Phantom Mania X

[Question_Mark]

Hi all,

It's been a while since last I was here. I've been working on a project for quite some time now; it has of course required a serious amount of coding. Of course, I am talking about modifying the code for NullpoMino. Modifying it to make it harder. Lots harder.

For starters, I turned to the dark side and became a bit of an ARShole. THAT took some serious effort! Then, after some screwing around in Eclipse I was able to take the... "best" parts of Grade Mania 3, Speed Mania 2, and Phantom Mania, and Frankenstein them together into something I'm calling Phantom Mania X (the X is simultaneously for eXpert, eXtreme, and eXcruciating).

Just as Phantom Mania was Invisible Death (i.e. it follows the Death speed curve), Phantom Mania 2 is Invisible Shirase. This mode has the following features:

Phantom Mania 2 level 300 plays at the same speed as Phantom Mania level 500.
At level 500, Phantom Mania 2 introduces rising garbage which copies the bottom line of the current stack. The frequency increases, i.e., the number of pieces placed between each line of rising garbage decreases, with each section from 500-999. In Shirase mode, the garbage lines appear as a grey line copying the bottom row of the current stack; in Phantom Mania 2 the garbage lines are also invisible. The only indication that garbage lines have been received is a one-frame lock-flash across the bottom of the stack - blink, and you'll miss it.

At level 1000, Phantom Mania 2 stops the rising garbage lines (although it does not delete lines which have already been received), and all pieces become grey [] brackets (bone blocks). Not only is this a throwback to the original Tetris, but it is also a significant difficulty increase:
- The absence of any colour makes it much more difficult to discern the Next queue.
- The hollow nature of bone blocks makes it harder to notice holes.
For Phantom Mania 2, there are further difficulty enhancements:
- Up until level 1000, a thin white outline showing the border of the current stack flashes for one frame after the lock flash frame. Beyond level 1000, this outline is removed.
- Up until level 1000, line clears produced a colourful visual effect indicating not only that a line clear was made, but also how many lines were cleared. Beyond level 1000, there is no line clear animation.

The absence of the outline and line clear animations removes the only partial visual feedback on the stack.

Grades awarded in Phantom Mania 2 run from S1 to S13, with one grade being awarded for each section cleared. Upon clearing level 1300 a grade of S13 (green) is awarded, and upon clearing the big-mode monochrome invisible credit roll a grade of S13 (orange) is awarded.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Phantom Mania X is the expert version of Phantom Mania 2. All of the features of Phantom Mania 2 are included in Phantom Mania X. The following additions are made:

Section COOL!!s - Phantom Mania X awards a COOL!! if levels 0-70, 100-170, etc. of each section are cleared (1) within the time requirements of the COOL!! table (below), and (2) no more than 2 seconds slower than the previous section COOL!! time. The minimal requirements for getting a COOL!! are:
  0-  70:      32:00
100- 170:      32:00
200- 270:      29:00
300- 370:      25:00
400- 470:      25:00
500- 570:      22:00
600- 670:      22:00
700- 770:      18:00
800- 870:      18:00
900- 970:      16:00
1000-1070:   16:00
1100-1170:   14:00
1200-1270:   14:00

The COOL!! system is analogous to that of Grade Mania 3. The similarities and differences are as follows:
- The minimal COOL!! times from levels 0-870 are uniformly 20 seconds faster than for Grade Mania 3.
- Whereas Grade Mania 3 did not have a COOL!! for the 900-999 section, Phantom Mania X has COOL!!s for all 13 sections. The minimal COOL!! times continue to speed up until the last section.
- Like Grade Mania 3, Phantom Mania X increments your grade by one. However, unlike Grade Mania 3, Phantom Mania X does not skip 100 levels of the speed curve upon receipt of a COOL!!.
If the player does not earn all COOL!!s, the blocks will turn visible and give the "fading roll" with the corresponding discount in points earned per line cleared.
If all section COOL!!s are met, the GM-roll is unlocked.

Multiple Torikans - In addition to the level 500 and level 1000 Torikans, there are additional Torikans at level 300 (1:30.00) and 800 (3:38.00). If not all four Torikans are cleared, the game will stop at the Torikan failed, and a grade is awarded based on how many sections were completed and how many Section COOL!!s were awarded.

Tetrises - Phantom Mania X requires you to make
- at least 1 Tetris in every section, and
- at least 40 Tetrises throughout the game.

If these requirements are not both satisfied, the game is hard-programmed to forbid the awarding of a GM grade, even if enough grades are earned in the GM-roll.

GM-roll - Unlike Phantom Mania 2, there is a new unlockable credit roll dubbed the GM-roll (analogous to the M-roll in Grade Mania 3). To unlock the GM-roll, the main game must be cleared with all section COOL!!s and all Tetrises requirements met. The GM-roll is absolutely mandatory in order to achieve the highest possible grade.

When the GM-roll begins, the board is cleared and the internal grade is set at M, but the bone blocks remain and (like the BIG mode credit roll in normal Shirase) the game plays at Shirase 300 speeds for 53 seconds. In the GM-roll, a single is worth 0.1 grades, a double 0.2 grades, a triple 0.3 grades, and a Tetris 1.0 grades. There is also a 1.6 grade bonus for clearing the GM-roll.

The grades awarded in Phantom Mania X are S1-S13, m1-m13, M, MK, MV, MO, MM, GM. While the internal grade increments with each grade point awarded, there are internally 12 levels called "MasterM"; thus, it is much harder to surpass the grade MM than to achieve it for the first time. In addition to earning at least 15 grades in the GM-roll, the player must also survive it to earn the grade of Grand Master.

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In summary the GM requirements are as follows:

Finish level 300 within 1:30.00.
Finish level 500 within 2:28.00.
Finish level 800 within 3:38.00.
Finish level 1000 within 4:56.00.
Finish level 1300 with...
- 1 Tetris in each section and
- 40 Tetrises throughout the game.


Beat levels 0-70, 100-170, ..., 1200-1270 within time limits that are 20 seconds faster than those for Grade Mania 3, which continue to get faster until 1200.
Beat each 0-70 no more than 2 seconds slower than the previous 0-70.
This section COOL!! requirement unlocks the invisible credit roll (OMGBBQ?! ;D), also known by me as the GM-roll. This unlocks all grades beyond M13. Just as in Grade Mania 3,
- each line cleared earns 0.1 grades, except...
- each Tetris earns 1.0 grades and
- clearing the GM-roll earns 1.6 grades.
In addition to earning a minimum of 15 grades in the invisible roll, you must also survive it to earn the orange-line GM grade.

Meeting all the requirements to get a GM grade in this game is rather like trying to pull a million-pound locomotive by yourself on foot. Not impossible, but you could be forgiven for thinking it is.

And then I would prove you wrong.

Toodle-pip,
QM

[XaeL]

Nice.

[morningpee]

Awesome, that does look crazy hard. 2 thoughts:

• Zooming the camera view out is effective, but IMO, your hand should still be in view.

• Now that you are using ARS, are playing very quickly, and perform more Tetrises, it would be cool to see you attempt the TGM3 GM grade.

[mycophobia]

it's kind of telling that you had to disable comments and visible likes/dislikes on your youtube video because no one who actually plays TGM is buying this

[simonlc]

Nice work on programming the mode.

Have you ever thought of streaming? I think a lot of people would be interested in watching, myself included!

[professor-l]

That was utterly mesmerizing.  Just ridiculous.  

I'm aware that there are a lot of people saying this is fake.  It's pretty absurd, but it's definitely not implausible for someone to having a working memory of this caliber.  The odds that someone with that capacity would be sufficiently interested in Tetris (and in programming) to be able to do this is similarly reasonable.  

If you watch Greentea's TGM3 GM video, it becomes clear that playing invisible Tetris like that, clearing garbage and maintaining a stack actively, is very possible.  There're just only a handful of people in the world who can do it effectively.  You should ask Greentea to practice this mode - he'd likely be quite good at it, and he'd give you some credibility if he were able to play invisible mode sustainably.

Well done though, this is truly incredible.

[Shuey]

It's nice to see some people actually supporting QM and his achievements!  I don't know why so many skeptics and haters always seem to come out of the woodwork every time he does something new, but it's really annoying.

If you look at one of his previous videos, it's very clear that he's got true skills.  Look at this one for instance:

Some people thought he was watching a visible playfield that was out of camera shot.  Even if that was true (and it's NOT!), what he's accomplishing with one hand at these speeds is more than I can accomplish with two hands and a visible playfield, lol.

Let's also not forget that he figured out a new playing forever technique that nobody even knew or dreamed was possible, AND his new technique was more optimized than the original AND is playable at 20G!

I wish people could look past their own doubts and have enough sense to realize that the dude has true skill and isn't a scam artist ...

[Question_Mark]

You know, guys, if you really want to show your support, I could use a few likes on the video I posted in the OP.

[Cosine]

Huge congrats to QM

Let's also not forget that he figured out a new playing forever technique that nobody even knew or dreamed was possible, AND his new technique was more optimized than the original AND is playable at 20G!

Sure, except I posted some rare cases that makes it hard to continue... still it's pretty nice though.

[Lucas_Bomfim]

You're absolutely insane.

[mycophobia]

It's nice to see some people actually supporting QM and his achievements!  I don't know why so many skeptics and haters always seem to come out of the woodwork every time he does something new, but it's really annoying.

If you look at one of his previous videos, it's very clear that he's got true skills.  Look at this one for instance:

Some people thought he was watching a visible playfield that was out of camera shot.  Even if that was true (and it's NOT!), what he's accomplishing with one hand at these speeds is more than I can accomplish with two hands and a visible playfield, lol.

Let's also not forget that he figured out a new playing forever technique that nobody even knew or dreamed was possible, AND his new technique was more optimized than the original AND is playable at 20G!

I wish people could look past their own doubts and have enough sense to realize that the dude has true skill and isn't a scam artist ...

The issue is that the play exhibited here is really far above and beyond what the best TGM players can do. Like, reaaaaly far above. I'm not saying this level of play is impossible, but what would constitute proof for myself and many other players is something more than some one-off YouTube videos. at the very least, I would need to see live stream footage of play that even comes close to what he's doing in these videos. The fact that QM is being so defensive about it is incredibly suspicious in my eyes as well.

It's insanely easy to cheat video game footage. I can only guess that the reason why people are so quick to believe is a general lack of understanding of just how difficult surviving in Ti's 53 second long invisible credit roll is, or perhaps just how difficult Shirase is. Clearing Shirase in 4:40, without hold no less, is an incredible achievement by itself, matched by few. Doing it with an invisible playfield is practically superhuman in my eyes and simply requires better proof than is on offer here.

[professor-l]

The issue is that the play exhibited here is really far above and beyond what the best TGM players can do. Like, reaaaaly far above.

Check out Greentea's TGM3 GM video.  It's only for 53 seconds, but it at least demonstrates semi-comparable credit roll play.

[sinewave]

it at least demonstrates semi-comparable credit roll play.

"semi-comparable"? Not even close. Shirase is faster than Master Mode ever gets, including the credits roll. Playing at Shirase 1200 speeds with invisible pieces nonetheless is flat out impossible, when people kind of struggle with regular 1200 play in the first place.

[professor-l]

"semi-comparable"? Not even close. Shirase is faster than Master Mode ever gets, including the credits roll. Playing at Shirase 1200 speeds with invisible pieces nonetheless is flat out impossible, when people kind of struggle with regular 1200 play in the first place.

The struggle with Shirase speed comes primarily from the physical input limits of a TGM machine, which are obviously not hindering QM.  There are plenty of top-tier Tetris players who can play as fast and faster than 1200 TGM3 speeds on a keyboard.

[mycophobia]

There are plenty of top-tier Tetris players who can play as fast and faster than 1200 TGM3 speeds on a keyboard.

dude, slamming down pieces at a pace you control in 0G SRS is a world apart from being forced to maneuver in 20G ARS with 8 frames of lock delay.