I had the sudden urge to play tetris today and, unfortunately, my old tetris standby (acid tetris) doesn’t work properly in XP. Taking a quick look around the internet, I have made the following two observations:
There are approximate 10 bajillion tetris programs out there
Approximately 9.9 bajillion of them totally suck.
The problem is that most of them are obsessed with cool graphics and shiny bells and whistles and extra gameplay modes but are clearly made by someone who doesn’t play tetris.
I used to be a pretty serious player and all the games I’ve tried make me feel like I’m moving through molasses. The setup of the controls means that I’m often losing because the pieces don’t move fast enough, not because I can’t think fast enough. Also, some games seem to introduce an inexplicable delay after each line is cleared, just so they can cram in more gratuitious animation. This means that no matter how fast the game goes, it never gets challenging because you always have time to take a breather.
So are there any games built for pros by pros which let me get my serious tetris mojo on?
Alas, the only version of Tetris I ever really enjoyed was a black and white Mac version with Russian music, and scenes from Russian history. There were cosmunauts on the high scores table! Unfortunately, there were a lot of Tetris clones even then so I have never been able to find it. Later versions just annoyed me.
If you want something different, Triptych is a version that obeys the laws of physics. And on the off-chance that you have a Linux machine somewhere, Bastet (short for Bastard Tetris) uses an algorithm to find the worst possible next piece instead of selecting it randomly. I really really want to see a Windows version for that one.
Argh, no. That contains just about everything wrong with how to make a tetris game. You can’t rotate when the block is at the top of the screen, it has a wierd animation when you clear a line, the side controls move very sluggishly, the speed ramps up excruciatingly slowly, they map the up arrow to rotate with no option of changing and there are inexplicable pauses all through the game.
99% of the tetris games I’ve tried contain at least 3 or more of these flaws which makes them unplayable for me. Surely there must be a single version of tetris which is done right.
You consider that a weird animation? All id does is flash twice. You’re going to ahve a nigh-impossible time finding a tetris gaem that doesn’t at least flash the line before removing it.
And what do you mean you can’t rotate it when it’s at the top? I was able to rotate it as soon as it appeared. And what else would you use for rotate? I’ve always seen it as up and couldn’t imagine what other button would be easier, unless you like to play with two hands.
I’ve always held on to the original Game Boy version as my favorite.
For the newer incarnations, the classic mode of Tetris Elements is very playable, albeit not perfect, and I picked it up for ten bucks out of the bargain bin. I don’t really enjoy the other modes the game has, but I can’t say that really matters to me since I have the important part for stopping the addiction.
I need a Tetris that lets you start out at like level 15 or so. Level 9 is just barely bearable
The problem with the animation is that no new piece is falling when the animation is running. This means that, even at the higher levels, you always have a 1 second breather whenever you clear a line which makes in less challenging.
I don’t know about you but I wasn’t able to rotate pieces at the top, if rotating the piece would make it go out of the screen, it wouldn’t let me rotate.
And one handed tetris is incredibly annoying because a) you can’t rotate in both directions which means you need to rotate 3 times to get to the right orientation and b) you can’t rotate and move at the same time.
Such games are fine for casual players but not for a serious tetris player because of the above mentioned flaws.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of Tetris clones even then so I have never been able to find it. Later versions just annoyed me.
