5 ms·

I have a somewhat contrarian opinion. I think if you're making a clone of Tetris you should actually take design cues from the somewhat more obscure Tetris the

by jchw 2y ago

I have a somewhat contrarian opinion. I think if you're making a clone of Tetris you should actually take design cues from the somewhat more obscure Tetris the Grand Master series instead of the "guideline" or NES Tetris rules. TGM's rotation and kick rules are a lot more elegant and avoid a lot of unneeded complexity. Guideline Tetris kicks let you do absurd and weird things (look up the series of kicks that make up a T-Spin Triple and see if that makes sense to you) and rewards doing canned setups really fast, whereas TGM's game design is all about doing good stacking very fast. The TGM randomization algorithm is also pretty elegant. 7 bag is a bit extreme, it gives you such a perfect set of pieces at all times that it's genuinely less challenging and fun. TGM's random piece algorithm is a lot simpler: the randomizer has a 4-piece history window and it tries multiple times (IIRC, 6) to find a unique piece that hasn't appeared in that window. It is initialized to SSZZ to lower the odds of starting with an S or Z early on. (~~They also use the Mersenne Twister as their PRNG, which was a pretty good PRNG in an era where many games still used LCGs.~~ edit: Apparently, they do not. Don't ask me where I got this, I have no idea.) Now of course I'm not sure if it matters at all for this particular game since it isn't really a Tetris clone at all, but while TGM is a well-known cult classic for people deep into Tetris it's relatively obscure outside of that circle (and presumably outside of Japan.) The Tetris Company is very strange about licensing and has apparently, as the legend has it, blocked and forced changes on TGM releases for a very long time due to the fact that it doesn't fit with the Tetris guideline rules they enforce in an oddly totalitarian fashion, probably suppressing the game even further in an era where speed games and competitive gaming is a lot more popular.

manbitesdog 2y ago
Very insightful! the 4-window blacklist is such a good idea. I feel like 7-bag is a bit too predictable if you're able to keep up with the counting. And you're right, some of the rotation and kick rules you mentioned are actually not changing much in this game because there's not a collision between pieces, only overlap: since floor kicks and t-spins are not possible, we optimized those for simplicity (it's a 48h game jam in PICO-8 after all)
- jchw 2y ago
  I tried playing sirtet for a while. That was pretty interesting. My brain kept wanting to orient the pieces as if I was playing Tetris leading me to occasionally do the opposite of what I was intending to do and dig myself into a hole both figuratively and literally. I found it pretty challenging to figure out a good strategy for stacking; there aren't so many lines to work with at once and the constraint that the soil has to be connected at all times adds a bit of challenge. I couldn't get very far and only managed to clear four lines a couple of times. I can definitely say now that I don't think 7 bag is a mistake for this. With the added challenge, having 7 bag and a hold window is probably a good idea.
qsort 2y ago
I think it depends on what you want to make a clone for. TGM rules are more elegant and much more challenging for single-player tetris, but on the other hand multiplayer and especially 1v1 has far greater variety and dynamism with a looser rotation system. The stricter the rules, the more it becomes spamming tetrises against each other until someone misdrops. You have to construct a ruleset where a player who is 0.1pps faster doesn't just autowin.
- jchw 2y ago
  I doubt this is going to be a popular opinion, but I honestly think Tetris 1v1 just isn't that interesting of a game. The interaction between players is pretty damn boring. In guideline 1v1 a lot of very high level games are decided by garbage RNG which I think is even less interesting than determining who is 0.1pps faster. I don't think either ruleset is particularly better for either players or people watching. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a lot of tension in high level game play and so it's not completely boring, but to me it starts to get old once you realize what's happening, and I haven't really watched any high level Tetris stuff in a long time. I have a lot more fun watching Classic Tetris World Championship, because as janky as NES Tetris is, it's fun to watch people absolutely decimate it. Now if you want a good multiplayer puzzle game with super rich interactions, I think you just simply need a different game entirely, because there's no obvious way to weave some sort of responsive strategy into a Tetris game. Therefore, my pick for the ideal competitive falling blocks puzzle game is Puyo Puyo Tsu.
  - jgtrosh 2y ago
    My dream competitive Tetris game is based on the cooperative mode in Tengen Tetris, with two players on the same board and separate scores. However, it's a bit hard to promote cooperation and not suicide as soon as there's any disadvantage. A possible workaround is to have two simultaneous 1v1 games (same seed), and count all four scores independently.
  - NauticalStu 2y ago
    TGM actually has a pretty interesting 1v1 system. I wish it was more popular. Most other Tetris games (all that I've played, at least) throw randomized garbage at the opponent. It scales with the number of lines you clear, but it always has a one column gap in a random position, no control over that. But TGM's garbage is deterministic. Basically, imagine taking the lines you just cleared, but remove the piece that completed them. That missing piece will be the gap. Flip what's left upside down and add it to the bottom of your opponent's stack. Now you have full control over the position and shape of the garbage you send! This adds a nice layer of strategy and makes the game feel more interactive since you need to constantly watch your opponent's stack and act accordingly. You want to add garbage where your opponent will struggle to clear it while also being on the lookout for what kind of garbage they'll be sending you and try to play around it. And there are powerup items to spice things up, which admittedly vary widely in power level and can be very swingy. Although that's not necessarily bad as it allows players of different skill levels to play together (although the stronger player will still win most games), as well as just add some exciting or funny turnarounds. There's also a timing element to triggering the items, which adds even more strategy. https://tetris.wiki/TGM_Versus_Mode_Guide https://tetris.wiki/TGM_Versus_Mode_Guide
Arcorann 2y ago
Have you looked at TGM4, which released on Steam last week? [0] I'd be interested to see your thoughts on it. Also would like to note that, at least for TGM1, 2 and 3, the PRNG used is a 32-bit LCG (the common C one, in fact). [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/3328480/TETRIS_THE_GRAND_MASTER_4_ABSOLUTE_EYE/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3328480/TETRIS_THE_GRAND_...
- jchw 2y ago
  I haven't had a chance to check it out. I definitely intend to. > Also would like to note that, at least for TGM1, 2 and 3, the PRNG used is a 32-bit LCG (the common C one, in fact). Oops. It seems I have manufactured some false memories.
- PetitPrince 2y ago
  As a long-time (since 2007) TGM player, my opinion on TGM4: - At launch there were some severe issues that denotes a rushed release and lack of QA. The most glaring of which being the inability to rebind keyboard controls (a patch is underway for this Friday). It's quite paradoxical since it's a game that was originally announced in 2009 (and has been cancelled 2 times; it's a whole saga that would be widely out of scope of this HN comment). In the other hand, it is a game that's technically rooted in 2009 (a DirectX 9 game that originally targeted a Windows-based arcade system like Sega Ringwide; TGM3 itself being released on Taito Type-X which is already a Windows machine masquerading as an arcade machine with arcade controllers bolted on). - On the other hand, the dev team has been super reactive and the lead producer/director/whatever is the appropriate title is in Japanese regularly communicate with the community. And we know first-hand that one of the main dev is also a legendary player (Jin8; the first player who obtained the Gm grade in TGM3, a feat that only 20 people or so in the world has replicated) that has the game in his heart. - Gameplay-wise, it is a much more accessible game, due to having to implement one part of the Tetris Guideline gameplay element (the lock delay behavior switched from Step Reset to Move Reset; the details and consequence of which I don't have time right now to explain). Detractor would say that it's another pollution by The Tetris Company, but I think this is a conscious choice and makes the game overall better (all of the ill effect of move reset being counterbalanced by the rest of the rotation system, and of course the insane speed). The overall difficulty is lower and hence more accessible, but some of the endgame challenges are devious (but that's through the incursion of gimmicks instead of simply the game system being what it is). It has not the austere elegance of TGM1, the rigorous beauty of TGM2 or the manic challenge of TGM3, but it has still all the heart of TGM in my opinion. - However I do find the meta-game lacking because of the removal of many of "grades" (in the older games, the game judge you and give you a grade to either your game or your account; think of it like martial arts belt). There are still acknowledgment of finishing a game ( "you are {this or that mode} Master!"), but this is very, very difficult (and very, very rewarding), but there's a lack of intermediate rewards for experienced but not expert players. Allegedly this is a TTC decision, and I find the game worse for it. - Overall it's still a solid game (and being in 2025 and this being not an arcade game, we can have patches and the dev seems willing and motivated to add fixes and new features in the future), and in my heart one of the best Tetris out there. Tetris Effect has a way better eye-candy (it is a Mizuguchi game after all), but if you're willing to play with "TGM" rules instead of Tetris Guideline rules, it's mechanically incredibly rewarding.
ambyra 2y ago
The rules make it so every new tetris release is just a boring clone. TGM has to fight for innovation, really sad. When I made my four player variant, https://duo.itch.io/reaktor https://duo.itch.io/reaktor I made sure to follow NONE of the guideline rules, and it ended up being a breath of fresh air for a lot of people. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1fdzcsc/how_i_published_this_without_getting_sued_by/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1fdzcsc/how_i_publ...
- vanderZwan 2y ago
  Tengent: how's the steam deck compatibility? Reaktor looks fun but it's the only game device I currently use (I'm keeping my laptop strictly game-free) EDIT: top steam review says the reviewer primarily plays the game on their Steam Deck, so I guess it's good
  - ambyra 2y ago
    Lotta people playing on the deck. Hoping to port to switch one day. Local multiplayer would be awesome.
DadBase 2y ago
I still think the cleanest rotation system was when we mapped tetromino states to hardware interrupts. You’d get instant kicks, but if the stack got too high you’d risk a race condition that hard-locked the framebuffer. Not elegant, but very motivating for clean stacking.
pharrington 2y ago
Have you had a chance to play TGM4 yet to see if it wasn't forced to be too close to guideline Tetris?
bonestamp2 2y ago
Purists will probably disagree, but my favorite version of Tetris is the version for Oculus VR. Forget the 3D/VR part of it, which is fine but not what I like about it... the way it mixes music, colors, scenery, and pace to create an emotional reaction is simple yet brilliant.
wodenokoto 2y ago
I've never played GM Tetris, but have watched the exhibitions on Games Done Quick. It's my impression that Tetris 99 follows GM more closely than it follows NES.
- zerocrates 2y ago
  Tetris 99 was developed by Arika, the developers of the TGM games.
- jchw 2y ago
  Tetris 99 is very much official guideline Tetris. Arika, the developer of TGM, (and Tetris 99, as pointed out by an adjacent comment,) has done guideline Tetris before, and even implemented it as an option in TGM games in the past (and presumably in TGM 4 which I haven't played yet) and it is assumed this is because of the Tetris Company enforcing it. You could certainly never do a T-Spin Triple in ARS rotation. (Though whether it's closer to GM than NES is an interesting question. It's certainly neither since NES Tetris is quite far from what guideline Tetris would become.)

by jchw 2y ago

manbitesdog 2y ago

Very insightful! the 4-window blacklist is such a good idea. I feel like 7-bag is a bit too predictable if you're able to keep up with the counting. And you're right, some of the rotation and kick rules you mentioned are actually not changing much in this game because there's not a collision between pieces, only overlap: since floor kicks and t-spins are not possible, we optimized those for simplicity (it's a 48h game jam in PICO-8 after all)

jchw 2y ago
I tried playing sirtet for a while. That was pretty interesting. My brain kept wanting to orient the pieces as if I was playing Tetris leading me to occasionally do the opposite of what I was intending to do and dig myself into a hole both figuratively and literally. I found it pretty challenging to figure out a good strategy for stacking; there aren't so many lines to work with at once and the constraint that the soil has to be connected at all times adds a bit of challenge. I couldn't get very far and only managed to clear four lines a couple of times. I can definitely say now that I don't think 7 bag is a mistake for this. With the added challenge, having 7 bag and a hold window is probably a good idea.

qsort 2y ago

I think it depends on what you want to make a clone for. TGM rules are more elegant and much more challenging for single-player tetris, but on the other hand multiplayer and especially 1v1 has far greater variety and dynamism with a looser rotation system. The stricter the rules, the more it becomes spamming tetrises against each other until someone misdrops. You have to construct a ruleset where a player who is 0.1pps faster doesn't just autowin.

jchw 2y ago
I doubt this is going to be a popular opinion, but I honestly think Tetris 1v1 just isn't that interesting of a game. The interaction between players is pretty damn boring. In guideline 1v1 a lot of very high level games are decided by garbage RNG which I think is even less interesting than determining who is 0.1pps faster. I don't think either ruleset is particularly better for either players or people watching. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a lot of tension in high level game play and so it's not completely boring, but to me it starts to get old once you realize what's happening, and I haven't really watched any high level Tetris stuff in a long time. I have a lot more fun watching Classic Tetris World Championship, because as janky as NES Tetris is, it's fun to watch people absolutely decimate it. Now if you want a good multiplayer puzzle game with super rich interactions, I think you just simply need a different game entirely, because there's no obvious way to weave some sort of responsive strategy into a Tetris game. Therefore, my pick for the ideal competitive falling blocks puzzle game is Puyo Puyo Tsu.
- jgtrosh 2y ago
  My dream competitive Tetris game is based on the cooperative mode in Tengen Tetris, with two players on the same board and separate scores. However, it's a bit hard to promote cooperation and not suicide as soon as there's any disadvantage. A possible workaround is to have two simultaneous 1v1 games (same seed), and count all four scores independently.
- NauticalStu 2y ago
  TGM actually has a pretty interesting 1v1 system. I wish it was more popular. Most other Tetris games (all that I've played, at least) throw randomized garbage at the opponent. It scales with the number of lines you clear, but it always has a one column gap in a random position, no control over that. But TGM's garbage is deterministic. Basically, imagine taking the lines you just cleared, but remove the piece that completed them. That missing piece will be the gap. Flip what's left upside down and add it to the bottom of your opponent's stack. Now you have full control over the position and shape of the garbage you send! This adds a nice layer of strategy and makes the game feel more interactive since you need to constantly watch your opponent's stack and act accordingly. You want to add garbage where your opponent will struggle to clear it while also being on the lookout for what kind of garbage they'll be sending you and try to play around it. And there are powerup items to spice things up, which admittedly vary widely in power level and can be very swingy. Although that's not necessarily bad as it allows players of different skill levels to play together (although the stronger player will still win most games), as well as just add some exciting or funny turnarounds. There's also a timing element to triggering the items, which adds even more strategy. https://tetris.wiki/TGM_Versus_Mode_Guide https://tetris.wiki/TGM_Versus_Mode_Guide

Arcorann 2y ago

Have you looked at TGM4, which released on Steam last week? [0] I'd be interested to see your thoughts on it. Also would like to note that, at least for TGM1, 2 and 3, the PRNG used is a 32-bit LCG (the common C one, in fact). [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/3328480/TETRIS_THE_GRAND_MASTER_4_ABSOLUTE_EYE/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3328480/TETRIS_THE_GRAND_...

jchw 2y ago
I haven't had a chance to check it out. I definitely intend to. > Also would like to note that, at least for TGM1, 2 and 3, the PRNG used is a 32-bit LCG (the common C one, in fact). Oops. It seems I have manufactured some false memories.
PetitPrince 2y ago
As a long-time (since 2007) TGM player, my opinion on TGM4: - At launch there were some severe issues that denotes a rushed release and lack of QA. The most glaring of which being the inability to rebind keyboard controls (a patch is underway for this Friday). It's quite paradoxical since it's a game that was originally announced in 2009 (and has been cancelled 2 times; it's a whole saga that would be widely out of scope of this HN comment). In the other hand, it is a game that's technically rooted in 2009 (a DirectX 9 game that originally targeted a Windows-based arcade system like Sega Ringwide; TGM3 itself being released on Taito Type-X which is already a Windows machine masquerading as an arcade machine with arcade controllers bolted on). - On the other hand, the dev team has been super reactive and the lead producer/director/whatever is the appropriate title is in Japanese regularly communicate with the community. And we know first-hand that one of the main dev is also a legendary player (Jin8; the first player who obtained the Gm grade in TGM3, a feat that only 20 people or so in the world has replicated) that has the game in his heart. - Gameplay-wise, it is a much more accessible game, due to having to implement one part of the Tetris Guideline gameplay element (the lock delay behavior switched from Step Reset to Move Reset; the details and consequence of which I don't have time right now to explain). Detractor would say that it's another pollution by The Tetris Company, but I think this is a conscious choice and makes the game overall better (all of the ill effect of move reset being counterbalanced by the rest of the rotation system, and of course the insane speed). The overall difficulty is lower and hence more accessible, but some of the endgame challenges are devious (but that's through the incursion of gimmicks instead of simply the game system being what it is). It has not the austere elegance of TGM1, the rigorous beauty of TGM2 or the manic challenge of TGM3, but it has still all the heart of TGM in my opinion. - However I do find the meta-game lacking because of the removal of many of "grades" (in the older games, the game judge you and give you a grade to either your game or your account; think of it like martial arts belt). There are still acknowledgment of finishing a game ( "you are {this or that mode} Master!"), but this is very, very difficult (and very, very rewarding), but there's a lack of intermediate rewards for experienced but not expert players. Allegedly this is a TTC decision, and I find the game worse for it. - Overall it's still a solid game (and being in 2025 and this being not an arcade game, we can have patches and the dev seems willing and motivated to add fixes and new features in the future), and in my heart one of the best Tetris out there. Tetris Effect has a way better eye-candy (it is a Mizuguchi game after all), but if you're willing to play with "TGM" rules instead of Tetris Guideline rules, it's mechanically incredibly rewarding.

ambyra 2y ago

The rules make it so every new tetris release is just a boring clone. TGM has to fight for innovation, really sad. When I made my four player variant, https://duo.itch.io/reaktor https://duo.itch.io/reaktor I made sure to follow NONE of the guideline rules, and it ended up being a breath of fresh air for a lot of people. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1fdzcsc/how_i_published_this_without_getting_sued_by/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1fdzcsc/how_i_publ...

vanderZwan 2y ago
Tengent: how's the steam deck compatibility? Reaktor looks fun but it's the only game device I currently use (I'm keeping my laptop strictly game-free) EDIT: top steam review says the reviewer primarily plays the game on their Steam Deck, so I guess it's good
- ambyra 2y ago
  Lotta people playing on the deck. Hoping to port to switch one day. Local multiplayer would be awesome.

DadBase 2y ago

I still think the cleanest rotation system was when we mapped tetromino states to hardware interrupts. You’d get instant kicks, but if the stack got too high you’d risk a race condition that hard-locked the framebuffer. Not elegant, but very motivating for clean stacking.

pharrington 2y ago

Have you had a chance to play TGM4 yet to see if it wasn't forced to be too close to guideline Tetris?

bonestamp2 2y ago

Purists will probably disagree, but my favorite version of Tetris is the version for Oculus VR. Forget the 3D/VR part of it, which is fine but not what I like about it... the way it mixes music, colors, scenery, and pace to create an emotional reaction is simple yet brilliant.

wodenokoto 2y ago

I've never played GM Tetris, but have watched the exhibitions on Games Done Quick. It's my impression that Tetris 99 follows GM more closely than it follows NES.

zerocrates 2y ago
Tetris 99 was developed by Arika, the developers of the TGM games.
jchw 2y ago
Tetris 99 is very much official guideline Tetris. Arika, the developer of TGM, (and Tetris 99, as pointed out by an adjacent comment,) has done guideline Tetris before, and even implemented it as an option in TGM games in the past (and presumably in TGM 4 which I haven't played yet) and it is assumed this is because of the Tetris Company enforcing it. You could certainly never do a T-Spin Triple in ARS rotation. (Though whether it's closer to GM than NES is an interesting question. It's certainly neither since NES Tetris is quite far from what guideline Tetris would become.)