Puyo Puyo

Puyo Pop (called Puyo Puyo in Japan, its country of origin) is a non-tetromino falling block puzzle game franchise. It was originally conceived by Masamitsu Niitani, drawing heavily from Dr. Mario, and developed by Compile Corporation, which later folded. American localizations on 16-bit era consoles, such as Kirby's Avalanche and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, replaced the original cut-scene characters with those from other franchises. Sega currently owns the rights and continues the series on major video game console and mobile platforms.

The game was a hit in Japan, with one of the first falling blocks game to heavily emphasize characters and storylines, and putting versus play as the default instead of solo play. Even in the default single player mode, the player is pitted against computer-controlled opponents. The characters and the general story universe of the original game were borrowed from Madou Monogatari, an RPG that was one of Compile's previous games. Each character has its own unique traits, including different tactics taken when controlled by the computer.

Gameplay
Colored pieces, represented in the game as jelly-like creatures called Puyo (plural: Puyo), fall into a 6x12 block playfield. (The name may be different in cases where the developer replaced the original characters with ones from a different franchise.) Each piece consists of several Puyo, each colored in one out of three to five colors. In games before Puyo Pop Fever, only pieces consisting of 2 Puyo were used, but in Puyo Pop Fever and later, larger pieces which are made of 3 or 4 Puyo are also used. Such pieces always consist of a single color or two colors, with the colors adjacently placed when in two colors. The 3-Puyo piece is always the L tromino and the 4-Puyo piece is always the O tetromino. The order in the number of Puyo in pieces that get dealt to the player has a fixed sequence, which differs depending on the character the player chooses.

The player can move the piece sideways or downward, and/or rotate them. When the piece is made of 2 Puyo, the "secondary" Puyo rotates about the highlighted "primary" Puyo. The 4-Puyo piece does not rotate, but changes its color when the rotate button is pressed. Pieces that land break up into individual Puyo and then form groups of horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally, adjacent Puyo of matching color.

Four or more Puyo in a group explode, and any Puyo above them disconnect, fall, and reconnect. Puyo can be set up so that when one group clears, it causes other Puyo to fall and form another group. In versus matches, every time the player clears Puyo, a certain amount of transparent garbage Puyo are sent to the opponent. These must be destroyed by clearing other Puyo adjacent to them. Making chain reactions with multiple groups of Puyo sends larger amounts of garbage Puyo to the opponent.

Sticky Tetris, the primary game mode in The Next Tetris and one of the modes of Tetris Worlds, borrows this play mechanic of removing groups.

Classic
Prior to Puyo Pop Fever, the mechanics of the games worked as follows:
 * One or two piece preview depending on version.
 * ARE is present. The piece that locks jiggles up and down a couple times, and the next domino slides from the preview to the top.
 * DAS is fast.
 * Lock delay appears to reset only on piece entry.
 * Top out when column 3 is filled, or in Puyo Pop Fever when column 3 or 4 is filled.
 * Soft drop locks, no hard drop.
 * In newer products, two consecutive failed wall kicks result in double rotation, moving the secondary block 180 degrees about the primary block.

The following analysis of domino rotation, including wall kick and floor kick rules, applies to Puyo Pop for Game Boy Advance. The primary block is labeled ; the secondary block is labeled. In this game, if a space is empty, the space above it is guaranteed to be empty.

R->U (L->U symmetric)

R->D (L->D symmetric)

D->R (D->L, U->R, U->L symmetric)

So the overriding rule is that if a kick is required, try pushing the piece straight away from the wall or floor, so that the secondary Puyo occupies the space that the primary Puyo occupied.

Fever
Puyo Pop Fever made many changes to the game mechanics.
 * 2 piece previews.
 * ARE is present. The piece that locks jiggles up and down a couple times, and the next Puyo set slides from the preview to the top.
 * DAS is fast. DAS is charged instantly during ARE, but has the usual delay when a Puyo set is active.
 * Lock delay appears to reset only on piece entry. However, in Puyo Puyo 7, the lock delay resets on rotation, up to 8 times. After the 8 rotations resting on the stack (defined as rotations where at least one Puyo in the piece is directly on top of a Puyo on the stack immediately after rotation), the lock delay goes to 0 on the next rotation and the Puyo set immediately locks down the next time it touches the stack.
 * Top out when column 3 or 4 is filled.
 * Soft drop locks. Puyo Puyo 7 adds a hard drop which also locks.
 * 2 consecutive failed wall kicks result in double rotation, moving the secondary block 180 degrees about the primary block.

Below is an example of the Puyo Puyo 7 lock delay reset mechanic:

Puyo Pop Fever also added floor kicks for rotation from the upward position. U->R (U->L symmetric)

3-Puyo pieces use the "elbow" of the piece as the primary Puyo to pivot around.

UR->UL (UL->UR, DR->DL, DL->DR symmetric)

UR->DR (UL->DL, DR->UR, DL->UL symmetric)

Fan games

 * KFoulEggs
 * Blockles (as of September 2009)
 * Puyo Puyo Compendium
 * NullpoMino (Avalanche modes, named after Kirby's Avalanche)