Scoring
Most games award points to the player for completing various tasks. The earliest games awarded points only for dropping tetrominoes, and some even gave a penalty for leaving piece preview turned on.
After Tetris for Game Boy, most games adopted a scoring system designed to reward difficult clears by giving points for more lines cleared at once. Some systems also encouraged starting at higher difficulty.
Original Nintendo scoring system
This score was used in Nintendo's versions of Tetris for NES, for Game Boy, and for Super NES, as well as in Bullet Proof Software's versions beginning with the Famicom version.
| Level | Points for 1 line |
Points for 2 lines |
Points for 3 lines |
Points for 4 lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 40 | 100 | 300 | 1200 |
| 1 | 80 | 200 | 600 | 2400 |
| 2 | 120 | 300 | 900 | 3600 |
| ... | ||||
| 9 | 400 | 1000 | 3000 | 12000 |
| n | 40 * (n + 1) | 100 * (n + 1) | 300 * (n + 1) | 1200 * (n + 1) |
For each piece, the game also awards the number of points equal to the number of grid spaces that the player has continuously soft dropped the piece. Unlike the points for lines, this does not increase per level.
List of games
The following is a list of games that use this system, along with notes and differences:
- Tetris (BPS): Points are only totalled up after each level. Since the game only has hard drop, the score per piece is the number of rows covered by the hard drop (?). There is no multiplier involved.
- Tetris (NES, Nintendo): Awards points for soft dropping based only on the last press that leads to a lock; any earlier soft drops are not counted.
- Tetris (Game Boy): Awards points for soft dropping based only on the last press that leads to a lock; any earlier soft drops are not counted.
- Tetris 2 + Bombliss: Awards 0-5 points if piece is soft dropped based on the amount of time the soft drop button is pressed. Tetrises from level 55 onwards are affected by integer overflow and as a result score much less (e.g. lv. 55 Tetris scores 66000-65536 = 464 points).
- Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss
- Tetris & Dr. Mario
- Super Tetris 3:
- Tetris X: Does not score dropping pieces.
- Tetris DX: Awards points while pieces are being soft dropped. Level multiplier stops increasing after level 20.
- SuperLite 1500 Series: The Tetris: Does not score dropping pieces. Awards a fixed 1,000,000 point bonus for a perfect clear.
- Tetris (Wonderswan Color): Base score assigned to level 1. Does not score dropping pieces. Awards a fixed 1,000,000 point bonus for a perfect clear.
- DTET:
The New Tetris
The New Tetris awards "lines": one for each line cleared, one extra line for clearing four lines with one I tetromino, and several lines for clearing parts of a 4x4 square. This does not increase as the game gets faster. Soft and firm drops do not give points; instead, they allow the player to place more tetrominoes (and clear more lines) in the three minute game.
Tetris Worlds
Each mode of Tetris Worlds has its own scoring system. As in The New Tetris, the unit of score in each mode is "lines"; 2-, 3-, and 4-line clears grant additional points in some modes.
Tetris Deluxe
Tetris Deluxe scoring system is similar to Tetris Worlds.
Tetris DS
Each mode of Tetris DS has its own scoring system. Most notably, the system used in Standard mode represents a fusion of the 1, 3, 5, 8 pattern used in several modes of Tetris Worlds with the section multiplier of the NES and Game Boy system.
Recent guideline compatible games
Most games released after Tetris DS share large part of scoring system.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Single | 100 x level |
| Double | 300 x level |
| Triple | 500 x level |
| Tetris | 800 x level; difficult |
| T-Spin no lines (kick) | 100 x level (3-corner T) 0 (3-corner T no kick) |
| T-Spin no lines (no kick) | 400 x level |
| T-Spin Single (kick) | 200 x level; difficult (3-corner T) 100 x level, counted as Single (3-corner T no kick) |
| T-Spin Single (no kick) | 800 x level; difficult |
| T-Spin Double (kick) | 1200 x level; difficult (3-corner T) 300 x level, counted as Double (3-corner T no kick) |
| T-Spin Double (no kick) | 1200 x level; difficult |
| T-Spin Triple | 1600 x level; difficult (3-corner T) 500 x level, counted as Triple (all 3-corner T no kick games and Tetris Zone) |
| Back to Back difficult line clears | *3/2 (for example, back to back tetris: 1200 x level) |
| Combo | 50 x combo count x level (Only available in some games released after Tetris Zone) |
| Soft drop | 1 point per cell |
| Hard drop | 2 points per cell |