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Is there a reason why the items mode of TetriNET is called "cookies"? Does it have anything to do with Yoshi's Cookie?

Is the Free Software Foundation next? Emacs includes you-know-what, and Mr. Pajitnov has in the past claimed that "free software should never have existed" because it "destroys the market".

Anyway, when I read the opinion (I am not a lawyer), the wording appeared to imply that Tetris Holding's strongest copyright claim is to the set of seven Tetriminos. So here's a workaround:

• Add small pieces
• Add pentominoes
• Remove all pieces that don't fit in 3x3 box (I4, I5, N, Y) or that contain O (O, P)

The result is the piece set shown below, which comes closer to that of Rampart.
[attachmentid=567]

It has come to my attention that some people miss me. As some of you are aware, I moved on from Tetris and left Hard Drop over nine months ago. There were three key incidents, two of which happened at about the same time.

In May 2009, when enforcement of exclusive rights became more aggressive, I discontinued development of Lockjaw and LJ65 and began developing something different. Also in May 2009, caffeine shut down TC.com and the community splintered into TC.net and Hard Drop. I didn't really have a place to discuss my next project, a PC game with the same rules as Klax that can be played with a Guitar Hero controller, because apparently the nineties were over and no one there liked Klax. My participation dwindled as I developed Concentration Room, Thwaite, and Zap Ruder for NES, and lately I've been working on Wrecking Ball Boy.

In June 2012, Xio lost in court, and I withdrew certain games from my web site. As I understand the ruling, certain tropes of block puzzle games were deemed unprotectable processes, but the use of the seven one-sided figures made of four squares was exclusively TTC's. If a developer were to change the piece set and field size to work around this, the player's skills would not transfer. The depth of some strategy articles in Hard Drop Wiki bears witness to this. After considering for a moment why I even continued to play, I realized that TTC's business model made it clear that Mr. Pajitnov wasn't entirely serious about wanting the game to become an internationally competitive sport. I was attracted by the sport aspect and left the community once it became clear that that wasn't going to happen. I especially didn't want to support somebody who has expressed a belief that free software destroys the market. Netcraft reports that before HardDrop.com used CloudFlare, it was using Apache on Linux, which is free software.

This leaves block puzzle games where skills aren't expected to transfer from Tetris, such as Klax, Columns, Blockout, Dr. Mario, Kirby's Avalanche/Puyo Pop, SameGame, Zoop, Pac-Attack, Panel de Pon/Puzzle League, Baku Baku/Puzzle Fighter II, Lumines, and the like. I began to brainstorm what these games have in common. If Hard Drop can build a community of fans of those games, I might return to Hard Drop.

So in 2013, what puzzlers other than Tetris do you enjoy?

Rosti's comment about an "independent international governing body" leads to another point:

Mr. Pajitnov and Mr. Rogers want Tetris to become a sport at least comparable to tennis (after which Tetris is named). But as long as The Tetris Company exercises its exclusive right in arranging Tetriminos into horizontal rows, this will not come about.

Nobody needs permission from The Tennis Company to manufacture equipment for recreational tennis. Nobody needs permission from The Chess Company to build a chess set, and FIDE takes no legal action against the play of variant games. Cross-training exercises done with homemade equipment that is not tournament legal can make players stronger. Tetris, on the other hand, relies on one supplier. Cross-training was the explicit goal of some fan games, but the recent ruling that fan games infringe copyright endangers this. Even StarCraft, another proprietary game seen as a sport in Korea, allows for creation of mods as training tools. What Tetris product has such modding tools? That's one reason why I don't see Tetris becoming a sport equal to even StarCraft within the next seven decades.

I used to play StarCraft.

I used to play Tetris.

Lockjaw has been voluntarily withdrawn pending the appeal of this case. I worry for Emacs.

Showing an unofficial version of Tetris and labeling it as "Tetris" even though it's not official would lead to a genericization (I'm pretty sure this spelling is wrong) of the Tetris trademark.

Agreed.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]I'm wondering now when and how we stop using "doom-like" and "quake-like" and used "first person shooter" instead.[/quote]
Back when I was working on Lockjaw, I was promoting the term "Soviet Mind Game" (shamelessly stolen from the box art of a Tetris product whose upstream licensor fell behind on its royalties) or "SMG" to refer to the game where you drop tetrominoes into a 10-cell-wide matrix and lines without holes clear.

"where do we draw the line?"

Eleven years ago, I wrote this article on Everything2, which I later adapted into the video "THIS FAN GAME VIDEO WILL BE FLAGGED". Since then, I've been drawing the line at roughly the same point that PetitPrince mentioned, namely the use of the name "Tetris" to refer to products not licensed through TTC. Pepsi is not Coke, GNU's not UNIX, Puffs is not Kleenex (yet Puffs makes your head swell up just like Pop-Tarts), Pine is not Elm, Thwaite is not Missile Command, PNG's not GIF, Canon is not Xerox, and Lockjaw is not Tetris.

People have been bugging me to make a video game unrelated to falling blocks. This game is Thwaite.

Your village is under attack. The mayor has authorized use of the July fireworks as antiballistic missiles. Put the cursor in front of an incoming missile and press A or B to shoot it down.

Download Thwaite for NES


ObTetris: LJ65 is still available.

Which is sort of why I chose the name "Lockjaw": zero letters in common with "Tetris".

At this point, what worry me most are the specific Guideline colors.

World of Warcraft has noob missions, end-game missions, and PVP. The noob missions aren't difficult enough to turn away new customers, or Actiblizzion wouldn't be making money hand over fist. So why can't Tetris have noob missions (like TDS marathon), end-game missions (like TGM Master), and PVP (like TF)?

I don't like those names but honestly I like it better than "NullpoMino" which makes no sense at all to the average person.

What sense did "Tetris" make to the average person before Nintendo put it on Game Boy?

There's a web-based chat application called qwebirc, which runs on Python and Twisted. Freenode uses it. You might want to check it out.

I had an idea for a game like this.
1. Same rules as TF e+.
2. Game starts off with half a field of random garbage.
3. Upon clearing a garbage row, a new one will instantly spawn above it.

Spawn above it, or below it?

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]4. Game ends after one minute.[/quote]
Sounds a little like LJ 3 Minutes + HR Derby, except HR Derby adds garbage for any line clear that isn't a Tetris, instead of any line clear with garbage. If I were still making LJ, I'd add a new garbage type Drill Forever like this.

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Your score is how many garbage rows you cleared + how many you would've sent. Should be a good indicate r of how good you are in multiplayer.[/quote]
Another is a game where you get 1, 2, 3, or 4 lines sent to you every 7 pieces. This was actually the first mode ever added to LJ, even before Marathon.

Ok I'll see that =)
( a coder must be able to adapt his code for it to work on all bowsers

Depends on whether you're working for the security forces (Team Koopa) or for the terrorists (Team Mario).

My web coding, on the other hand, has the opposite problem: it works fine on Chrome and Firefox but fails on IE 8 and especially 7 due to pieces of the DOM that Microsoft never got around to implementing.

I am disappoint at just how few of you can actually read between the lines of the things that are happening on TC

If you're saying Mr. Rogers wants to buy the domain, then why is someone with the same username as you reverting my efforts to bring TC's wiki in line with TC's new policy?

What usually works for me is to immerse myself in programming.

And then four hours later, you've banged out a Tetris clone. Seriously: once I knew the basic rules of Tetris DS (SRS + Infinity + garbage), Lockjaw 0.01 took me about that long.