TETR.IO

TETR.IO
TETR.IO logo
Developer(s)	osk
Platform(s)	Web (Native) Desktop: Windows, Linux, macOS
Release	INDEV February 19, 2019 INFDEV January 31, 2020 Alpha March 22, 2020
Latest release	6.0.2 / March 11th, 2021 Desktop v8 / March 7th, 2021
Gameplay info
Next pieces	5 (default)
Playfield size	10 × 40 (22 visible rows)
Hold piece	Yes (default)
Hard drop	Yes (default)
Rotation system	SRS, SRS-X, SRS+, ARS, NRS, ASC, Tetra-X, None

TETR.IO is a free-to-play online multiplayer and single player fan game developed by osk. Players can play against friends and foes all over the world and claim a spot on the leaderboards, found in the Tetra Channel.

Gameplay

TETR.IO offers multiplayer and solo play. There are currently four single-player modes and two multiplayer modes.

Multiplayer

In multiplayer, the player can play matches against other players. A player can choose to play in the game's Quick Play room where players can play a match with default settings. The Custom Play option allows for creation of custom rooms, with the ability to change settings for the room such as spin bonuses, player limit, the amount of next pieces shown, and others. The player can view public rooms in the Room Listing menu, if the host of the room created it as a public room. Each multiplayer game with 3 or more players plays similarly to Tetris 99 along with alike targeting options, minus the ability to manually target by default, included. A garbage/gravity margin time system is also in the game, in which the amount of garbage sent/gravity present on the active piece is multiplied more and more after a static period of time.

Mechanics

Combo System: "Multiplier"

An illustration of the combo table in use, as well as an explanation of the "B2B Chaining" mechanic. Yellow cells indicate the attack shown is strong enough to cause a "spike", red cells indicate that the garbage sent would be enough to cause a topout if garbage is not countered, and purple cells indicate an attack which is large enough to cause a "spike KO"

All multiplayer TETR.IO matches utilize a very different combo table than other Tetris games and clones. This system is known as the multiplier system in the community, and its purpose is pretty simple. It heavily nerfs the previously overpowered "four-wide" combo setup, and awards combos with Quad or T-Spin finishers with a large spike. This system cannot be disabled or altered in any way, and it is present in every online match including Quick Play, Tetra League, and Custom Rooms.

Back-to-Back Chaining

Back-to-Back Chaining was introduced in the 2.3.2 update released on the 24th of April, 2020 as an experimental feature which quickly became a popular quirk for many, and made its way into being a default mechanic the next update the day right after it was introduced.

To take advantage of this mechanic, one must preform several "difficult line clears", meaning Quads and T-Spins, without clearing singles, doubles, or triples inbetween each difficult line clear. This is known as a Back-to-Back, and they are rewarded in other Tetris games and clones by adding one line of garbage to an attack.

TETR.IO takes this idea one step further, and actually rewards the player according to how many Back-To-Back line clears one can clear in a row. After 3 Back-to-Backs, 2 lines of garbage will be added to each difficult line clear attack. Here are the important specifics to know, and, in fact, the only Back-to-Back levels that have sounds associated with them; after performing one difficult line clear, and thus beginning a Back-to-Back, one line of garbage will be added to every difficult line clear after. After clearing three difficult line clears, and visually having a "B2B x2" counter to the left side of the board, every difficult line clear after will have two extra lines of damage with their attack. After clearing seven difficult line clears, and visually having a "B2B x6" counter, every difficult line clear will send 3 extra lines of damage. And after clearing twenty-four difficult line clears in a row, and visually having a "B2B x23" counter, every difficult line clear gets 4 extra lines of garbage added to it.

This system can be disabled in a custom room by the room host, with the small ON/OFF toggle at the bottom of the game settings labeled "ENABLE BACK-TO-BACK CHAINING".

Garbage Travel Speed: "Passthrough"

As another big deviation from other clones and official games, this mechanic allows two players to send garbage to each other without negating the garbage sent if timed correctly. By default, a timer of 20 frames, or 333 milliseconds plus a variable amount of network lag, begins whenever any player sends garbage. During this timer, the garbage sent is untouchable, and any garbage sent from the player this garbage is going towards will pass through to the enemy targeted without interrupting the garbage coming their way. In this case, a special sound will play, and the garbage sent will land on the user targeted entering their garbage queue.

This mechanic can be altered at the request of a room host by modifying the "GARBAGE TRAVEL SPEED" variable under game settings. It can be raised to a maximum of 7200 frames, and lowered to a minimum of 1 frame, meaning you cannot disable the system entirely.

Tetra League

An illustration of the Tetra League mechanics.

Tetra League is the ranked mode in TETR.IO. As of its public release, players must be registered and their level must be at least level 10 to enter, and anonymous players cannot play this mode. When the mode was first released, INFDEV testers and supporters were only eligible for the mode. Each game of Tetra League is a 1v1 match, with a first-to-3, FT5, or FT7 format based on one of the players' rank. The rating system is called Tetra Rating, which is based on Glicko-2. TR increases for each win and decreases for each loss. When playing this mode for the first time, the player must play at least 10 ranked games to display their TR. The letter rank is based on the top percentage on the leaderboard. In order for the player to be shown on the leaderboards as well as their rank, their RD (short for rating deviation) must be below 100 as to comply with the GLIXARE. RD decreases every time the player plays a Tetra League game, and slowly increases at a flat rate of 1 RD per day after a week of inactivity.

Solo

The game also includes solo modes, two of which have leaderboards: 40 Lines and Blitz. For all modes except Zen, Stride Mode can be activated. This option speeds up the countdown by changing it from "3-2-1-Go" to "Ready-Set-Go", enables tap-to-retry (by default, players will have to hold the retry key to do so), reduces the time to exit a solo game by holding the forfeit key, and speeds up all animations at the start and end of games. 40 Lines and Blitz have an option called Pro Mode which shows the finesse counter. In 40 Lines, it also displays the number of lines remaining on the board and the key presses per minute on the left.

All solo modes have a scoring table similar to the ones seen in guideline games. It goes as follows:

Line Clear	Points Scored
Single	100
Double	200
Triple	500
Quad	800
T-Spin Single	800
T-Spin Double	1200
T-Spin Triple	1600
T-Spin Mini Single	200
T-Spin Mini Double	400
All Clear	3500
Back to Back "difficult" line clears	$x*1.5$ (where $x$ is the point value of the line clear)
Combos	$x*50$ (where $x$ is the combo)

All point values are multiplied by your current level, except for Zen mode, where no level multiplication occurs. If a change to the "Allowed Spins" option to "Allspin" or "Stupid Spin" takes place in a solo custom game, all spins will count for the same amount of points as T-Spins would, and I-Spin Quads would count for 2600 points.

In addition to this table, there are flat rates, which are not multiplied by level, for simply dropping a piece as well:

Action Taken	Points Scored
Hard Drop	2 per cell dropped
Soft Drop	1 per cell dropped

40 Lines

In 40 Lines, the objective is to clear 40 lines as fast as possible. In accordance to TETR.IO's delayless vision, no "stacking style" limits your speed thanks to the lack of ARE and the presence of "0ARR" handling settings.

Blitz

Blitz plays identically to Ultra, with the exception of a level system present similar to Marathon with a variable line goal before increasing the level:

Level	Lines required to level up(total lines cleared)
1	3(3)
2	5(8)
3	7(15)
4	9(24)
5	11(35)
6	13(48)
7	15(63)
8	17(80)
9	19(99)
10	21(120)
11	24(144)
12	26(170)

Higher is possible, but no one has achieved any level higher than 12 on the official top 1000 Blitz Leaderbaords. You can replicate this leveling scheme with the "leveling speed" option in custom solo games set to "0.42". This value was ripped straight out of a .ttr file of a Blitz replay. In it, it defines the level speed value and can be technically read with any conventional text editor, as the file itself is plain text JSON data.

Zen

Zen is an endless mode with no top out game overs and a special level system, inspired by the mode of the same name from the Bejeweled series, starting with Bejeweled 2. Gravity is adjustable by the player, and garbage is toggleable from a menu accessible after hovering over the right side of the window. It can also be played while waiting for the next match in Quick Play, Custom Rooms, or while waiting for your next opponent in the Tetra League queue.

Custom

The player can create their own solo mode with most of the settings carried over from the Custom Play room creation menu. By default, the Custom Room options are set to match those of the fixed-goal Marathon mode from Tetris games.

Badges

A quick summary of a couple notable badges as well as player counts for each described one. Posted on the Fifth of December, 2020 on the official @tetriogame Twitter account.

Badges are simple graphics placed on a specific and registered user's userpage or player card signifying that user's achievements. Up to four badges can be obtained with a brand new account without moderator or admin intervention at the moment, and up to nineteen badges that must be specifically added to your account by an admin for a total of twenty-four known badges as of December 24, 2020. Most badges are timestamped with the format: "Month/Day/Year, Hour/Minute/Second AM\PM" readable after hovering over the badge for a little bit, however in the rare case that a moderator adds a timestamped badge manually, the badgeholder will end up with a rare badge without a timestamp. Badges are ordered from left to right, and in some cases only found in the standalone tetra channel site, top to bottom from the date they were achieved. For example, if you were to get the Secret Grade badge before INFDEV ended, then got a 20TSD badge, your badges would be ordered "Secret Grade->INFDEV->20TSD". This ordering scheme ignores the lack of a timestamp, as demonstrated on user "animecake"'s profile.

"Obtainable Badges"

Ordered from the first badge to the last badge to be added to the game, here is a collection of all the badges any brand-new registered account can obtain without admin or moderator intervention.

Number 1

The badge awarded to any player who completes this challenge

This badge is automatically awarded to any player confirmed to have beat the current world record in either 40 Lines or Blitz, through a rather strict replay validation protocol involving every input being played back serverside alongside the exact RNG seed to ensure the run wasn't hacked.

• The current 40 Lines world record is 0:16.023 as ran by VinceHD_.
• The current Blitz record has 1,083,816 points as scored by Caboozled_Pie.

It's worth noting that the leaderboards were blank at the start of INFDEV, meaning quite a few #1 badgeholders got the TETR.IO world record with subpar times and scores, to put it bluntly. The leaderboards were also reset at the start of the Alpha phase on March 22, 2020, meaning theoretically; the first players to login, start, and finish a single Blitz run would get this badge as well.

This was the very first badge players could obtain without moderator or admin intervention. In fact, it was the only badge players could obtain from the very beginning, and it stayed that way until the Secret Grade badge came along.

As of December 5, 2020, 19 players possess this badge. The first player to obtain this badge was VinceHD_, and can be hovered over on his Tetra Channel Userpage[[3]]. You may notice the timestamp being relatively recent; This is due to VinceHD_ having remade his account on the 12th of September of this year.

Secret Grade

The badge awarded to any player who completes this challenge

An example of a completed Secret Grade. This image complies with the rules defined to the left, and as such would reward one with the badge, if the user in question does not already have it.

Confirmation of the badge which appears in the bottom right corner after topping out. It is unique to the Secret Grade badge, as achieving any other badge will not cause the appearance of such a confirmation.

This is the second badge players can obtain without the moderators or admins manually adding it, being added on the Ninth of February, 2020 alongside the 0.2.2 update. This is, by far, the easiest badge to obtain by yourself out when compared to the four other ones. To obtain it, one must build a Secret Grade pattern in any online or solo mode with the very notable exception of Zen mode. Solo custom games that are configured to have no gravity or line limit will be accepted for the badge, and are a rather popular way to complete the achievement. In particular, TETR.IO will check for three simple things when considering whether or not a completed Secret Grade is a Secret Grade:

1. That the pattern is a ">" shape and not a "<" shape. This is hinted at with the design of the badge itself "bouncing off the right wall" and continuing off to the left.
2. That the rows 1-19 are fully filled except for the defining diagonal holes in the pattern itself.
3. That the leftmost block located on row 20 is filled.

If the above requirements are satisfied, simply topout. In addition to taking the game over, running the clock out in timed objective modes, such as Blitz or solo custom games set up with the timed objective, will end the game and show the confirmation without a gameover meaning Blitz Secret Grade runs can be uploaded as a public replay. Theoretically, clearing the final line in a 40 Lines game with a row 21 "Clutch Clear" with a completed pattern should upload the replay as well, however, this is untested.

As of December 5, 2020, 2,075 players hold this badge. The very first player to have this badge is known as Omio9999, and can be viewed on their Tetra Channel Userpage[4].

10 All Clears

The badge awarded to any player who completes this challenge

The third of the "obtainable badges", this badge was added on the Second of June, 2020 alongside the 3.1.0 update. To achieve it, one must clear ten All clears in one singular 40 Line sprint. Due to the very high level of skill this badge demands out of anyone looking to obtain it, this is the second most rarest of the badges one can obtain without moderator or admin intervention, followed only by the Number 1 badge. Unlike Jstris's "PC Mode", players are allowed above the forth row without invalidating the run, allowing for possible DPC loop abuse if one is willing to both learn the loop and grind for "2 Line PCs". Due to the overall popularity of this badge, "Jstris PC mode world record holder and former Blitz world record holder" JimothyJimothy made a specialized site with a specific section on it titled "10 PC Guide". The only things the game checks for when validating a run is simple:

1. That it was a 40 Lines run.
2. That the replay was verified and submitted to online servers.
3. That the run was ended with more than or equal to 10 All Clears.

Note the lack of one pretty important requirement here: the run doesn't need to have an All Clear finish. If you can sneak one or two "2Line PCs" into your run, you can actually finish it with conventional 9-0 stacking as long as you have built up enough All Clears, meaning one single "2 Line PC" removes the need for one whole All Clear(the last one), or lets you buy some space with a "6 Line PC"

As of December 5, 2020, only 146 players taken the time and effort to get this badge. The first player to get this badge would be Caboozled_Pie. His Tetra Channel Userpage currently hosts the oldest "10 All Clears" badge[5].

KO'd Founder

The badge awarded to any player who completes this challenge

The exact date this badge was added is tough to nail down from the patchnote page alone as there is no release detailing a new secret aside from the previously covered badges. If the earliest instance's timestamp of this badge is to be believed, then this badge was added either with or after the 4.0.0 update released on June 22, 2020, and before or on the 25th of that month, as that is the oldest recorded instance of this badge[6]. This badge is quite self explanatory on how to achieve it. One must simply:

1. KO osk, who incidentally happens to be the founder of TETR.IO[7], in any online mode once.

A couple notes:

1. It does not matter if the KO is an "Indirect KO", "Direct KO", or a "Spike KO". As long as you get credit for the kill, you will get the badge as well.
2. If you happen to match up against osk in the Tetra League, you only need to take one round in your favor, not the entire set.
3. osk themselves cannot obtain the badge by topping themself out by mashing the hard drop key right as a game begins. In such cases where a user tops-out without anyone sending them a single line of garbage, the "killer" is internally defined as "null". Therefore, if osk were to top themselves out, the system would attempt to award user "null" with the badge, and not user "osk".

The first challenge arises with catching osk online in the first place, as they usually stick to the dev servers/private testing with personal friends to test TETR.IO features out when they aren't developing TETR.IO in the first place. osk can usually be found in Quick Play after planned server maintenance for a few rounds. Supposedly, osk can be found in the many various, popular Twitch channels streaming TETR.IO at the moment watching and chatting along, and if the streamer runs a public custom room, then osk may pop in for a few rounds. If one is dedicated enough to keep an eye on the Tetra Channel's Tetra News section or smart enough to hack together a sort of "push notification" with the Tetra Channel API's "All Latest News" call, then they might overhear the notification of someone else getting the badge, creating a sort of "warning" that signifes osk activity. If the preliminary checks in public areas fail to find them, they may be online in the Tetra League, leaving for a possible "matchmaking snipe" if you are around osk's current "Tetra Rating" range, which is around rank S- as of writing(the 26th of December, 2020). Most, if not all, requests for 1v1's via Discord, Twitter, E-Mail, GitHub reports, Twitter, and messages through ingame chat are ignored.

Getting into a lobby with osk is half the battle. You must still KO them to get the badge. In the event that osk is in a 3+ player "Battle Royale" you might attempt to play the "targeting meta", meaning you mouse over every board to find osk's player board, then make the delicate decision between the four targeting modes. In the rare occasion that the host has the "Allow Manual Targeting" option set to "ON", simply click on osk's board to make them your manual target. After these preparations are complete, one might play the waiting game, keeping a close eye on osk's board with a prepared spike at the ready in the event that automatic targeting lands on osk's board. One might want to study a few "spike openers" openers such as the DT[8] or BT[9] cannons as a simple "Perfect Clear Opener" might not leave enough attack left over to counter garbage from other irrelevant players, and still have attack left over to hit osk with. One could ignore all this theorywork and simply play as normal, not worrying about the meta as it slows down their actual TETR.IO play with useless calculations.

As of December 5, 2020, 245 players have given osk a loss at least once since this badge has existed. The very first recorded occurrence of this badge lays on user swomp's player card. You can also view it on her Tetra Channel Userpage[10]. Several notable exemptions have been made to the above process of obtaining the badge. During the "closed testing" period of The Tetra League, where access was limited to supporters and users with the INFDEV badge, players perserved image proof of them KO'ing osk before this badge existed. Thanks to the images being relatively verifiable,(Nobody was really faking screenshots of them winning against osk in the TL back then. All images were posted months beforehand in unedited posts on the TETR.IO Discord server) a total of two notable cases of a moderator giving a player this badge manually, and both players hold a timestamp-less badge.

20 T-Spin Doubles

The badge awarded to any player who completes this challenge

The last of the "Solo badges" to have come out so far, this one was a semi-response to recent and persistent calls for a "20TSD" mode similar to the one found in Jstris. This badge was added on the Twnety-Eighth of September, 2020 with the announcement of a 5.0.0 update. Very quickly afterwards, someone guessed the exact URL used for the 20TSD badge graphic due to how popular the request was at the time. The objective of this badge is very direct. Here's what'll get you a 20TSD badge:

1. The mode played in must be 40 Lines.
2. The replay must be verified and submitted to online servers.
3. That the replay must end with 20 T-Spin Doubles and nothing else, meaning: if you clear 20 T-Spin doubles and a single T-Spin single/single line clear you won't get the badge.

Many players simply "cheese" this challenge with a setup known as a Mechanical T-Spin setup, which is a T-Spin setup with a 100% chance of getting you a T-Spin Double every 7-bag if you have a bit of opener luck. If you go this route, be warned that one cannot simply repeat the pattern to the top. You must "break" the pattern with two to four T-Spins remaining(many have luck with 3 T-Spin Doubles remaining, meaning the line counter reads "34/40"). Other popular methods include "LST Stacking" and plainly winging it and going full "freestyle" all the way to the top.

As of December 5, 2020, 449 players have spun their way to this badge. The first of those 449 would be RZA. You can view the oldest badge of this variant on their Tetra Channel Userpage.

"Exclusive Badges"

As with all the "obtainable badges", these "exclusive badges" follow most of the same rules as far as obtainable badges follow in terms of how they are layed out in a userpage or player card. from left to right, and in some cases, top to bottom. For the most part, these are standard badges that are notable for the fact that an administrator or moderator must add the badge manually from the admin panel.

Miscellaneous

A lot of these badges are simply given out based on the badgeholder's account age, though there are a few exceptions.

Founder

The badge exclusively given to osk

An image of osk in the quick play player list. They have a solid color tag similarly colored and designed as the Founder badge in place of a regular Verified checkmark.

In addition to the special graphics shown on the player list, osk also has an "admin green" playername, as well as the optional ability to make special "admin announcements" with that same shade of green.

This badge has existed since the beginning of TETR.IO, and is presumably the very first badge to exist. It signifies a simple fact: the badgeholder created the game you are looking at.

As of December 5, 2020, only 1 person has founded TETR.IO. Their name is osk, and you can view the badge on their userpage[11]. Interestingly enough, the INDEV and INFDEV badges are missing from osk's userpage+player card.

INDEV

The badge given to INDEV testers.

The INDEV development phase likely began on the 19th of February, 2019 and ran til the start of the INFDEV phase on January 31st, 2020. During it, close friends would test TETR.IO privately while osk geared up for a more public release. It's highly likely this badge also existed before anyone had the Number 1 badge, however these badges lack a timestamp to confirm this assumption with.

As of December 5, 2020, there are 7 INDEV badgeholders. Even though this badge was added to every INDEV tester at the same time, user gebruikersnaam[12] was likely the technical first due to his User ID.

INFDEV

The badge given to INFDEV testers.

Similar to the INDEV badge, this badge was given out to every account registered from the start of INFDEV at January 31st, 2020 to the end of INFDEV, and the enabling of fully public account creation, at March 22nd, 2020.

This is also the very first badge that gave the badgeholders special access to something non-INFDEV players couldn't access without paying for the supporter "role" on osk's patreon. Specifically, before the Tetra League was public for all to access, it was limited to players with the INFDEV badge and supporters.. It would stay this way for two weeks, until the League was made available to the general public

The INFDEV "logo" as seen on osk's blog post announcing the INFDEV development phase

Another interesting fact stems from the blog post that started off this development phase. In it, there was already an INFDEV "logo" long before the badge was released, and even before players knew they were getting a badge in the first place. This logo would eventually be polished and end up the finished badge graphic. Going off some speculation, assuming we are to get an Alpha badge, we may already know the design of this badge from the Alpha blog post's "logo". Going even further off track, one can even assume the "phase colors" of the Beta and Release phases(being green and red accordingly), from this chart osk posted on the TETR.IO Discord server long before the alpha logo was announced[13].

As of December 5, 2020, there are 2124 former INFDEV testers with the badge. The technical first was, once again, user gebruikersnaam[14]. If you were looking for another account not created during INDEV, then you may be interested in user flash[15], as they were the technical first non INDEV tester to have the badge.

P.O.O.P.

The badge given to user "animecake" exclusively.

The P.O.O.P. badge is an example of an inside joke left at its logical end. A simple search for "poop badge" on the TETR.IO Discord shows first public reference coming from moderator alcazar#0078 demanding a "POOP BADGE" for AmijoKaegger#8277 with a ping towards osk#9999 on the 14th of June, 2020. One day later, AmijoKaegger#8277, also known as animecake, would make the announcement that the poop badge had indeed arrived, then would follow up a day later with picture evidence of the badge in question, confirming its existence on the 16th of June, 2020 as the badge lacks a timestamp. The badge is actually an acronym, meaning:

• Pioneer
• Of
• Our
• Place

It was given to animecake for being the "first ever player on TETR.IO", as explained with hover text.

Only one person has obtained this badge, and its probably defined as an "Other badge" on the badge sheet. It is exclusive to user animecake[16].

Huge Supporter

The badge given to huge supporters.

This badge began its existence sometime before the 4th of December, 2020, however was confirmed to have existed after user Zudo#0800 made a public request for ingame user Archina's information with Hiyajo Maho#2356's ">tetr" command on the TETR.IO Discord server. Zudo was a supporter at the time, so a rolling theory explains that osk may have tipped off supporters in the exclusive #supporter-lounge leading up to the very moment that command was utilized. None-the-less, it was given to user Archina[17] for an undefined amount of donations. Archina was a supporter at the time, and is included in the special thanks of TETR.IO.

Arisa Ichigaya marks the second known huge supporter, as they have the badge alongside Archina. This badge, unlike Archina's, came with a local news announcement, proving it came into existence on the 30th of December, 2020. The badge itself still lacks a timestamp, however.

As of December 25th, 2020, only two players have this badge. It is most likely categorized as an "Other badge" on the badge list. The badge can be viewed on Archina's userpage[18] or Arisa Ichigaya's userpage[19].

Early Supporter

The badge given to early supporters.

The Early Supporter badge was automatically awarded to every registered user who had subscribed to osk's Patreon page, regardless of amount donated, before the 6.0.0 update on the 31st of January. This badge exists due to the platform switch osk underwent, swapping Patreon out for an ingame system backed by the oskVault, which, in turn, is powered by Xsolla as of writing. Ingame rewards also recieved a price cut, so this badge adds a little bit more value to the prices supporters were paying before this switch. Specifically, the "Deca tier" costed 10 Euros a month, but now, the ingame rewards only cost 5 Pounds a month. (or 4 Pounds a month if you end up buying in bulk, or gifting to another user)

As of February 1st, 2021, 351 users hold this badge. It is likely user gebruikersnaam was the technical first, and the badge can be viewed on his userpage[20].

Competition Badges

This section will go into detail regarding TETR.IO's many officially partnered third party tournaments, which contain badges for the top three placements as well as an additional badge for the winner of certain Twitch chat participation campaigns when applicable. As of writing, TETR.IO has partnered with five distinct tournament organizers with a grand total of 17 separate badges. Many of these tournaments ran, and continue to run, several tournaments, meaning several people hold badges for placing first in an "Underdogs Cup" tournament, for instance.

Garbo Gamble Cup

From left to right, the badges awarded for placing #2nd, #1st, #3rd, and the badge for the winning Gambler of the Garbo Gamble Cup.

The "Garbo Gamble Cup" was the very first partnered TETR.IO tourney, and with it, brought four exclusive badges for the top three players to emerge from the tourney, as well as an extra badge for the Twitch user to win the "Gambling Competition". It was announced on the 2nd of June, 2020 and took place on the 7th later that month. The tourney featured 132 players and took place over nearly five hours. The replay of the Tournement can be viewed on garbocan_'s Twitch channel, split up into two parts[21][22]. The first part is spent largely fixing technical issues with the Twitch bot GGC staff utilized. The first match can be viewed nearly twenty-two minutes in[23].

The actual games would take place in 2 player custom rooms, with default settings. The selected format was a simple "First to 7 points wins the set.", and every player is allowed to lose up to two sets before being eliminated entirely. This is a well known format known as double elemination and is the norm for most, if not all, TETR.IO tourneys.

Over the course of the tournament, a free betting game was played by players in Twitch chat. Every user in Twitch chat would start with 1000 "chips" free of charge, then, when a two player 1v1 match would begin, players would "bet" their chips on who would win for either a payout or a loss depending on who actually ends up winning. Their bet chips are multiplied by a variable factor decided by how many chips are bet on the opposing player- the "odds" of a player winning- if the bet happens to be correct, and is then added directly to that user's chip balance. If the bet is incorrect and the other player ends up with a victory, the player who bet simply loses their bet chips. In the event that a player ends up "bankrupt", that is, they bet every chip and end up with a flat value of zero chips, a "Welfare Check" worth 100 chips is payed out to the bankrupt user, allowing them to continue making bets from the brink of financial crisis.

There was only one Garbo Gamble Cup hosted, and the stream lacks any indication towards a second one. As such, only four badges for this tourney exist, and of those four, one has been destroyed. The top three, and the gambling champion, would receive badges as well as prize money, as shown below:

An image of the announcement garbo made in the fourwi.de Discord server above an archived photo of caboozledpie's player card at the time.

1. ajanba: 619.93$ in cash, as well as the First Place badge for that tourney. Later on, ajanba would delete his account, thus destroying the GGC #1 badge. However, the badge graphic is still hosted on TETR.IO[24].
2. rideris: 247.90$ in cash, as well as the Second Place badge for that tourney. It can be viewed on their userpage[25].
3. qmk: 123.98$ in cash, as well as the Third Place badge for that tourney. The badge can be viewed on their userpage[26].

• realkokon: 175$ in cash(down from the technical 247.90$ he should have won. realkokon declined the full sum and let garbo keep 72.90$) and the Gambling Champion badge. You can view the badge on his userpage[27]

Notably, realkokon had biological ties to another TETR.IO player who had actually competed in the Garbo Gamble Cup, but had been eliminated long before the tourney ended. Specifically, realkokon is user "Caboozled_Pie"'s father, and realkokon passed down the badge to his son, named caboozledpie ingame at the time, for a short period of time after the tourney had ended. Seemingly days later, realkokon made an ingame account named "kokon" and the badge was transferred over, due to the small issue with a competitor having a badge he didn't exactly deserve.

WPL Tetr.io Open

From left to right, the badges awarded for placing #2nd, #1st, #3rd, in the World Puzzle League.

Despite actually predating the Garbo Gamble Cup, being established on the 12th of April, 2020, the WPL Tetr.io Open wouldn't receive special badges for the top three placements until their 5th TETR.IO tourney announced on the 8th of June, 2020, and hosted on the 13th of that same month. A recap of the final set played on that tourney is available from the official World Puzzle League YouTube channel[28].

All matches were played in custom 1v1 rooms with most of the stock settings, aside from "Gravity Margin Time" beginning far later, specifically changing that value to 7200 from 3600, and having it affect gravity much more, specifically changing that value to 0.0035 instead of 0.0025. This was "done to mirror Tetra League settings.". The tournament was largely played with the "First To 7" goal, however for the Winners Semifinals, Losers Quarterfinals, and any match played these two it would be a "First To 11" match. This tourney would also be played in a "Double Elimination" format, and features 174 contestants in total. Of those 174, here are the top three:

1. ajanba: First Place. Once again, ajanba would go on to delete his account after obtaining this badge, thus destroying the badge in the process. However, since the WPL is a reoccurring tournament, there are plenty of more people with the WPL #1 badge.
2. qmk: Second Place[29].
3. KABUTOMUSIAAAAA/gamaover, otherwise known as Kazu: Third Place[30].

It is interesting to note that the two badges linked to above do in fact contain timestamps. This is notable due to the fact that many other "tournament badges" lack timestamps. Even First Place badges from this same organization lack them!

On the 3rd of June, 2020, the 6th WPL TETR.IO tourney would be played. A recap of the grand finals can be viewed from the official WPL YouTube channel[31]. It too, would have the same settings as its predecessor played last month. 154 players would compete; the top three are listed below:

1. FireStorm: First Place[32].
2. qmk: Second Place[33]. As a repeat second place win, qmk would keep their 2nd place badge from the last tourney, as proven by the timestamp included.
3. puyodialgao7, otherwise known as Diao: Third Place. This account was also deleted for whatever reason some time after this match was played.

Later that month, on the 18th, the 7th WPL Open would be played. It features the same ruleset as the 5th and 6th WPL's played just weeks before. Like the others, you can view a recap of this tourney's grand finals on the WPL YouTube channel[34]. Only 126 players would show up this time, and from those 126, there would be three victors:

1. FireStorm: First Place[35]. A repeat, so there's no new badge here
2. cz0402: Second Place[36].
3. qmk: Third Place[37]. qmk placed lower than 2nd this time around, so new badge here either

Later, on the 15th of August, 2020, the 8th WPL for TETR.IO would take place. At a glance, this tournament copies the ruleset of the previously defined tourneys, however it includes a direction to turn off the "Scale Garbage Travel Speed" option. At the time, osk was running a test with differing garbage speeds. Later on, osk would remove the feature. Back on track, you can view this tourney's grand finals on the WPL YouTube[38]. This tourney would have 147 contestants fighting for glory, and quite possibly, money. Of those 147, these three would win:

1. ningcha, once again credited as Diao: First Place. This is the second account credited as being "Diao" in the results annoucements that has been deleted.
2. cz0402: Second Place[39]. This would be the second time cz obtained second place, and as such it is a duplicate badge that wasn't awarded.
3. FireStorm: Third Place[40]. FireStorm already had the first place badge, so they didn't replace it with a badge of a lower tier here.

A little later, on the 19th of September, 2020, the 9th WPL would be hosted. You know the deal now, same settings as last time, and as usual there's a video recap of the grand finals from the WPL YouTube channel[41]. Out of 150 players in this tourney, here are the three most important ones:

1. majimedewanai, once again credited as Diao: First place. Yet again, Diao would go on to delete this account, like many others, trashing the special badge with it.
2. qmk: Second Place[42]. A repeat of the first time qmk got 2nd place many months ago. Their badge is still timestamped from that tourney
3. ZeroT: Third Place[43].

Finally, on the 23rd of October, 2020, the 10th, for now at least, the last WPL was hosted. It features one neat addition to the rulebook, imposing a "First To 11 and Win By 2" on the Winners Semifinals and Losers Quarterfinals and on every other match played after. Another recap of the grand finals was uploaded to the WPL YouTube channel[44]. Out of 164 total players, here are your top three:

1. cz0402: First Place[45]. This "upgrades" his Second Place badge into a First Place one.
2. FireStorm: Second Place[46]. As he already had the First Place badge, no new badge was given out here either.
3. PekoDialga0, otherwise known as Diao: Third Place. As said before, account PekoDialga0 doesn't quite exist anymore, as the account was deleted.

Hard Drop Open XII

From left to right, the badges awarded for placing #2nd, #1st, #3rd, in the Hard Drop Open XII.

This tourney was the twelfth in the long running "Hard Drop Open" series of tournements which started in July 19th, 2009 as a tournement hosted on the Blockbox fangame. On June the Ninth, 2020, the "Hard Drop Open XII" event would be announced via Twitter. It would be another double elimination tourney hosted on the 20th later that month, featuring entirely default settings and a First To 7 format during the earlier rounds, and a First To 10 format during, and after, the Round 5 upper bracket and Round 7 lower bracket. If you're interested in viewing a recap of the tourney hosted live on Twitch, you can obtain such a thing from Hard Drop's official Twitch channel[47]. A total of 256 players would attend this event. Of them, here are the top three who earned special badges for accomplishing such a feat:

1. Calcu1ation: First Place[48].
2. FireStorm: Second Place[49].
3. qmk: Third Place[50].

This tournement would also feature a "Special Event", which ended up being a "Super Lobby", such as the ones previously hosted by the same organization on Tetris 99. It was entirely open to the public watching the stream, as the room itself was actually "private" ingame with the direct link and room ID being shared through Twitch chat. 168 players would join the room, but due to server constraints and no optimised system in place for such huge rooms, 42 people would disconnect before the game even started leaving 126 players to battle it out. Of them, jason0107 would win the room alongside a cash prize of 100$. There was a badge graphic created for winning this room and it was touted as a possible reward for winning on the Hard Drop Discord server, but it was never added to jason0107's TETR.IO profile due to an oversight from either Blink, the founder of Hard Drop, or osk, the guy in charge of adding the badge in the first place. A replay of this special lobby can be found on the same VOD as the tourney itself, six hours and twenty-five minutes in[51].

Rotation System

180 Kicks

A diagram of TETR.IO's 180 kicks, as posted, and pinned, by osk on the official TETR.IO discord server in the "#tetrio" channel.

Starting with 0.6.0-pre0, TETR.IO made its first non-guideline modification to the kick table, adding a custom 180 kick table. This table is relatively resilient to abusable spins, however there is plenty of room for handy L and J tucks with this system.

In a situation shown to the left, limited to guideline clockwise and counterclockwise spins, the only "clean" downstack would be building up a wall on the left side of the field and spinning a Z in.

Like so:

However, if you have a 180 key bound and a L tetromino in the playfield, simply soft drop,

and 180!

SRS-X

TETR.IO also includes a separate kick table known as "SRS-X" that can only be enabled at the request of a room host or a solo custom player as it is not the default kick table. SRS-X is known for its "more powerful 180 spins" such as the ones seen in NullpoMino or Heboris. Aside from that, it is standard SRS with no modifications.

SRS+

A very simple graphic detailing TETR.IO's SRS+'s symetric attributes, as posted, and pinned, by osk on the official TETR.IO discord server in the "#tetrio" channel.

As of version 5.0.0, TETR.IO uses a modified version of SRS as the default option, in which the I wall kicks are symmetrical along the y-axis, similarly to TGM3; however, the left-side kick tables are mirrored instead of the right side. This allows certain situations that are impossible in regular SRS to be made effectively.

As in Guideline SRS, the shown placement can be achieved by rotating clockwise.

In the symmetric position, this can now be achieved by rotating clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Tetra Channel

The ingame Tetra Channel contains leaderboards for 40 Lines and Blitz with replays, as well as personal bests and their replays in either Blitz or 40 Lines, personal Tetra League replays, and your last ten submitted solo replays in the "ME" section. The Players screen lists the top players sorted by their league rating or by the total amount of experience points (XP) accumulated throughout the game. Unfortunately, due to technical limits, all of these leaderboards are capped at the hundredth player/replay.

In addition to the features above, it also shows players who are currently streaming with the TETR.IO category on Twitch. The Tetra News section displays achievements done by players, such as reaching the top ten in either solo mode with a leaderboard, or winning one of TETR.IO's many partnered tourneys. There is also a simple "search bar" at the top of the Tetra Channel, where you can input specific replay IDs or URLs to access them, as well as access specific player cards with an exact player name.

Standalone Tetra Channel

After the 5.0.0 update, a standalone Tetra Channel site was released. This site would accomplish most of the same things the ingame Tetra Channel would do, with the added benefit of more detailed userpages, extended leaderboards, free access to anyone without an anonymous or registered account, and more detailed server statistics. Specifically, solo leaderboards would be extended from the top 100 to the top 1000, the Tetra League player leaderboards would be extended to every ranked player, and the XP leaderboards would be extended to every player above level 100. Furthermore, both "player leaderboards" could now be filtered by specific countries as well.

A similar "search bar" to the one found in the ingame Tetra Channel is present in all pages on this site as well. This search bar will only accept exact usernames, and when utilized, takes the user to the requested userpage. A userpage is far more detailed than their ingame player card counterpart, and includes highly detailed information about a given user's 40 Lines and Blitz personal bests, as well as links to their top ten replays in both solo modes, and their last ten most recent submitted replays. Additionally, Tetra League statistics and the last ten Tetra Leage replays can be found here, coupled with simple Zen mode counters signifying what score and level a user has in that mode.

An extended "Tetra News" section would be included with this site as well. Normally, from the front page, the Tetra News section mirrors that of the Tetra News from the ingame Tetra Channel. However, below all of the "global news" lies a button labeled "VIEW ALL". This link will take you to a dedicated Tetra News section of the site, where a news ticket is created whenever any registered user gets a new personal best, ranks up to a "personal best rank", meaning this is the first time they've ever been in that given rank; and achieving any of TETR.IO's many badges. This page will only fetch the last 100 news events, and updates on its own whenever new news events occer. These news events are known as "Local News", and show up on the newsholder's userpage long after they expire from this global local news section.

Reception

You can always fetch a list of various extremely up-to-date stats from the TETRA CHANNEL's main page, including, but not limited to: the exact amount of registered players split up into three categories, global time spent playing TETR.IO across all games, how many of those games have been played and completed, and miscellaneous stats such as pieces placed and how many keypresses that took.

On the 3rd of November, 2020, TETR.IO reached the milestone of half a million players. This milestone was celebrated with a "triple XP week" which, as the name sort of implies, tripled the XP players gained for the time the celebration ran.

TETR.IO hit a total of one million players registered on the 9th of February, 2021. This milestone was celebrated by, once again, temporarily multiplying the XP amounts players gained for the week of the celebration. This time, XP would be quintupled for the first day, then tripled for the rest of the week.

Professional Concerns

Seemingly, many Tetris professionals hold a low opinion on TETR.IO's Multiplier and Passthrough mechanics. Many claim the overtuned combo chart leads to RNG-like "multiplier downstack spikes", which can be tough to counter since there's a big chance you won't counter at all, due to Passthrough. Passthrough can also lead to opener stalemates, where both players place their openers in sync with one another; leaving both players in very unfavorable positions. These issues can create very short games; games that test one very simple skill to learn: 7 bag openers and how to finesse them in the quickest way possible.

Development

TETR.IO began its life in the INDEV stage on the 19th of February, 2019. This phase would have extremely closed testing, limited to only osk and their personal friends. Less than a year later, TETR.IO would enter the INFDEV stage on January 31, 2020, when access to the game was opened for testers on a per request basis. During the Infdev release, players were required to represent their IP address to osk via Discord DMs or E-Mails in order to test this version. A month and a half later, the game entered the public Alpha stage on March 22, 2020. This time, all players are free to create/log in to their accounts and play the game.

On May 22, 2020, a desktop client of TETR.IO was released. Aside from being able to open the game without a web browser, this also allows users to play single-player modes offline.

Trivia

A quick graphic detailing all of the level tags availabe in TETR.IO.

• A player's "level badge" evolves into different shapes and colors every ten levels, starting from level 1. Furthermore, levels supposedly cap at level 5000, however, as no TETR.IO player has reached this level, this fact remains a myth.
• There are a total of at least two administrators and seven moderators serving the TETR.IO public. Sorted alphabetically: kagari and osk are the two admins, and alcazar, flash, gebruikersnaam, kagariiiii, Matthew, nook, and thugginator are moderators.
• If the "First To" value is higher than 2 in any given multiplayer Battle Royale with less than eight players, the scoreboard at the top of the screen will match the colors of the seven Tetrominos, displaying each player and their current amount of wins.

External links

• Official website
• Desktop client download page
• Issue tracker
• Release log