Hi Everyone,

I'm the lead designer for Tetris Battle,
and I'd like to hear out what your thoughts on a few topics I'm researching right now,
to make a better game for core users as well.
Before we were more focused on the masses (sorry got make a living. )
but now I'll like to put some more efforts to cater to our best and most customers whom I believe is here

1)
the ideal DAS/AR setting you would like to have for optimal performance.

Maybe same for Line Clear, and Softdrop too..
but this might me something you just want it to be zero..

However, DAR/AR is different as in..
faster is not always the best.

So I'd like to hear out more about that before I make some more things.

2) Anything else would you like to tune?

3) Any cool single player modes you'll like to see?

4) Any cool functional items that you'll like to see in the game?

5)
Cool retro mino styles?
I've revived Tetris Grandmaster Style minos in Tetris Battle with the original colors (red I piece)

6) Anything else for a wish list?

7) I'm also working on a new balance between T-Spin, Combo, and Tetris styles..
Any thoughts shared will greatly help.

(I'm considering bringing the combo no flush rule that I've designed for the TOJ version)

maybe some actual garbage instead of that solid garbage  bs

Thanks acemagic for wanting to hear the community out on this.  

This community consists of players from many different Tetris game backgrounds, so it's tough to completely agree on 1 set of standards.  

Here are my own choices and reasons:

1) DAS 133, AR 8.  Personally I like to use something a bit faster, but this is fast enough and easy to control.  It doesn't require players to get accustomed to instant gravity that a small percentage of players use and seems like an easier transition for casual players.

For soft drop speed I'd like something faster than TF, maybe #5 on TOJ, but not instant firm drop that some players love.  I feel as though firm drop messes up the balance between tspins/tetris/combos and also pushes a games balance towards speed over skill.  Since you're talking about rebalancing though, this might not be an issue.  There are places a firm drop cannot reach that a soft drop can, and in my opinion a really fast soft drop would satisfy even firm drop fans.

For line clear delay I would be happy anything faster than TF's line clear delay.  To me TF's line clear delay seems quick enough already but I know many players want it faster so maybe half of that.

3) There's a Dig Challenge mode on the fan-made NullpoMino which alongside 40 lines is the most popular singleplayer mode I see being played.  Garbage rises on a players field and increases in speed over time until the player tops out.  Blockbox and TetriNET had something similar to this called survivor mode and it was played heavily on those games as well.  I think modes like this are very addicting, here's a video of it:



6) Real-time multiplayer with good spectator/chat support is a must!!  Live interaction with other players and the social aspect of live Tetris is what makes matches/practice/making Tetris buddies fun.  You can't talk to a replay.

7)  What ideas do you have on the rebalancing?  To use an existing game as a template, I'd choose TOJ.  I know that many players love TOJ's gameplay and feel it's very well balanced.  Japanese players and a majority of the community would agree.  Hangame on the other hand looks too speed based to me, and less about skill.  Games that fall into that speed over skill balance are no fun to watch, which many players saw during the Burger King Hangame tournament: http://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1605

That being said, there are some interesting concepts that Kitaru has brought up before so hopefully he can post about them here.  They would need some heavy testing though to see how they affect balance.

1) Faster is not always best for DAR, but for AR, faster is always better =]. (Unless you're blink or someone else who uses skill-stops.) That said, I like 80-100ms DAR, and 0 or 1 AR.

Tetris Friends uses around 200ms for line clears, which is okay, but the faster the better. Perhaps if you must use line clear delay for multiplayer modes, you could use zero line clear delay just for Sprint? I'd like to see some World Records set on a licensed game (Tetris Friends has one player so far who has gone sub 30 seconds, but in fan-games that don't use line clear delay, we have players who can manage under 25.)

3) A speed-based garbage-clearing single player mode. Tetris Evolution allowed something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g8tDurevz0 . But unlike that video, I'd like to see two differences: A) you start with X garbage rows, and you win when you clear the bottom-most row (faster the better), and B) an algorithm which prevents lucky starts. As you see in that video, the guy starts with a 4 row column. What happens is players will restart over and over until they get a lucky field. So, it's a good idea to make it so all starting fields are equally lucky/unlucky (unlucky would be when you get two holes back and forth next to each other). One idea is to make garbage holes 10-bag, kinda like the piece randomizer, but a hole hits each of the ten columns before going on to the next bag.

6) An Elo-type skill-based rating system instead of an accumulative-type "time-invested"-based rating system.

7) More or less, the general consensus on this forum is that T-Spins require way more skill and risk than Combos. Yet in Tetris Friends, 4-wide Combo openings can do very well against T-Spinners. This may be too extreme, but I'd like to see a big time Combo nerf (unless you're willing to take Combos out altogether: PS3 Tetris has no Combos, and the gameplay is very good.) What I'm thinking is something like this:

0 garbage, Combo 1
1 garbage, Combo 2
1 garbage, Combo 3
1 garbage, Combo 4
2 garbage, Combo 5
2 garbage, Combo 6
2 garbage, Combo 7
3 garbage, Combo 8 or higher.

Might be extreme, but it should do the trick.

Quote from: acemagic
Hi Everyone,

I'm the lead designer for Tetris Battle,
and I'd like to hear out what your thoughts on a few topics I'm researching right now,
to make a better game for core users as well.
Before we were more focused on the masses (sorry got make a living. )
but now I'll like to put some more efforts to cater to our best and most customers whom I believe is here



Maybe same for Line Clear, and Softdrop too..
but this might me something you just want it to be zero..

However, DAR/AR is different as in..
faster is not always the best.

So I'd like to hear out more about that before I make some more things.

2) Anything else would you like to tune?


(I'm considering bringing the combo no flush rule that I've designed for the TOJ version)

1)the ideal DAS/AR setting you would like to have for optimal performance.
I would say definitely For DAS the optimum is between 100 and 150. Maybe 133.
AR faster is better, but 1 frame (i.e. 16) should be good
2) Line clear delay should be zero, except in marathon. Simply have an animation that doesnt take 0 time but there is no actual delay. Check NullpoMino, it has 0 line clear delay but the animation still happens.

Quote from: acemagic
1)the ideal DAS/AR setting you would like to have for optimal performance.

Maybe same for Line Clear, and Softdrop too..
but this might me something you just want it to be zero..

However, DAR/AR is different as in..
faster is not always the best.

So I'd like to hear out more about that before I make some more things.

AR/rate - 60hz or Instant ("9G"); 30hz (like Tetris Splash) at bare minimum.
DAS/delay - subject to player preference; TF.Com's 6~16 frame range (@ 60fps) is alright, but I don't think there is any exceptional reason to enforce a limitation (other than perhaps trying to adhere to a free-to-play w/ item shop model). 4 frames is basically the lower bound for what anyone would think about using at this point in time.

Line Clear delay - zero; given how guideline multiplayer is designed at the moment (otherwise zero entry delay, poor Initial System options that are just there to get cope with line clear delay eating inputs), it probably makes most sense to just ditch it entirely. If it were using a Sega/TGM-style model, maybe this would be a different story.
Soft Drop speed - 1~2G or 20G (TGM's sonic drop); some players are attached to soft drop fixes and would appreciate a buff to soft drop speed without going instant, but both recovery styles can be supported by allowing individuals to tune this to their preference.

Quote from: acemagic
2) Anything else would you like to tune?

Perhaps rotation rule/kick table combinations.

Quote from: acemagic
3) Any cool single player modes you'll like to see?

I don't imagine we'll be seeing any TGM-style modes? Well, puzzle modes like Tetris Plus or Tetris with Card Captor Sakura are always neat if the levels are put together well.

Quote from: acemagic
4) Any cool functional items that you'll like to see in the game?

Items are tricky... For now, I'd say I can think of more items that I wouldn't like to see in the games than ones I'm particularly interested in seeing added. In particular, please do not reverse, scramble, or lock player controls. TGM's Roll Roll is sort of acceptable seeing as you can fight against the rotations without having to change the way you think about moving the pieces, but anything else is just plain infuriating.

Quote from: acemagic
5)Cool retro mino styles?
I've revived Tetris Grandmaster Style minos in Tetris Battle with the original colors (red I piece)

So, it's Reverse ACE...? ARS with SRS colors was already pretty odd. I guess you could use it to display your "true colors," but it's probably more confusing than useful without a rotation table change to go with it.
EDIT: Yep, this looks just as supremely uncomfortable as I thought it would. It's funny how badly this messes with my sense of things.

Quote from: acemagic
6) Anything else for a wish list?

More info displayed regarding incoming garbage -- either via TGM3-style display of garbage content below the field or some sort of demarcation on the garbage meter showing where the attack chunks fall. I'd be more interested in this sort of feature in a game with real Change On Attack garbage as it would help make quick decisions regarding when to accept nice garbage or counter messy attacks without having to stare at your opponent's field and hoping you're reading the choppy updates correctly.

Quote from: acemagic
7) I'm also working on a new balance between T-Spin, Combo, and Tetris styles..
Any thoughts shared will greatly help.

I'd like to investigate various mechanics with regards to attack sending, but I'm not sure how useful any of it will be for a game without real garbage like Tetris Battle. (Sorry to say it, but I still don't believe that that a replay-based system like this can amount to much more than a bloated single player experience.) Although it may not be an exact fit, I can still explain some of the concepts so you can gauge if there is some sort of application that suits your needs.

One approach that may afford some leeway in balancing a Change On Attack system like the one seen in TOJ is tweaking the way attack chunks are added. For example, we could potentially add a b2b tetris as +4 +1 to differentiate it from a b2b TSD that adds a straight +5. It may also come in handy when balancing the ever-controversial combo. An extreme example would be to force combo adds to be considered as part of the previous attack chunk -- that is to say, that combos should always add in a straight line if not mixed in with other types of attacks. I don't believe this approach is usable as-is, but it certainly would make a combo starter more of a risky all-in if it was dealing out a lot of clean garbage.

Another mechanic that I don't believe has been fully explored is strategic garbage -- giving the player control over how and where garbage adds. In the TGM series, garbage sent is based on the position, orientation, and shape of the piece being used to clear lines.

One concept I would like to test is allowing the player to send strategic attacks rather than standard Change On Attack random garbage by performing twists. The controversial aspect of this idea is that it isn't precisely clear where it should fit in with the concept of attack countering that now exists. Let's say for example that we change a t-spin double to send a messy two line attack like a T double would in TGM. Should the valuation of this attack as it relates to sending or countering attacks still be +4? Should spins in general instead add at face value? Should certain moves exist outside the realm of countering or be subject to removal only after all other attacks have been removed from the garbage queue? I don't think I can answer any of these questions until they have been put to trial.

Along similar lines, we could take an alternate approach to combos by allowing them to remain as strong in valuation (or perhaps stronger) but preventing them from adding all at once. Combos could instead be geared toward applying constant pressure over time by limiting them to adding one line per turn rather than flushing all at once as with other attacks. When combined with the previously mentioned concept of forcing combos to add in the same hole as the previous attack, there is strong incentive to mix up combos with other types of attack to ensure that attacks are well-distributed and not too many combo adds pool up for the opponent to return as a tetris. There would also be a lot of room to play with the "flow rate" of combo adds, either by increasing throughput if the match is sufficiently long (as in the Margin Time mechanic in Puyo Puyo 2 onward) or when the number of combo attacks in the queue reaches a sufficiently high value.

Quote from: acemagic
(I'm considering bringing the combo no flush rule that I've designed for the TOJ version)

While I like the idea Combo Block mechanic on its own, I think it is part of the reason combos are so problematic. Combos don't really need the benefit of the block in addition to their tremendous attack power. I think part of the reason that 4-wide didn't take as much of a hold on Tetris Splash despite sporting the same damage potential is that starting the combo does not make you immune to incoming attacks.

Quote from: caffeine
6) An Elo-type skill-based rating system instead of an accumulative-type "time-invested"-based rating system.

I somehow managed to miss this amidst all the mechanic-centric discussion, but this is pretty key.

Quote from: caffeine
7) More or less, the general consensus on this forum is that T-Spins require way more skill and risk than Combos. Yet in Tetris Friends, 4-wide Combo openings can do very well against T-Spinners. This may be too extreme, but I'd like to see a big time Combo nerf (unless you're willing to take Combos out altogether: PS3 Tetris has no Combos, and the gameplay is very good.) What I'm thinking is something like this:

0 garbage, Combo 1
1 garbage, Combo 2
1 garbage, Combo 3
1 garbage, Combo 4
2 garbage, Combo 5
2 garbage, Combo 6
2 garbage, Combo 7
3 garbage, Combo 8 or higher.

Might be extreme, but it should do the trick.

That table doesn't look too bad to me, though I recall some sensible tweaks like that being met with vehement opposition in old threads discussing combo balance. Personally though, I think exchanging the one-hit KO power for a lengthened messy start is a pretty favorable trade.

1. 8 frames das and 1 frame ar is optimal setting for avarage good player.

3. sandbox mode, something like practice mode in NullpoMino.

5. very nice minos got added, i like idea of minos from other games, but why everything is so f****g expensive in all your games? have you ever calculated how much long i need to play to get for example half of minos available? this is ridiculous. i know some people on your games are no lifes who play 16 hours a day, but can you adjust your prices so average person can enjoy things too?

btw looks like lot of people likes jono style minos, i noticed lot of people use them on NullpoMino.

6. fake multiplayer with solid garbage is not acceptable. is there is any chance it will be replaced with real multiplayer like toj or hangame on some point?

like caff said, replace pointless "time-invested" based ranks with some descent ranking and also get rid off all auto handicaps.

have you ever seen tackmania ranking system? i don't know exacly how it works, but somehow you get points only beating people better than you and there are no negative points! it's something that both encorage you to play more and give you a descent idea about opponent skill (unlike your system).

i noticed lot of people quit on tf after you beat them, because all their care about is rank grinding and not tetris. as it was said already, you need to limit grinding features, because this is huge distraction from tetris.

7. toj system is very well balanced, probably can be improved a bit by reducing combo sends like caffeine suggests.

1)
selectable number of frames for DAS and AR instead of preset levels.
multiple line clear delay levels, reducable to 0
soft drop, increasable to instant soft drop with a toj or tetris ds hard drop sparkle effect that is distinguishable from the normal hard drop effect

2)
option to not see win graphics especially if this is going to be flash

3)
co-op 2 player tetris. 20 wide field. able to perform simultaneous or combo tspin setups for bonus points.

4)

5)

6)
marathon mode with proper scoring like nes or gameboy. no tspins/combo rewards.

7)
as stated above, reduce the line clear delay and increase soft drop speed. this helps balance out combos and takes tetris to the competitive extreme. otherwise, it is quite balanced imo. in high level play, i see tetrises, tspins and combos used together giving room for lots of styles of play. there is a lot of back and forth action with decent length games.

treating the b2b line as a separate attack could also work well.

toj tspins are better than tf (include minis and 2 line bonus for b2b TST)

Quote from: meowtoj tspins are better than tf (include minis and 2 line bonus for b2b TST)

Ahh, this too, how do I forget such things.

Frankly, the whole concept of a Mini is ludicrous considering the "EZ T-Spin" could have been banished by adding an Immobile clause to the detection rules. If we're going to differentiate such things, though, at least give us the +1 for a Mini TSS.

Quote from: acemagic
Hi Everyone,

I'm the lead designer for Tetris Battle,
and I'd like to hear out what your thoughts on a few topics I'm researching right now,
to make a better game for core users as well.
Before we were more focused on the masses (sorry got make a living. )
but now I'll like to put some more efforts to cater to our best and most customers whom I believe is here

1)
the ideal DAS/AR setting you would like to have for optimal performance.

Maybe same for Line Clear, and Softdrop too..
but this might me something you just want it to be zero..

However, DAR/AR is different as in..
faster is not always the best.

So I'd like to hear out more about that before I make some more things.

2) Anything else would you like to tune?

3) Any cool single player modes you'll like to see?

4) Any cool functional items that you'll like to see in the game?

5)
Cool retro mino styles?
I've revived Tetris Grandmaster Style minos in Tetris Battle with the original colors (red I piece)

6) Anything else for a wish list?

7) I'm also working on a new balance between T-Spin, Combo, and Tetris styles..
Any thoughts shared will greatly help.

(I'm considering bringing the combo no flush rule that I've designed for the TOJ version)

1. 5 frames of DAS delay should probably be the least delay people can handle. 6 for me is optimal. As for AR, instant AR would be fantastic to have as an option. Line clear would be perfect as instant, but if it can't be instant for certain reasons, as small as possible  Soft drop should have levels with an option to have it as instant, but also options for very very fast soft drop (like 1 frame per line)

2. Customisable garbage type would be great, assuming that you implement "1 hole per line" garbage for live multiplayer. So for example 100% change rate, 90% change rate, 30% change rate, change on attack. Etc

3. 40 lines style, 20 gravity survivor style

4. Not sure quite what you mean here, if you mean items in items games, a 20 gravity item might be fun.

5. Happy face minos where each block has a happy face on it

6. Double rotate (180 degree) button, but without the double rotation spins counting.

7. I think that the combo table is fine, but only as long as it stops on 3 lines of garbage per piece. Any more and it becomes uncounterable

my proposal - a tetris finesse trainer

overview:
it really only takes three things to be good at tetris: speed, technique, and finesse.
now finesse and speed are generally useful across all tetris games, while technique is specific to each game (depending on spin bonuses, garbage types, etc.) as of now, there are tools out there to help you train speed/stacking and down-stacking: 40L and dig challenge, but there isn't a tool for proper finesse

now lets compare playing tetris to typing
when typing [words/sentences], there are three things you take into consideration

what you type - using bigger vocabulary and proper punctuation could be compared to very good tetris technique (efficient spins) and clean stacking
how fast you type it - higher wpm could be compared to high tpm
how you type it - how your fingers correspond to each key on the keyboard, this can be compared to finesse

some people could argue that if you want to be faster at 40L, learning finesse is key. however, many people have bad habits and are unwilling to drop those bad habits when playing 40L because it is actually faster for them to do it "their" way. (i.e. triple right rotate an L piece rather than taking longer to "think" and left rotating)

what tetris is like now:

someone who is very new to computers tends to type with two index fingers, poking at the keys in order to make words. eventually, they become faster pokers and can pretty much go about their day poking keys when doing things that require minimal typing
when using a typing program to teach typing, people are taught several concepts (fingers on home row, knowing which finger to use for which key)
no one is really "taught" how to play tetris by another person; they just know the keys and eventually find a way to get a piece from point A to B, sometimes not caring how many keypresses it takes

what the finesse trainer does:

the finesse trainer will focus on 2-3 generic keyboard layouts and help players improve finesse by emphasizing specific key presses per piece.
just like how a typing program starts out with really easy stuff (like alternating between K and J with your index finger), the finesse trainer will begin with easy things like DAS'ing a certain piece to the wall over and over again.
for beginners, the program would have you DAS a piece to the wall, and then as soon as you dropped the piece, the field would clear and have you do it again. It would then have you do other placements like DAS to the wall and tap one space back, always clearing the field after the piece placement. As the difficulty goes up, the program would ask you to do more piece placements before the screen cleared.
so for advanced players, the program could teach you TKI 3 by having you place 6 pieces in exact order (and clear the field and make you do it again)

finesse trainer features:

- a fixed ghost shadow showing where the piece should be (similar to words popping up on the screen while you type under them)
- a panel somewhere outside the tetris field that shows the keypresses required for the current piece (like a red arrow can mean DAS left/right while a blue arrow means tap)
- a chart somewhere to the side that shows exactly how many seconds it took to place that piece (so after doing 100 random placements, you can see which piece placements you need improvement on)
- a "free play" mode where you play for about 1000 pieces or so, with an AI that makes you do more of a certain piece placement that you keep screwing up
- a 40L mode where the AI gets to pick where your pieces go, and you get points based on how many proper placements you make. there can be a formula combining points & speed and a leaderboard for it as well




TL;DR - learning tetris the way you'd learn typing

1) agree with others, TOJ settings but not too expensive. Though I guess in a way it would be fine for us more skilled players who can win rubie crowns but for others it would prove harder. So I guess I would be fine with current price scaling. note: though I would like it to be free so rubies can be spent on your rubie games instead, feels like noone from here plays em anyway - duno If thats the case for others.
Also understand that getting tokens to buy customization is a good way to get people to play, so keep prices if that is the case is my oppinion.

3) Any survival mode designed to kill you, so it requires no thinking of optimising points per line, minute or whatever, just surviving.
Also Arena options for arena with like 5KO/2min (1v1 single player style) games could be cool, this way people might like items too since a stroke of luck for the opponent wont make u lose the whole game.

4) Paul676's idea of 20G item looks cool. I generally think that most of the items are difficult to deal with when playing with fast opponents, there is items that pretty much one shots people when at high speeds.

6)

• More spectator friendly arena play, larger 1v1 screen so it can be easily viewable when playing tourneys and larger text on what for happens e.g "tetris" "T-spin double" and the like for spectators (spectators only!). Overall everything that makes tourneys easier I think would be great. (free/cheap customization would also contribute in a way)
• More stats, not on profile but like at least as in tetis zone, I really only miss seeing tpm lpm.
• TF PMs?
• Availability for more friends (think there is a cap atm - could be anoying for tourney organisators or people with teams.
• (not as important - Connect FB tetris with TF. But i really dont care too much atm, the other things are more important)
• rank skill > games played on arena highscores. Or at least fix the weird top 20% thing. (hope you know what I mean) - But once again this gets people to play and i rather have low highscores than no opponents.

7)Agree on Combo being too strong, but dont nerf it too much. I like the idea of changing the mechanics of it rather than the lines sent. However I belive that the short ds combo should not be nerfed, only the 4 and 3 wide set ups. Maybe as suggested before by capping lines sent at some point so large combos suffer, not the short ones.

Also duno if you guys are thinking like this but when Blizzard is doing balances to SC2 they they claim to spice the changes a bit in order to see any reactions. What I mean is that if the change is too small people will go on with the same strategies and not notice that T-spins are in fact stronger or whatever you may change. Wont probebly be a prob. for us as we are more aware of the changes but if you think that lower speed play also is broken you should consider this.


Edit: Noogy proposal rocks!

My only question is what is happening to tf.  Are you guys giving up on it like toj?

Quote from: Ryan
My only question is what is happening to tf.  Are you guys giving up on it like toj?

i would also like to hear honest answer for this question.

Well, since we're all sharing our pet ideas here, I'll submit a couple as well...


Regarding Tetris Battle and garbage, I had an idea that would allow for garbage that isn't solid using the replay-style play. If you use 100% hole change, it would be possible to maintain a constant 2-4 lines of garbage at the bottom of the screen that players can "stack into" and use to set up T-spins and whatever. Most of us would agree that in vs modes, it is more effective to make use of garbage than to stack on top of it, so this would be a definite improvement with regards to training skills that are useful for live vs play. It would also be possible to do something like, 30% hole change with a max 4 straight in a row. (It would have to be capped, otherwise replays might wind up dropping "too deep" into holes and fall out of synch.)


Regarding combos, many of us believe that combos are overpowered. What it comes down to is that if you get a long enough combo, you are sending 4 times as many lines as you clear with every piece, which is pretty ridiculous. (Actually, is it 5 on TF?)

There's a thread around here where I tried to get some discussion going about alternatives, though I don't recall it going on for long. My own proposal was to use a combo table along the lines of: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2... - in the end, this averages out to 200% efficiency, which is slightly below back-to-back T-spins, but it has a somewhat early peak that would encourage downstack / garbage canceling combos or small midgame combos for attacking. I may have a chance to test this out further soon with a turn-based variant I've been playing.

Anyway, I don't think there is likely to be a way to nerf long combos without backing off the attack output; if you just flatten them out they aren't as interesting. That's my opinion at least.


As for preferred autorepeat and the like, most people like to get it as low as they can play accurately with. I hear a lot of complaints about TF's implementation dropping inputs, lagging, and so on - these types of things contribute to being unable to play at low DAS/AR values. I would say it's worth trying to make the game more technically reliable before putting much effort into allowing people to play with really low DAS settings, since they won't be very useful if they can't be counted on.


Most people also like 0 everything, but I've become something of a believer that fastest isn't necessarily best. I don't know what the best balance is, but it's a fact that the lower you set the delays, the faster some people will play - and as a result, the skill difference between players can widen and provide less satisfying games within the same range of player skill levels.


Regarding items, the only item system I have played and liked is the old Tetrinet 1 items. I can't really comment on TF items because I never want to play them  The things I liked about Tnet items were a few: there was strategic value in how you obtained them (getting an item with a double = get two of that item, for example), used them (all the items could be used offensively or defensively, and you were able to use them on specific people at will), and most importantly, none of them affected your ability to play the game (I think some Tnet 2 items did this, but I hated it). Interfering with the piece sequence, movement, rotation, or visibility is not something I like. All in all, I think items tend to be too easily frustrating rather than fun, and moreso for anyone who is big into Tetris from a skill point of view. I don't think adding more items would improve the game for people who believe like I do in this case.


By the way, it's really cool that you're doing this... whatever the result, I hope we can see more of this kind of interaction down the road