. (Often less on the higher levels.)

[Alpha Omicron]

http://www.tetrisconcept.com
Loads of tetris-related material, including fora.

[Godskalken]

[Shameless self promotion ahead]

I wrote a Tetris game for java mobile several years back, and I'm still totally addicted to it. Of the tetris games for mobile phones I've tried (only a few), it's definitely one of the most playable (well, that's probably because it's the one I'm used to).
It also has a feat for the tetris expert who's grown tired of ordinary tetris - a hard mode in which the pieces may consist of anything from three to six squares.

It has a couple of obvious bugs that are just stupid, but they generally don't bother me. I won't go back and work any more on it now methinks. It works best with certain aspect ratios (its looked good on all nokias I've tried it on), but I think it works on just about all java-enabled mobiles.


Features:
Hard mode possible, pieces contain 3-6 squares,
Automatic save on exit (this is essential!)
Down arrow or 8 takes piece down immedeately, 0 brings it down faster.
Lock on move, for maximum range at high speeds.
Other standard stuff.

Problems:
A few stupid bugs, but no crashes I think
Doesn't pause when phone rings (I must've done something wrong here)
No game over screen (you'll know when you're done though)
Doesn't fit all aspect ratios - if you're unlucky you might be unable to see your score.
Only rotates pieces in one direction (that's pretty normal though).
Depends a bit too much on your phone's pseudorandom number generator


A challenge (experts only): Try to start at hard mode, with the maximum number of garbage lines. Then see if you can remove all holes. A friend of mine gives this a shot once a day - the tetris time.



To download, direct your phone to
wap.kintamaband.com/KTetris.jad

or, download http://wap.kintamaband.com/KTetris.jar to your computer and transfer to your phone.

I can provide source code too if anyone's interested.

[longs]

Yeah, tetris is pretty much like cocaine.

you get addicted to making lines disappear.

[Rippy]

Yeah, tetris is pretty much like cocaine.

you get addicted to making lines disappear.

Well it doesn't sound nearly as awesome when you put it that way. (The "making lines disappear" part. It actually sounds quite awesome when it's compared to cocaine)

All those other kids can have fun blowing up Nazi tanks, or killing aliens with laser beams, or building a civilization and conquering the world, but we... we can make lines disappear.

Off-topic: very nice avatar by the way.

@Cassi: Gee Willikers. There is a Tetris DS? Why was I not made aware of this? (I was just scanning the thread thinking, "man I wish I could get Tetris for my DS...")

[Simply Curious]

I recently picked up Tetris for the Gameboy. Not having played Tetris for the NES, I really can't complain about the supposed terrible controls. I generally start at level 7 and get as many Tetrises (Tetri? Tetre? 4 blocks) as I can until level 8. Then I tone it down and settle for 3 blocks, and have little problem with getting a lower amount. Highest score so far is ~130,000.

A couple of years ago, I accidentally mixed sibling rivalry and the gameboy version of Tetris.

We got up to about 400,000 points before he went off to college. Since then, I've been able to break that once at about 500,000 points. After that, I stopped playing because I felt that I had done the best that I could.

I do that. I thought it gave you more points?

Indeed it is worth it, up to a point. And that point is definitely long gone when someone requires 3 lines in a row to get rid of all the stuff they have piled up. In general, I believe it's weak to base your whole strategy around one piece. For two rows it works better since then you can use three pieces to achieve the same thing.

I usually play near the top of the screen, at least for the first 100 lines or so. The long piece isn't the only one that can break down a large stack, so long as it doesn't have any gaps beside that one vertical gap. An L dropped down can remove 2 or 3 lines, or a Z can remove 1 or 2. Not enough to get rid of the stack, but enough to keep it manageable until a long piece comes.

[Cassi]

@Cassi: Gee Willikers. There is a Tetris DS? Why was I not made aware of this? (I was just scanning the thread thinking, "man I wish I could get Tetris for my DS...")

Yup, it has been around for...quite a while. The one thing I don't like about it is the fact that it doesn't play the actual tetris music.

[micco]

Oh I just love tetris. I have the NES version of it, made it to level 12 once, then it got insanely fast.

[EstLladon]

A friend of mine wrote tetris on sed: link. I'm not geeky enough to fully appreciate it, but people say that it is insanely cool.

And she is female.

[Vox Imperatoris]

I haven't played Tetris in a long time...now you've gone and reminded me about it!

*runs off to find freeware Tetris on the internet*

[Aleril]

I remember being in the career center at my high school and seeing people play tetris and trying to restrain myself from grabbing their keyboard.