TETR.IO

TETR.IO
TETR.IO logo
Developer(s)	osk
Platform(s)	Web (Native) Windows, Linux, macOS
Release	INDEV Feburary 19, 2019 INFDEV January 31, 2020 Alpha March 22, 2020
Latest release	5.2.2 / December 22, 2020 Desktop v7 / December 25, 2020
Gameplay info
Next pieces	5 (default)
Playfield size	10 × 40 (22 visible rows)decaprated
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. decaprated

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. 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.

An illustration of the Tetra League mechanics.

Tetra League

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 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 1RD 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.

40 Lines

In 40 Lines, the objective is to clear 40 lines as fast as possible.

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.

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 protocall 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 1,028,722 points as scored by FireStorm.

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 Vince_HD, and can be hovered over on his Tetra Channel Userpage[[1]]. You may notice the timestamp being releatively recent. This is due to Vince 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 achiveing any other badge will not cause the appearence 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 Feburary, 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[2].

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 singlular 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 overal 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[3].

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[4]. 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[5], 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 arrises 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). Most, if not all, requests for 1v1's via Discord, Twitter, E-Mail, Github reports, 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 preperations 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[6] or BT[7] 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[8]. 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[[9]].

"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[10]. 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 Feburary, 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[11] 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[12].

As of December 5, 2020, there are 2124 former INFDEV testers with the badge. The technical first was, once again, user gebruikersnaam[13]. If you were looking for another account not created during INDEV, then you may be interested in user flash[14], 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[15], 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 anagram, meaning:

• Pioneer
• Of
• Our
• Place

as explained on the hover text bundled in with this badge. 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. They are the only user to have this badge, but it is not exclusive to them.

As of December 25th, 2020, only one player has this badge. It is most likely categorized as an "Other badge" on the badge list. The badge can be viewed on Archina's page[18].

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 four distinct tournament organizers with a grand total of 14 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" tournement, for instance.

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 abusealbe 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 achiving 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.

Development

TETR.IO began its life in the INDEV stage on the 19th of Feburary, 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.

External links

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