The New Tetris

The New Tetris
North American cover art
Developer(s)	Blue Planet Software H2O Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Nintendo of America
Platform(s)	Nintendo 64
Release	US: July 31, 1999 EU: October 15, 1999
Gameplay info
Next pieces	3
Playfield size	10 × 20
Hold piece	Yes
Hard drop	Yes (sonic drop)
Rotation system	Original with mild wall kick, SRS predecessor

The New Tetris is a game for the Nintendo 64 that was developed by H2O and published by Nintendo. Like Tetrisphere before it, The New Tetris features a soundtrack by Neil Voss.

Gameplay

The New Tetris introduces several new gameplay mechanics that will eventually become key components of the Tetris Guideline, such as multiple piece previews, hold piece, ghost piece, and wall kicks for pieces.

Top out condition is the same as in Atari's Tetris and the Push mode of Nintendo's Tetris DS, the game ends when at least one block is placed above the playfield's top row.

The New Tetris defines twists (known in the manual as "spin moves") differently from the T-spin rule used in Tetris games that use SRS. In this game, a twist occurs when a tetromino locks in a position such that it cannot move left, right, or up without rotating. This is known as immobile spin detection.

Details

• ARE: ca. 500 ms
• Randomizer: Preliminary data is consistent with a 63-piece bag.
• Entry position: rows 21-22, centered, JLSTZ rounded to the right
• Lock delay: ca. 500 ms, step reset, no manual lock
• DAS: ca. 10 frames, repeating 5 frames
• Up: Firm drop, not locking
• Down: Soft drop, not locking
• Top out: tetromino locks with a block in row 21

The New Tetris: Rotations in free space. Top row: I, O. Next rows: J, L, S, T, Z.

The rotation system of The New Tetris is a predecessor to SRS, with somewhat flexible wall kicks and floor kicks. Its handling of J, L, S, and Z in free space is more like Atari Games' arcade game and its unlicensed NES port than like BPS's previous games.

Wall kick tests

	Counter-clockwise	Clockwise
1	one space down	one space down
2	one space left	one space right
3	one space right	one space left
4	one space up	one space up

The wall kick system along with the basic rotations allows for twists not possible in most other games; see Tactical rotation for practical uses of the kicks.

Squares

Main article: Square Tetris

A 4x4 block square made out of four tetrominoes becomes a monolithic square of the same size.

• A square is entirely within the playfield.
• If things are projecting out of a 4x4 block region, it is not a square.
• If it has a hole in it, it is not a square.
• If it contains blocks that form part of a tetromino or square that was partially removed, it is not a square.

Monosquare

A 4x4 block square made out of four identical tetrominoes.

Multisquare

Any other 4x4 block square made out of four tetrominoes.

Details

If a tetromino forms two overlapping squares at once, the gold wins over silver, the top wins over the bottom, and the left wins over the right. It is not known whether the top-right wins over the bottom-left.

The following diagrams use The New Tetris colors, which are not the same as the later Guideline piece colors:

Drop O, L, I

Drop O, I

Drop another L

Prefers the square on the left to the square on the right

Two I, an O, and an L

Drop L

Slide in an O

Prefers the top square to the bottom square

Drop J, I, I

Another J and I

Drop another I

Prefers gold over silver

Drop L, L, O

Drop O and slide in L

Slide in L

Prefers gold over silver vertically

The playfield is stored as a matrix of 10 columns by 20 rows. Each entry has 4 bits for color, 1 bit for right connection, 1 bit for down connection, 1 bit for left connection, 1 bit for up connection, and 1 bit for being part of a tetromino that was broken by a line clear.

Before and after checking for line clears, the engine scans the playfield top to bottom, left to right, looking for monosquares and marking them as gold. Then it makes a second pass, looking for multisquares and marking them as silver. To see if there is a square in the 4x4 cell region whose lower left corner is column x of row y:

1. Make sure that the left edge isn't connected to anything. That is, make sure that the blocks at (x, y), (x, y + 1), (x, y + 2), and (x, y + 3) don't have their left connection bit set to true. Do the same for the other four edges.
2. Make sure that all cells in the region are filled with blocks.
3. Make sure that all blocks in the region belong to whole tetrominoes (not tetrominoes with a block broken off, and not pieces of squares that have already been marked).
4. In the first pass, make sure that all blocks in the region are the same type and color.

Side note: The author of The New Tetris claims that the game used a different, unspecified, secret algorithm to detect squares.

Scoring

• 1 point per line cleared
• 1 bonus point if four lines cleared simultaneously
• 5 points when a 1×4 strip of silver square is cleared
• 10 points when a 1×4 strip of gold square is cleared
• no instant reward for
  • completing a 4x4 square
  • spin moves (twists)

Tetrises with all four lines of a silver square is worth 25 points (4 + 1 + 5 * 4), and a Tetris with all four lines of a gold square is worth 45 points (4 + 1 + 10 * 4). The greatest possible reward for a single move is therefore 85, as in the following case:

The total of 85 is made up of:

• 4 from the four lines cleared
• 1 as four were cleared simultaneously
• 10 × 8 = 80 as eight 1×4 strips of gold are cleared

Game modes

The game modes are:

• Marathon - game continues indefinitely (or until only one player remains in multiplayer)
• Ultra - a race to 150 lines
• Sprint - a three minute countdown

Each mode can be single player or multiplayer. In multiplayer mode up to four players can compete, with the option of no garbage, directed garbage or hot potato garbage.

Garbage modes:

• None - garbage is disabled
• Directed - each player can choose the recipient of his or her garbage by using the left and right C buttons
• Hot potato_ - one player is outlined in red and receives all garbage. When this player completes a line the hot potato moves to a random player (which could be the same one)

In single player mode a computer-controlled opponent can be activated (which also forces garbage mode on), but even on the highest skill level it is not challenging to stronger players. The CPU opponent's name is randomly selected from a set in the ROM; "Nachanca" has been seen to exploit infinity to completely prevent topping out.

Codes

Enter the code in the name entry screen to activate the desired effect.

• 2FAST4U - Make your pieces fall faster.
• AI2EZ4U - The CPU's pieces will fall faster.
• 01DERS - Reset line totals and reset wonders.
• 1N175R4M - Reset high scores.
• Select the song "Haluci" in the audio options screen, then enter HALUCI as your name in One Player mode. Restarting the game is required to disable the code.

See also

• Square Tetris
• Tactical rotation
• Tetris Worlds

External links

• Programmer David Pridie hidden rant
• Manual
• The New Tetris on The Cutting Room Floor