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The Revolution in Classic Tetris
- mssundaram 6y agohttps://archive.is/vusox https://archive.is/vusox
- _rpd 6y agotl;dr: some people are really, really into tetris. Nerd porn, and not in a good way.
- mdm_ 6y agoI used to watch Jonas and Heather’s Twitch stream every night for a while back in 2019. I had no idea he had passed away, only a year older than me :-(
- simlevesque 6y agoIt is super sad. He was pure kindness.
- enneff 6y agoI really enjoyed watching both of them on stream. They were so warm and fun and seemed to have a great community of friends around them. It’s heartbreaking to hear of Jonas’ passing. My heart goes out to Heather and his family and friends.
- fartcannon 6y agoI breaks my heart. His VODs are still on twitch. Lots to see if you'd like to enjoy their banter once again.
- jamesgreenleaf 6y ago> To [hypertap], he developed a unique one-handed grip: with his right thumb on the control pad, he flexed his right bicep until his arm shook, pressing down with each tremor, about fifteen times per second. Did anyone else do this for other games? I used to pull this move all the time in those mario party style games where you had to be the first to press a button, or had to tap the most in a certain period of time.
- orblivion 6y agoI don't know about fifteen times a second but yeah definitely.
- scythe 6y agoI tried doing it for column-climbing in the Flash game 'n' on a number of occasions, but I gave up because fast column-climbing requires accurate taps and also it hurts.
- RupertEisenhart 6y agoI definitely did something like this for column-climbing on occasion, and also tapping shift with fingers from two hands. But yeah n was more about accuracy. (Hey scythe, brocerious here!)
- bfdm 6y agoOh absolutely. It's that smasher skill to edge out an advantage when the only real limit is input speed. Made those later "press X repeatedly to survive!" quick time type things super easy. Man I miss gaming.
- ineedasername 6y agoI hated those quicktime events... yeah I saw the point of having a high quality pre-rebdered video with a gameplay element, they were just so tedious. I can't stand it when games still occasionally use the "quick, mash this button!" approach, though it is thankfully not as often these days
- csours 6y agoI did this for old Amiga games, some of them had unlimited projectiles, you just had to click really fast.
- ycombinete 6y agoI’ve always used this method for decanting things in the kitchen. Like ketchup stuck in a bottle, flour out of bags, sifting flour etc.
- willhinsa 6y ago> After a few seconds, the longed-for rectangle arrived. Another way to describe it would be a long-four rectangle :)
- jamesgreenleaf 6y agoA furlong for a longed-for long-four won't last for long.
- pimlottc 6y agoI think you mean a furlough. A furlong is 1/8 of a mile.
- jamesgreenleaf 6y agoNo, the wordplay works with variations of the words "for" and "long". The "furlong" etymologically means a "furrow length" which is what you could call that spot everyone sets up for the narrow tetris block.
- cortesoft 6y agoI think about this a lot with regards to learning to program. I learned to program as a kid in early 90s, with no internet. I had a bunch of books I got from the library, and figuring things out meant looking in the index of a bunch of books to find the topic. I ended up making up my own version of a lot of fundamental programming things because I didn’t happen to read the chapter that had that bit, so I needed to solve it myself. I used to be really nostalgic about this, and worried that “kids these days” never get that experience of having to figure something out entirely on your own. Now I have started to think kids can do so much more and learn so much more these days. I could have learned so much with the effort I had to put in to learn the basics. I could know so much more than I do now if I had the internet as a kid!
- prerok 6y agoI somewhat agree but there is a lot to be said about "reinventing the wheel", while you are learning. Not only do you get to a solution, you also consider other approaches and discover why they don't work, or work as well. Having "a" solution at your fingertips all the time also decreases your critical thinking of whether that solution is really the best in the problem space you are working at. I think that the best of both worlds, what I usually try doing, is that you think about a problem, try to analyze how you would solve it and only then look up the solution.
- mypalmike 6y agoI agree. Learning to program on my own in the 80s by writing things like text adventures, I had to figure out things like parsing and sorting myself, with no idea that these were common problems with known approaches. Nowadays I lazily reach for answers on Google most of the time when I encounter a problem that is novel to me. I'm pretty sure I'm dumber now because of it.
- daniellarusso 6y agoMeh. I would argue you have an evolved critical thinking skill, and can easily determine why the Stack Overflow answer with the green checkmark is not always the correct solution... AND, you know what to actually search for in Google to get your answer.
- yesenadam 6y agoWatching this video helped me appreciate those Tetris world championship videos a lot more! There's a lot more to it than meets the eye. The Classic Tetris World Championships Explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RaqVGzhQTM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RaqVGzhQTM
- xmprt 6y agoThe crazy thing is that the Classic Tetris scene has really blown up a lot (partially as a result of that video) to the point that that video is outdated.
- colordrops 6y agoWhat has changed since then?
- input_sh 6y ago"World championship" was basically a bunch US players and one dude from Canada. That changed in 2018, with players from Europe and SE Asia adjusting to the NES version to compete. In other words, it went from one player managing to get max score on the qualifying day to like 7 IIRC.
- chupasaurus 6y agoCTWC Europe was created in 2015, although it's for PAL version which differs by FPS and DAS speed.
- daniellarusso 6y agoSo, is it more advantageous to play at 50Hz or 60Hz? Or does that matter?
- simonlc 6y agoThe PAL version was adjusted for the fps change, so while the game looks the same it plays very differently because of just a few values. It was only recently that the first person in the world EricICX maxed out the PAL version. Here's an in-depth article that explains the consequence of these changes to tapping. https://tetris.wiki/User:Kitaru https://tetris.wiki/User:Kitaru
- darkwizard42 6y agoI too stumbled upon Classic Tetris through the Youtube algorithm. I've watched almost all of the 2019 and 2020 world championships and the game is just played so well with so much energy. It's really a simple game and the players are just SO fast at understanding the combinations and when to "burn" lines to set up more valuable Tetrises. Incredibly surprised that Joesph lost but it was a REALLY REALLY close game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isbvQVngnXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isbvQVngnXA)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- untoxicness 6y ago> I too stumbled upon Classic Tetris through the Youtube algorithm. To me this aspect was the most fascinating point about this article. I cannot shake the feeling that the algorithm "decided" for many individuals how to spend large amounts of their time.
- path411 6y agoIn some ways we have already hit the singularity. Some random ML has changed the lives of thousands of people to play tetris. Imagine the other similar situations. It's very scary to me that people live their lives inside such tightly controlled "algorithms". Then throw on the human element how Google gets to ban certain topics from the algorithm and it just feels dystopian. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?
- misterkrabs 6y agoThis article is so well written - I watched the videos they were talking about and it wasn't nearly as exciting. I just want Jacob Sweet to describe videos to me now.
- skywal_l 6y agoCompletely agree. I was actually griped. You could make a movie out of this column !
- flobosg 6y agoNot Classic Tetris, but Tetris 99[1] and the Tetris: The Grand Master series[2] are also worth checking out if you are into competitive Tetris. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm6t5IKVGsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm6t5IKVGsM [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaMjbnvZMck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaMjbnvZMck
- simonlc 6y agoWhile the term "Classic Tetris" usually refers to NES Tetris, it can also mean any pre-guideline game (modern tetris). Tetris The Grand Master has actually been part of The CTWC for a few years. My favorite is from CTWC 2017, one of the craziest finals in Tetris ever. Round one starts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0xTEkejOtI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0xTEkejOtI
- mrzimmerman 6y agoThis was such a beautiful article. I was just talking to friends about programming for predicting chess and poker games and then this came up which was felt very perfect. It just makes me appreciate the human mind that much more.
- TwoBit 6y agoChess has been big lately and I feel that as a game it's far more rewarding and scalable than Tetris. The mastery curve of chess is very long and doesn't ceiling like twitch games do.
- suzzer99 6y agoI can't imagine the Tetris dreams these guys must have. I got obsessed with it for a couple weeks and it never stopped playing in my head.
- MisterBastahrd 6y agoThe game I wish would make a comeback is the original Tetris Attack. It's probably the best PVP puzzle game of all time, and not the easiest game to get right due to timing issues.
- hubblesticks 6y agoRight with you on this! Spent so much time playing "T-Attack" (as we called it) I would see the shapes behind my eyes when I would go to sleep. My brother and one friend still dust it off every year to see if we've still "got it". Would love a comeback on this.
- nayuki 6y agoI love Tetris Attack / Panel de Pon / Pokémon Puzzle League! Superficially it looks like Tetris, but the mechanics are way deeper. There are many combos you can make. More importantly, you need to make chains to do meaningful damage/scoring. Whereas in Tetris you are at the whim of the random incoming pieces, in Tetris Attack it is up to you to create order from the random field, and players at different skill levels will take an identical field and process it totally differently.
- gourneau 6y agoIf anyone wants to play Tetris Effect Connected in co-op mode, I am looking for Tetris friends. Hit me up at josh@gourneau.com
- stanislavb 6y agoIf you fancy playing the classic Tetris, you can give a go to https://www.goodoldtetris.com/ https://www.goodoldtetris.com/
- jamiek88 6y agoWow! Finally one that feel exactly like how it did as a kid. Thanks for this! I had to force myself to quit the game and leave this last comment before bed!
- PebblesRox 6y agoIt's just not the same for me without the music.[0] Although my favorite soundtrack was actually the Welltris one.[1] Ah, brings back memories of when I had all the flags of the former USSR memorized. [0]https://youtu.be/NmCCQxVBfyM https://youtu.be/NmCCQxVBfyM [1]https://youtu.be/RJEyqLK7HwU https://youtu.be/RJEyqLK7HwU
- UncleSlacky 6y agoYou might enjoy this version, recounting the history of the USSR to the Tetris tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8
- vgb2k18 6y ago> Months later, he noticed something strange. “It was just blowing up,” he said. “I don’t know why. The views just kept climbing and climbing and climbing.” Soon there were spin-offs. Other than "It went viral" or "because the YouTube algorithm", was there a specific reason ever noted for this? I found this part of the article was the hook that got me interested in reading more, however I didn't find the answer further down.
- hivacruz 6y agoTetris is such a great game. I still play it daily when I'm bored. But I can't play without hard drop and ghost piece nowadays. I like Tetris Sprint, where you have to do 20 or 40 lines the fastest you can. There is a lot of competition around this too. A great website to play is Jstris: https://jstris.jezevec10.com https://jstris.jezevec10.com
- lloeki 6y agoMy personal addiction is hard drop and wall kicks. I can do without the ghost piece. This recent story had me wanting to try the NES version again: https://www.gridbugs.org/reverse-engineering-nes-tetris-to-add-hard-drop/ https://www.gridbugs.org/reverse-engineering-nes-tetris-to-a...
- daniellarusso 6y agoI recently watched the Tetris documentary, Ecstasy of Order, and although it is a few years old, was very interesting and entertaining. http://watch.ecstasyoforder.com/ http://watch.ecstasyoforder.com/