Grade Recognition System

Grade Recognition System (GRS) is the system used for determining the awarded grade for a performance in the TGM series.

Tetris The Grand Master

In TGM, grades 9–S9 are entirely determined by score. A grades is awarded to the player when they reach the score threshold of the grade. The final grade, GM, has special requirements that must also be met as well as score.

Grade conditions

Grade	Required score	Grade	Required score
9	0	S1	16,000
8	400	S2	22,000
7	800	S3	30,000
6	1,400	S4	40,000
5	2,000	S5	52,000
4	3,500	S6	66,000
3	5,500	S7	82,000
2	8,000	S8	100,000
1	12,000	S9	120,000

GM requirements

When the player attains the GM grade, the credits will roll behind the playfield, and the player can continue to play until the end or they top out. Play during the credit roll does not affect the final ranking.

GM grade conditions

Level	Required score	Time
300	12,000 (Grade 1)	≤ 04:15:00
500	40,000 (Grade S4)	≤ 07:30:00
999	126,000 (slightly higher than S9)	≤ 13:30:00

The Absolute Plus

Internal Grade System

Internal Grade	Displayed Grade	Decay Rate	Line clear base value:
			Single	Double	Triple	Tetris
0	9	125	10	20	40	50
1	8	80	10	20	30	40
2	7	80	10	20	30	40
3	6	50	10	15	30	40
4	5	45	10	15	20	40
5	4	45	5	15	20	30
6	4	45	5	10	20	30
7	3	40	5	10	15	30
8	3	40	5	10	15	30
9	2	40	5	10	15	30
10	2	40	2	12	13	30
11	2	40	2	12	13	30
12	1	30	2	12	13	30
13	1	30	2	12	13	30
14	1	30	2	12	13	30
15	S1	20	2	12	13	30
16	S1	20	2	12	13	30
17	S1	20	2	12	13	30
18	S2	20	2	12	13	30
19	S3	20	2	12	13	30
20	S4	15	2	12	13	30
21	S4	15	2	12	13	30
22	S4	15	2	12	13	30
23	S5	15	2	12	13	30
24	S5	15	2	12	13	30
25	S6	15	2	12	13	30
26	S6	15	2	12	13	30
27	S7	15	2	12	13	30
28	S7	15	2	12	13	30
29	S8	15	2	12	13	30
30	S8	10	2	12	13	30
31	S9	10	2	12	13	30

The Absolute and The Absolute Plus introduces a new system for calculating a player's grade. Unlike TGM, the score is not used to determine the grade.

Internal points

This new system uses a set of internal grades, which correlate to a displayed grade. Multiple internal grades can correspond to the same displayed grade. For example, internal grades 20 through 22 could be thought of as S4-, S4, and S4+, but TAP does not display these differently. Although it is possible to continue increasing the internal grade beyond 31, the displayed grade will stop at S9. Internal grades use a points system that increase every time the player clears a line. When this counter reaches 100, it is reset, and the player increases one internal grade.

Decay

Fighting against the player is a decay rate, which decrements the internal points by one each period. As the player increases internal grades, the decay rate increases, increasing the difficulty of reaching higher grades.

Points will continually drain away, potentially back to zero. The decay rate is dependent on the player's current internal grade and is shown on the table below in frames/1 point. The timer that controls this decay rate will reset every time the internal grade increases, and will count up for every frame of gameplay that the player has more than 0 points, has control of a tetromino, and doesn't have an active combo multiplier (so if a combo starts with a single, the decay will not be stalled until the player makes at least a double).

Points formula

The number of points awarded is dependent on 4 variables:

• Number of lines cleared: A Tetris line clear is worth more than a triple line clear and so on.
• Internal grade: A higher internal grade means less points per line clears.
• Combo multiplier: The line clear's position in a combo. Just like the CO medal, clearing 2 or more rows will increase the combo, while singles will merely maintain the current position.
• Level: The player's level after the line clear.

The following formula determines the points awarded by a particular line clear. The "ceil" indicates that when the Combo Multiplier is applied to the Base Value, the game rounds the multiplication up.

${\text{Awarded Internal Points}}=\left\lceil {\text{Base Value}}\times {\text{Combo Multiplier}}\right\rceil \times {\text{Level Multiplier}}$

Depending on the number of rows cleared and the current size of the combo, a different combo multiplier is applied in the formula.

Combo Multiplier

Combo Size	Multiplier for:
	Single	Double	Triple	Tetris
1	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
2	1.2	1.4	1.5	1.0
3	1.2	1.5	1.8	1.0
4	1.4	1.6	2.0	1.0
5	1.4	1.7	2.2	1.0
6	1.4	1.8	2.3	1.0
7	1.4	1.9	2.4	1.0
8	1.5	2.0	2.5	1.0
9	1.5	2.1	2.6	1.0
10	2.0	2.5	3.0	1.0

Finally, depending on the level after the clear, one of four level multipliers is applied to the awarded grade points. This equals $1+\left\lfloor level/250\right\rfloor$, or equivalently a value from the following lookup table:

Level Multiplier

Level	Multiplier
000-249	1
250-499	2
500-749	3
750-999	4

E.g., At level 555, Grade 1, clearing 2 doubles in a combo, the first and second doubles respectively will be worth:

$\left\lceil 12\times 1.0\right\rceil \times (1+\left\lfloor 555/250\right\rfloor )=12\times 3=36$

$\left\lceil 12\times 1.4\right\rceil \times (1+\left\lfloor 558/250\right\rfloor )=17\times 3=51$

This system rewards non-singles in steadily increasing speeds.

• Immediately following a grade increase, the grade points are at 0. There is therefore nothing to lose from building the stack higher, until you clear a line.
• From level 750-999, a Tetris will always increase the internal grade. E.g., $\left\lceil 30\times 1.0\right\rceil \times (1+\left\lfloor 750/250\right\rfloor )=30\times 4=120$
• The level multiplier is significant. When the player enter section 700 and the music changes, it is a good idea to stack high in order to clear more lines after level 750. Combined with the previous observation, 2 Tetrises will get the player 2 internal grades instead of only 1, doubling the rate of progress.
• Combos aside, even though 2 singles are worth much less than a double, and 4 triples are less than 3 Tetrises, 3 doubles are actually worth more than 2 triples.

Credit roll

When a player finishes the game with 999 levels, the end credits roll behind the playfield, similarly to TGM. One of two credit roll types are possible, the Fading Roll, and the M-Roll. The Fading Roll is a semi-invisible roll, where pieces fade out from the stack 4 seconds after being added. Clearing the fading roll will award the player an Orange line ranking, in which an orange line appears under the ranking on the leaderboard screen. These rankings are ranked higher than the regular green line rankings.

The M-Roll is an invisible challenge, as soon as a piece locks it becomes invisible. If the player unlocks the M-Roll and does not clear it, they are awarded the M grade. If the M-Roll is cleared with less than 32 lines cleared, a Green line GM is awarded. Finally, if the M-Roll is cleared with 32 or more lines cleared, an Orange line GM is awarded, the highest possible ranking.

If the M-Roll isn't unlocked, Orange line is awarded for simply clearing the credit roll.

The Absolute Plus

The conditions for the M-Roll are the following:

M-Roll Conditions

Level	Time	Tetrises	Grade
000-999	≤ 525 seconds (≤ 08:45:00)		S9
000-100	≤ 65 seconds (≤ 01:05.00)	≥ 2
100-200	≤ 65 seconds (≤ 01:05.00)	≥ 2
200-300	≤ 65 seconds (≤ 01:05.00)	≥ 2
300-400	≤ 65 seconds (≤ 01:05.00)	≥ 2
400-500	≤ 65 seconds (≤ 01:05.00)	≥ 2
500-600	≤ 2 seconds slower than the average of the first 5 section times (rounded down)	≥ 1
600-700	≤ 2 seconds slower than section 500-600	≥ 1
700-800	≤ 2 seconds slower than section 600-700	≥ 1
800-900	≤ 2 seconds slower than section 700-800	≥ 1
900-999	≤ 2 seconds slower than section 800-900

The Absolute

In the non-Plus version of TGM2, the M grade is awarded as soon as the M-Roll begins, and survival results in the GM grade.

The conditions for the M-Roll are currently believed to include at least the following:

M-Roll Conditions

Level	Time	Tetrises	Grade
000-500	≤ 360 seconds (≤ 06:00:00)
000-999	≤ 570 seconds (≤ 09:30:00)		S9
000-100	≤ 90 seconds (≤ 01:30:00)	≥ 1
100-200		≥ 1
200-300		≥ 1
300-400		≥ 1
400-500		≥ 1
500-600	≤ average of the first 5 section times (rounded down)	≥ 1
600-700	≤ average of the first 5 section times (rounded down)	≥ 1
700-800	≤ average of the first 5 section times (rounded down)	≥ 1
800-900	≤ average of the first 5 section times (rounded down)	≥ 1
900-999	≤ 45 seconds (≤ 00:45:00)