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In most Tetris clones today (or all clones as far as I know), for every piece, you can only hold one time, and then you're prevented from holding again until you place that piece.

Is this actually a good game mechanic to have?

The hold piece itself is useful and adds depth (allowing you to reorder pieces, save pieces, etc), but does only allowing you to hold one time per piece actually add strategy?

Whether you can only hold once, or multiple times, you have the same number of actions available (but in the first option you're limited). Only holding once doesn't add any more depth to the game, and it limits the player (but not in a good way).

The only negative is the ability for people to potentially "infinitely delay" (which I believe they can do with SRS rotations anyway).

For example, in single player marathon/TGM modes, I could see it being used as a way to "cheat" to give yourself time to think, because you could just constantly keep reholding your piece to give you more time.

However, in modes with garbage (and other modes where gravity doesn't increase), the current piece doesn't drop (or drops slowly), and you can't delay garbage indefinitely anyway (because most games have a max delay timer before you receive automatically receive your incoming garbage).

I don't know if you have a way of getting the video besides maybe ripping it from youtube. But if you could somehow get Apocalypse's survivor video, I think anyone who appreciates downstacking will like it.

Alright fixed this too. I used to just host the images from my dropbox, but I restructured folders, so it messed stuff up. I just uploaded the image onto imgur and used that instead though.

"What does this tell us? None garbage line clears are bad, and theoretically, you should maximize garbage singles. Here is the most efficient game you can play:



Clearly, this situation is highly unlikely, and actually impossible to do with the bag system. Theoretically though, this placement is what you should be striving for."

Where is it? D:

thanks for pointing it out, I accidentally messed up the fumen while editing earlier. The missing fumen is this:

[fumen]110@NdI3gbH3gbH3gbH3gbH3gbH3gbH3gbH3gbH3gbH3gb?I3pbppH7eLJ2Ap6AJ/ApDBJIBpMBAAAJRBpVBJaBAwNIA2H?GDEhoA6AAAA[/fumen]

Just wanted to point out Paul676's help thread:

http://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4143

Most (or arguably all) of the guides in here are written by veteran players (Caffeine, Blitz, Ryan Heise, Blink, Rosti, me   , Ravendarksky, Xeal, and a whole bunch of other people (but I'm too lazy to click on the links to see the poster)).

Anyway, my thoughts on this whole issue is that it's not right just to leave a community that you've been in for awhile. I mean seriously you shouldn't get mad and storm off because a few people are being mean and it is boring.

I don't think people leave necessarily because others are "being mean" (although some people may). For some people, Tetris doesn't interest them anymore, and they leave. For others, their (Tetris) friends leave (sometimes for the reason above), and the people they used to talk to and share ideas aren't there anymore.

For instance, a lot of old people I used to talk are gone (for one reason or another), like jdapple, apocalypse, killahbee, chrys, and probably a lot of others I don't remember off the top of my mind. In fact, I'm not even sure why I'm still here!

[fumen]v110@7e/2cISmBVgBJQBsVBriBPcBvXBqYBsLBtMBDBBZdB?eOBU9A9IBP+AaUBJyAeFBT/A7yA26AqwA95AXvApOPBAUAA?AA0sOAAm+ApOPBAYAAAAMEPAAyOB9BPBAZAAAAz7OAA3NBX?IBJ2OCARYAAAS8OAAlOB2JB0BBr/A+DB1CBf5AM6ApOPCAR?eAAA77OAAaKBsIBz6AOLBFDBPCBy+AJ3Ab4A+0ApOPCARkA?AAs2OAAyJBt/AP/As8A7eoqCBb2AO8AJ5AvzAFlOCAxlAAA?biOCASYAAA2qOAAV5AAAAyyAvvA0wApOPCASeAAA0pOAAT8?A6CBdAB31ApOPCASkAAA27OAAlHBvBBzDBpOPCATbAAAyGP?AAeUBAAA0LBSTBpOPCAThAAAlQPAAzcB2aB0WBvYBpOPCAT?kAAAOTPCAzlAAATRPAAvPPCAUYAAAAwNAA[/fumen]

Here is the fumen for anyone interested.

Is there an analysis/would anyone be interested? If no one is, is it due to the play being quite standard and just a matter of speed?

I only went through it a couple times, so I haven't really done much analysis on it, but to me, it looks like the most important thing is just speed + very little hesitation. For example, when I have any beginning combination of L J T, I usually do something like this

[fumen]v110@7eD2cIynBVmBAAA[/fumen]

To me it seems to create the flattest shape that can accommodate more pieces than his beginning, but instead kero does some opening that results in a very jaggedy stack (understandable though because when you're going full speed you don't always place pieces optimally).

Also, it can be slightly difficult to judge from the fumen what he is thinking because of the different number of previews.

One thing I can say is that Kero is really good at not hesitating when he has to cover his hole because a piece doesn't fit. A lot of people have trouble when they reach situations like this because they just restart the game.

It would be interesting to see what Kero thinks about his record game, his piece placement, and why he makes certain decisions.

Freshman year of high school, girl told me she liked me. I thought she was joking and didn't realize she actually liked me...  The thought still makes me cringe.

On the topic of random elements, the important thing about "random" elements is that players should have a good amount of control of these "random" elements. They should not be truly random (when I say true randomness, I mean that something occurs for no seemingly apparent reason).

In League of Legends, each player has complete control over their hero, and there are pretty much no random elements in the game. Everything is based on timers. Minions spawn at 1:15, jungle monsters spawn at 1:55; even skills are based on timers/cooldowns. There are only minor variations that change from true randomness/chance from game to game. Most of the changes (that seemingly add randomness to the game) are made by the players. Pushing minion waves, last hitting, and other actions all affect the game (even if they only cause minor effects), but they all change the game slightly, which can have long term effects.

Likewise, in Starcraft, there are very few truly random elements. You have complete control over your units and resources and what you do with them. The part that adds "randomness" and change in each game is the players individual controls and actions.

This applies to pretty much all real life games too; for example, a soccer game. If someone just happens to be in a good position to get a pass and score a goal, he didn't happen to be there by chance. He purposely moved there, and just happened to be in good position to score.

I'm not saying there can't be any randomness. I think the randomly placed garbage lines when you receive an attack are a good thing. But these random elements should be directly caused by the players.

I'm also skeptical about the idea that we can/should design a game that narrows the skill gap. For example, slowing down a game doesn't achieve this (KOS, PSN, Tnet1, James Clewett's). What does narrow the skill gap is to either simplify the game so that optimal play can be memorized (e.g. tic-tac-toe) or increase the chance element so that people can win just by getting lucky (e.g. Candyland). Neither of those options are desirable in competitive Tetris because they take away what makes  the game interesting and rewarding to play.

I think when you talk about narrowing the skill gap (assuming you mean increasing the chance of winning), you are thinking more in terms of how can I decrease the skill gap between the lower level players with the higher level players.

I understand that simplifying the game will make it easier for everyone to play, which will make everyone become high level players faster (although the result is a much less fun game). And, adding chance elements to the game won't make low level players play better, but it will give the lower level players a better chance of winning vs higher level players (also, I agree that adding random elements are bad for trying to improve competitive games). These things give lower level players a better chance of beating higher level players.

However, I think "narrowing the skill gap" should mean widening the range of skill of the players that will challenge you. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but maybe this metaphor might be better:

Imagine that each player can have a skill range from 0-100 (by skill, I mean how strong of a player they are).

Players also have a challenge range that determines whether an opposing player will be a challenge. Someone might have a skill level of 40 and challenge range of 10, so they would have fun/be challenged by other players that have a range between 30-50.

Narrowing the skill gap should mean widening the range of skill that a player can play against. For instance, if the player has a challenge range of 20, they can play anyone with a skill range between 20 and 60. This will allow the player to play with more people and be challenged.

We always talk about how Tetris would be better if there were more players so everyone would have more players to play against, but another way to have more people to play against is to widen the challenge range.

So how might we go about increasing the challenge range? One way is by adding new elements to the game. This increases the number of skills a player must master to become good. (note that these shouldn't just be elements to add for the sake of increasing the number of skills to learn; they should also increase how fun the game is)

Some players are good at some things. Other players are good at other things. Increasing the number of skills to master will widen the challenge range of players. For instance:

[!--ImageUrlBegin--][a href=\\\"http://i.imgur.com/IqeTqpA.png\\\" target=\\\"_new\\\"][!--ImageUrlEBegin--][img width=\\\"400\\\" class=\\\"attach\\\" src=\\\"http://i.imgur.com/IqeTqpA.png\\\" border=\\\'0\\\' alt=\\\"IPB Image\\\" /][!--ImageUrlEnd--][/a][!--ImageUrlEEnd--]


The way Tetris is right now, there are only a few fundamental skills, and only players who happen to be good at (or be able to master) these few skills will be the best. How many times have we seen Blink vs Hebo (although other players are rising up as well) play in the finals? Adding a higher skill ceiling to the game means opening up the game to more top tier players as well as increasing players' challenge ranges.

Hello. Sorry for the bump.

Another thing you can do that might help is play some of the single player modes. Specifically I think the 20g modes are really good.

I might get some flack for this, but play using the SRS system. If you're not used to ARS, the pieces will lock down really fast and you'll die really fast too. And you're probably more familiar with SRS rotations than ARS rotations.

Anyway, playing at 20g helps you with two things. First, it helps you become faster because it forces you to play faster than you can. Secondly, it forces you to stack flat or you'll most likely lose. For example, watch this video:

You can see that his stack is relatively flat at around the 10 second mark (in youtube time), and at the 23 second mark, and pretty much throughout the whole video. There are some times where his stack is ugly, but eventually, he flattens it back out. Also note that he's doing this with 1 preview as opposed to 3 or more previews.

And, don't be discouraged if you initially suck at 20g (SRS) mode. When I first started, I could barely get a line clear a game, but after a couple weeks (or maybe months) of playing it, I was able to get Tetrises pretty consistently.

Also, note that if you really have a hard time playing on 20g, Tetris Friends Marathon mode is another good choice. Try playing Tetris Friends Marathon and get all Tetrises (even late game on the last levels), and then move back to 20g.

I believe in you.  

Looks pretty sweet!

I'm a developer, not a game designer. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Hi, I created a thread a long time ago that I thought would be a cool concept for a new tetris game. It's in my signature (or you can click the link here: my tetris idea).

One more time, possibly with an extra refresh, please.  Think I've finally fixed it.

Can you tell us what the error was?

Since I last brought up zeromeaner ( htttp://www.0mino.org/ ) some time in december, I think it's time to bring it up again.  Big changes since then, such as netplay with a totally rewritten protocol.  Also, I've dropped the version number from the lofty but misleading 8.0 range to the more appropriate 1.0 series.

You should make your 0mino url a link, and it's spelled wrong just in case you didn't see (the http has 3 t's).  

Also the new survivor mode is awesome! And the music! I love chiptunes!