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 BPS scoring system
This system was used in the 1988 BPS versions of Tetris, including the Famicom version. This was also used in Super Tetris 3's Standard mode.
| Line clear | Points |
|---|---|
| 1 (single) | 40 |
| 2 (double) | 100 |
| 3 (triple) | 300 |
| 4 (tetris) | 1200 |
If the piece was hard dropped, an amount equal to the number of rows covered by the hard drop plus 1 is added. Otherwise, no score for dropping is added.
Points are only totalled up either after the stage is cleared or if a life is lost.
Original Sega scoring system
This system was used in Tetris (Sega), as well as Flash Point, Bloxeed and Tetris S.
| Level | Points for 1 line |
Points for 2 lines |
Points for 3 lines |
Points for 4 lines |
Points for soft dropping pieces |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0-1 | 100 | 400 | 900 | 2000 | 1 per line |
| 2-3 | 200 | 800 | 1800 | 4000 | 2 per line |
| 4-5 | 300 | 1200 | 2700 | 6000 | 3 per line |
| 6-7 | 400 | 1600 | 3600 | 8000 | 4 per line |
| 8+ | 500 | 2000 | 4500 | 10000 | 5 per line |
If a line clear is also a Perfect Clear, a 10x multiplier is applied to the awarded points.
Original Nintendo scoring system
This system is a version of the BPS system with a level multiplier incorporated. It 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 Tetris 2 + Bombliss, though with minor variations in the score for soft drops.
| 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 (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 (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. Soft dropping points are buggy due to a miscoded BCD addition. Level multiplier is based on the level after the line clear, not before (as in other games in this list).
- 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 (research pending)
- Tetris & Dr. Mario: Level multiplier is based on the level after the line clear, not before. Multiplier stops increasing after level 9 (hence capped at 10).
- Super Tetris 3: Awards 0-6 points if piece is soft dropped. Standard mode is scored as in BPS Tetris. See the game article for details on Magicaliss scoring.
- Tetris X: Does not score dropping pieces.
- Tetris 64: Has no level multiplier. Does not score dropping pieces.
- Tetris DX: Awards points while pieces are being soft dropped. Level multiplier stops increasing after level 20 (hence capped at 21).
- SuperLite 1500 Series: The Tetris: Does not score dropping pieces. Awards a fixed 1,000,000 point bonus for a perfect clear.
- Tetris Worlds: Popular mode (GBA version) only. Base score assigned to level 1, thus level multiplier is (level) not (level + 1). Awards points for soft dropping based only on the last press that leads to a lock; any earlier soft drops are not counted. Hard drops are scored the same as soft drops.
- 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.
- Minna no Soft Series: Tetris Advance: 1.5× multiplier for back-to-back Tetrises.
- Tetris Kiwamemichi: Level multiplier is based on the level after the line clear, not before. More research pending.
Many fangames use this system as well. The following are some notable examples:
- DTET: Has a combo multiplier of 1 + 0.5*(length of combo - 1) that applies to the whole combo; as a result, line clear scores are only awarded at the end of a combo. Scores for dropping pieces increase by level (research pending).
- N-Blox: Base score assigned to level 1. Drop points are based solely on the distance the piece falls regardless of whether it was manually dropped or not.
Tetris 4D uses a version of the system with all point values doubled.
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 parts of their scoring system. The following system is accurate for games that use 3-corner T-Spin and pointing side T-Spin Mini rules (such as Tetris Friends). Level is always considered to be the level before the line clear.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Single | 100 × level |
| Double | 300 × level |
| Triple | 500 × level |
| Tetris | 800 × level; difficult |
| T-Spin Mini no lines | 100 × level |
| T-Spin no lines | 400 × level |
| T-Spin Mini Single | 200 × level; difficult |
| T-Spin Single | 800 × level; difficult |
| T-Spin Mini Double (if present) | 400 × level; difficult |
| T-Spin Double | 1200 × level; difficult |
| T-Spin Triple | 1600 × level; difficult |
| Back-to-Back difficult line clears | *3/2 (for example, back to back tetris: 1200 × level) |
| Combo | 50 × combo count × level |
| Soft drop | 1 per cell |
| Hard drop | 2 per cell |
Only a Single, Double, or Triple line clear can break a Back-to-Back chain, T-Spin with no lines will not break the chain.
Often games do not have combo scoring or may calculate it differently. Some games may also award the player bonus points for a perfect clear.