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Teens are rewriting what is possible in the world of competitive Tetris
- Victerius 4y agoTIL There are Tetris competitions.
- 2c2c2c 4y agodifferent flavors too. nullpomino 40line clears look insane: https://youtu.be/_k5tP1v0w-k https://youtu.be/_k5tP1v0w-k
- bubblesorting 4y agoThe blitz (maximize score in a set time) all-clear runs are pretty impressive, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWETj11LmMw&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWETj11LmMw&t=7s
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bobsmooth 4y agoName an activity and there's a competition for it.
- joos3 4y agoRIP Jonas. Such a legend
- bobsmooth 4y agoAbsolutely devastating, but the young people keep the game going. It's so bittersweet.
- redhal 4y agoNice to see some Tetris news here! I've been a little obsessed lately with Tetr.io. For those who don't know it, it's a version of tetris where you can play against other players and send them pieces when, for example, you do a tetris or a combo. It's pretty impressive to watch the competitions : https://youtu.be/A4SFWfXZsks https://youtu.be/A4SFWfXZsks
- herman_toothrot 4y agoPretty cool. Anyone remember TetriNET from the 90s? Similar concept, except there were special pieces mixed in that you could use on opponents or yourself (add line, clear line, quake, etc.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TetriNET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TetriNET
- cjbprime 4y agoYup! I remember the Debian developers would often play it together, I suppose because it was one of a small number of exciting open source multiplayer games which worked on Linux.
- contingencies 4y agoIMHO when people discuss networked Tetris, it's now the reference implementation.
- bcherny 4y agoAh, sounds similar to PuzzleFighter, an older Japanese game.
- nope96 4y agoFound out about Tetr.io from this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29728892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29728892 Instantly got addicted, and I was amazed to see how good everyone is. 14 year old me with my gameboy would have been stunned at how fast and crazy modern Tetris is. And multi-national! Love it, but had to give it up after a few months because it seemed like it would/or was causing my longstanding RSI to come back.
- 4y ago
- synergy20 4y agoMy son was obsessed with this for a while and is probably ranked top 20 globally, what's the excitement of this game is beyond me. That ended up hurting his college application quite a bit, and he showed no regret and is still in love with it. The only thing positive I see is that they actually have a closed circle from different nations, so he made some "online friends" there.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- DavidSJ 4y agoWhy the scare quotes around online friends? Online friends are very real friends.
- slothtrop 4y agoBecause they're no substitute for friends you see in person.
- DavidSJ 4y agoIt's a big world out there. Sometimes the best connections aren't found locally.
- bloqs 4y agoThis may be the case as a fully formed and experienced adult, but it's critical at developmental stages
- DavidSJ 4y agoWhen I was a teenager, I had local friends and online friends, and my online friends were very real and I'm very thankful that I had them. Neither were a replacement for the other.
- slothtrop 4y ago
- danso 4y agoI saw this Polygon story on reddit, and deep in the reddit comments was a link to this fascinating 9-minute YouTube video that explains the latest NES Tetris competitive tech which is apparently "faster than hypertapping!" (I did not know even know what "hypertapping" was) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-BZ5-Q48lE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-BZ5-Q48lE
- tedunangst 4y agoFor me, there's an open question whether games like Tetris should have such hacks. (Is it a bug that should be fixed?) Obviously reaction time is a factor in a game that continuously speeds up to increase difficulty, but should inhuman button mashing offer an advantage over auto repeat? You can't make Mario run 20x faster by hyper tapping the run key.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoI can see why one would take issue with hypertapping, a method which seemed to require some inherent body ability to be capable of, but rolling is merely a more efficient method of human tapping. It's like asking if the fosbury flop should be allowed.
- tedunangst 4y agoThe high jump seems to be more deliberately a test of physical skill? Did the designers of Tetris set out to make a game that measures the rate at which you can push a button? A lot of games have no glitch speedrun categories.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoIf the designers wanted the game to end at level 29 they could have forced the game to end there. They didn't, instead programming a game that allows users to get continue indefinitely even if the designers themselves were unable to pass level 29. Sure you could make a no hypertapping or rolling category for Tetris. Calling better techniques a glitch seems wrong, though speed runners often disagree on what exactly constitutes a "glitch" anyway.
- spike021 4y agoAnyone have a preferred method of playing Tetris? These days I just load up the official site's web version [0] but lately they've crammed more and more ads onto the page and Ublock Origin can't keep up. Sometimes the tab totally freezes. Makes it difficult to enjoy. [0] https://tetris.com/play-tetris https://tetris.com/play-tetris
- goosedragons 4y agoMy favorite version is Puyo Puyo Tetris. It's on Steam, Switch, PS4, Xbox. Also a Puyo Puyo game but you can easily just play Tetris if you want. It's fun, it's colorful. Also has multiplayer, online and split screen. No ads but you do have to buy it for $20. After that it's probably classic Game Boy Tetris.
- EddySchauHai 4y agoPuyo Puyo Tetris 2 is also out! I believe it has more players online.
- Shared404 4y agoGameboy/NES emulator is probably a reasonable option. I have a keychain toy I got as a child that has a cheap LCD recreation. <strike>clearly the best option is bastet on linux</strike>
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jgtrosh 4y agoEither Nintendo Tetris on NES if I'm at home or Tetris Effect Connected's Classic mode. Here's a good enough online emulator: https://arcadespot.com/game/classic-tetris/ https://arcadespot.com/game/classic-tetris/ For modern Tetris, Tetr.io or jstris.
- Comkid 4y agoMy favourite is tetr.js which is open source and has seen multiple forks over the years. The latest I’m aware of is [0]. [0] https://doktorocelot.com/tetr.js/ https://doktorocelot.com/tetr.js/
- boomboomsubban 4y agoIs the method more taxing on the controller? How do such NES events handle controllers? Are modern remakes allowed, do they disassemble and fix them, or is there a fear that eventually all NES controllers will be broken forcing change?
- tedunangst 4y agoThe G forces are pretty minimal. Also, replica controllers are permitted. You can play with a lefty controller that swaps AB and D-pad for instance.
- a_t48 4y agoYou will eventually wear out the pads. Happens with SNES controllers after heavy kaizo play. :)
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoTruly amazing to see this new generation of Tetris play. On a semi-related note, this article stirred some nostalgia for a related game, "Welltris" (sort of a 3-d version of Tetris) that was popular among the MS-DOS crowd in the late 80s/early 90s.
- PebblesRox 4y agoWelltris was great and I loved the music. I think it had more variety than classic Tetris did.
- StanislavPetrov 4y agoThe pictures were awesome too!
- bergenty 4y agoThis is great. I randomly stumbled on this scene about 6 years ago and it’s great to see this on the front page.
- Xcelerate 4y agoI used to be obsessed with Tetris (both on the console and the 40 line clear version on the computer) and ended up programming a version of it that maps one key on the keyboard to one "slot/rotation" combination for each piece. Amazingly, there are enough keys to cover all of the combinations, so each drop is just one key press. Ended up getting some pretty good 40 line clear times for this weird version of Tetris; it felt like I was typing to play the game. I don't know if anyone has done something like that since then—that was probably a decade ago.
- emiliobumachar 4y agoInteresting, but there's one thing I didn't get. Why does each piece need different keys?
- function_seven 4y agoI don’t think it’s a separate key for each piece. It’s a separate key for each column and rotation.
- hyperpallium2 4y ago10 columns, 4 orientations - matches keyboard real nice and kentucky.
- moozilla 4y agoThere's a variant of this idea called "KeyTris" or "Finesse", here's one implementation: https://github.com/alex-ong/Finesse https://github.com/alex-ong/Finesse Example of someone getting sub 20 seconds with this method: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TGW4j7LRBJk https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TGW4j7LRBJk
- barbs 4y agoAwesome! That sounds like something worth sharing, if you were willing?
- thot_experiment 4y ago
- DoubleFree 4y agoYears ago I stumbled onto competitive Tetris because the YouTube algorithm pushed the Jonas vs Joseph match on me. I didn't expect it to be exciting, but it was actually captivating and I've followed CTWC (very) passively ever since. The excitement from the commentators is also very infectious.
- beebeepka 4y agoI loved my handheld Tetris console as a little kid. I could start at speed 9 (highest) and play for an hour or until I have to pee or something. These days I am more impressed with people hitting 60% lightning gun in Quake or executing crazy hard army manuevers in StarCraft. Still though, Tetris is an early love of mine
- Ekaros 4y agoI'm sad they aren't using the original Electronika 60 version for these competitions.
- G3rn0ti 4y agoEmacs has tetris mode including highscore list: M-x tetris.
- ilitirit 4y agoNot sure if it's mentioned in the article, but this documentary is worth watching if you haven't seen it. It pre-dates some of the newer techniques people are using. http://watch.ecstasyoforder.com/ http://watch.ecstasyoforder.com/
- layer8 4y agoSlightly off-topic: Does anyone know what happened to Angularis [0] at https://angularis.mondaybits.com/ https://angularis.mondaybits.com/, or how to contact the author? The page went down a couple of days ago. I hugely enjoyed that Tetris variant. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30213972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30213972
- brxck 4y agoIt's still up, but it looks like the certificate expired.
- formvoltron 4y agoOK when I was in high school.. and we are talking 1991 here, there was a programmer in a class I was taking who wrote a head to head tetris game as his project for the class. 31 years later the world figures out that head to head tetris is pretty cool.
- silpheed5 4y agoOr he had a gameboy from 1989 with a link cable and had already played head to head tetris there?
- hinkley 4y agoI need to send this to my brother. He was the one in our household and social circle to figure out that the counter on the PC version of Tetris was only 16 bits. You maxed out at 65k, not 1 million. He hit that not by maxing out the score before level 29, but by just learning to push through level 30. He would sit in that office for hours playing a single game, chair pushed back, elbows on knees, looking like a baseball player waiting to clear the bench.