Interview with Radiance Options

[ohitsstef]

Radiance aka Quicksand aka Reveillark aka Heretic aka David

Age 21 years
Tetris Age 4 years
Blockles era - when sub 60 was impressive



Current High Scores
40L 23.85
Block Survivor 5:04:39
Block Driller 10:48

Tournament standings
HDO 1, top 8
BBPro 1, 2nd
BBPro Invitational, 3rd
NP Tournament 2nd (1st Hebo)

How long have you been playing tetris for?
I've been playing tetris since the spring of 2008 - almost 4 years

How did you get into tetris?
I used to play tetris on various forum arcades, and would always gets the high scores. a friend of mine irl introduced me to tetris ds, where she destroyed me at vs mode I thought I was the superior player, so I googled "multiplayer tetris" in order to hone my skills. I found blockles, and instantly got addicted

Were you any good when you first started?
Depends on what you mean by good. within a week of playing, I had reached the top 10 ratings on blockles. I was "good" for the people I was around, but I wasn't good at tetris compared to what good actually is now

That is pretty impressive. What was your first goal?
My first goal was to be rated #1 on blockles - I'd reached the position within my first month, but could never hold it. I managed to hold it for a month or two in september-october of 2008, and I thought I was god. It was then that old tetrinet players like goofer made names for themselves on blockles, where I was utterly shamed. My goal after that was to become better than the tetrinet players, prompting me to look into means of getting better which led me to tetrisconcept and later harddrop

What was your first 40 lines time?
My first 40 lines time was something like 1:40 on tetris friends

Did you brag about your first time?
Nah I didn't, because I had seen the all time leaderboards, with John Tran (Blink) at #1 and all the other ridiculous sub-1 minute times

Were you the fastest in your group of friends?
I wasn't. I had another friend who had started at 1:25 I'd always be hearing about it

How did you go about improving your time?
I played more. I dedicated to using two rotations, and eventually using 180 rotate. I also dedicated to using more than one preview, adding one whenever I broke my record.

What's your current 40 lines time?
My current 40 lines time is 23.85

How do you feel about it? Do you still aim to be the fastest?
I feel like it was a long time coming. I had strove for it years ago when I played blockbox, but not so much now. I'm an old dog, so I won't be breaking records like Microblizz, and other such young prodigies but I'll keep on playing and see how far my body will take me before I can't push it anymore. Being the fastest or the best is the icing on the cake now. It's no goal. I've achieved more than what I've wanted to achieve playing tetris.

Your body? You make it sound like tetris is a physical sport. Do you think it's more physical or mental?
As in my fingers, my muscle memory. My physical and mental limit. I believe that one's mental limit is a physical limit.

So you believe in limits?
I do believe that everyone plateaus at some point or that the threshold to improve eventually becomes so high that it's not worth the time investment to reach it.

Have you heard the quote "Limits only limit yourself" ?
Limits do objectively limit you. But if what you mean is that thinking you have a limit is a limiter, I do agree

Interesting. Anyways back to tetris what's your favorite platform to play on?
My favourite game right now is cultris 2, because it combines the difficulty of random garbage with the interaction of garbage cancelling/blocking. For 40 lines I play Nullpomino. My favourite guideline game would have to be TOJ/TOP, but there aren't enough regulars there anymore.

What tips would you give to new players looking to improve?
The biggest tip i could give is to play with an open mind, and play at your best at all times. Don't push yourself, you need to enjoy the game in order to improve at all. Don't look for wisdom in "get better quick" guides. All this theory can only get you so far. No matter how much you read, it's useless if you don't put in the hours. in multiplayer, play to win. figure out what wins you games, and repeat it. Figure out what loses you games, and strive never to do it again.

Do you have any fans?
-___- Not that i know of.. I_AM_SAND maybe

Do you consider yourself a top tier player?
I do not consider myself a top tier player
Where would you place yourself then?
Tier 1.5 to tier 2
And in the world? what % do you think you are
With regards to what? General ability?
Yeah
And counting all the people who have ever touched a game of tetris?
Yes - don't make this more complicated
lol 99th percentile most of harddrop lies in 98-99 if that's the criteria
We're talking like top 1-2% and you go the opposite way lol
Yeah, top 1-2 percent I don't say it because i think i'm all that. a LOT of people have played Tetris at some point in their lives

What do you think is the most important skill a strong tetris player should have in multiplayer?
Downstacking - if counting all tetris games in existence, and garbage cancelling if only counting guideline. I guess downstacking really facilitates a lot of cancelling anyway, so I guess I'd go with downstacking

Do you have any last words? or anything for I_AM_SAND?
Shouts to STARS*, all the friends i've made through tetris, and you, for making all my time spent playing tetris worthwhile in the end and to I_AM_SAND: stay away from my sister. That's it

*STARS is a Tetris put together by myself (ohitsstef) and Roger (arf)

[Blink]

Sorry about the deleted responses Radiance.

I know you're a Blockles veteran and as a TetriNET player I have many vivid memories of matches, competitions, discussions, and friends I've made during what I call the "Golden age" of Tetris. When players ask me what it was like I didn't really know what to say cause it's sort of those things where you just "had to be there".

I'm sure the Blockles community experienced something like this too, and as a player who never really got into that game maybe you can share with me some interesting parts of Blockles history that players today would otherwise be oblivious to. Epic battles? Interesting characters? Teams that reigned?

[Radiance]

there's nothing very interesting. there are hardly any members left from the era of blockles i played in, so there's nothing anyone here can relate to. arfarf, sheenie, freakwithfire, supermeowmix, nismo, anarchy (i've seen her around) and bada are the only real players who were around back then, and everyone else has pretty much drifted away. there are players like goldenshadow, medyas, paradox, and steph who were active during the tail end of blockles, right before my generation migrated to blockbox, so hardly anyone's going to remember the names i drop.

i also wasn't very warm or friendly to the players who were substantially weaker than me when i played, because of my obsession with the game itself (and not the players) so there's hardly anyone i'm still in contact with. as well, blockles may not have been the same game for some players as it was for others. there were players who played with items, and players who played without. there were players who liked hanging around their own friendly cliques to chat, and there were diehard competitors who only played with strong players. i was in the latter camp.

blockles was pretty much a game similar to TF, in that there were players who found it as their first multiplayer clone, and whose talent allowed them to rise above as stronger than the rest. players like that included arfarf, anchauvi, memnoch, chrys, grancuaxi, j choi, jayjee, and seagulls.

there were also players whose experience on other games allowed them to utterly dominate blockles without much effort at all. there were players from all sorts of games (ex. bada, sheena, and tetr0n), but it was mostly tetrinet players such as exchliore, kat, goofer, v_f, and vapid who pooped all over us. they were able to toy around with us because they had spent years on tnet learning the skills that us blockles players had just begun to develop.

seagulls would host three tournaments over the course of blockles' life, which were won by grancuaxi twice, and goofer once. a lot of players would participate in these tournaments, and they were very fun to play in.

towards the end of the blockles era, we started having team wars. there were as a large war in the making between team blockles and team tetrinet, but that never went through because of drama. the drama pretty much involved team tetrinet being too "stacked", which really shouldn't have mattered since that proved their superiority over us anyway. the drama caused much of the tnet players to leave blockles and migrate to blockbox, which was just starting to pick up steam.

the one war that we actually managed to finish was between team USA vs team world. USA won on the back of a higher volume of strong players on their team, despite myself and grancuaxi outperforming everyone as individuals.

in short, blockles was pretty much the place for large amounts of asian guys to flirt with large amounts of asian girls. it was mostly a social game, and i believe that everyone who played it as a social game gained the most out of it. i believe that all of us blockles players who played it as a competitive game gained most of our skills on the games we played afterwards, such as blockbox, cultris, and TOJ.

the one thing i miss about blockles was its item mode. it was quite possibly the most skill-intensive tetris game i have ever played, and the items really managed to close gaps between slow and fast players. the items themselves were also very simplistic, which led to a very accessible game that was also very deep in its interactions.

[Integration]

I will repost my questions. My apologies, in the case, that you had already answered them.

your favourite c2 team member? arfarf, sisu, agamemnon, ohstephanie?

your 40 lines abortion rate?

If I am not mis(s)taken, you used movement and harddrop on same hand, but now on different hands.
Different hand > same hand? Or makes no difference?

Do you think, it is possible to relax when playing Tetris? Or will competition and personal goals always push you to play faster?

What would you like to see changed in Cultris 2 (or in any other still actively developed Tetris game)?

[Radiance]

i'd already answered them pretty exhaustively, but here goes my attempt at recollecting everything.

1. favourite member is ohstephanie

2. 40 lines abortion rate is something close to 40% since 2012, but probably somewhere along 80% when i played seriously.

3. i don't really think it makes much of a difference, but i just happen to be more comfortable with movement and harddrop on different hands because of my upbringing at blockles.

4. i think it's very possible to relax when playing tetris. i no longer care for competition or personal goals, and only play it to pass the time. i was always stressed before, because i'd push myself too hard to become better, to improve, and to break records. the difference now is that i see improvement as an inevitability: i am bound to improve as i continue to play. there is no longer any urgency, and i couldn't care less about how long it takes me to get better, or how much better i get. the only thing i care about is how enjoyable the game itself is, at the very moment i am playing it. right now i am always in a state of calm while playing.

5. the spoiled brat in me would like more previews in cultris 2, but that takes away from the thrill of playing with a true randomizer. i like the aspect of the randomizer where i have to play in such a way that accommodates any of the seven tetrominoes. with more previews, the correct play becomes objective. with one preview, there are more ways to justify why you made a particular move, and i like it when two players can justify playing the same piece sequence differently. to be honest, regardless of what changes are made to any game, i will continue to play, as long as i am entertained. it just so happens that i'm not very entertained by other tetris games right now. i have nothing to complain about as of yet.

[Integration]

Thank you for taking the time (again).

I agree with adding more previews. I think, it is true Tetris skill, when you can plan many moves ahead (I can't). But, probably this will never happen, because there is not enough space left for more previews.

[Sisu]

[Sisu]

Do you have any fans?
-___- Not that i know of.. I_AM_SAND maybe

My old friend Thor Aackerlund (1st in 1990) got me playing some Blockles when it was around.
...
Quicksand does not know who I am, but he was in a elite realm on that site.

Quicksand has fans.

[ohitsstef]

Quicksand has fans.

LOL OMG

[Aaron]

[ohitsstef]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

i remember thissss

[Radiance]

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

[Sisu]

Who was better, Arkaign or greylikethis?

[Radiance]

MemnochTheCaT > greylikethis > Arkaign

Never got to play against Mr.Aackerlund as Arkaign.