Top out

From TetrisWiki
Revision as of 11:50, 18 September 2018 by Arcorann (talk | contribs) (→‎Loss condition: ref: http://tasvideos.org/4536S.html#Losing)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A top out occurs when:

  • a tetromino cannot be place at least partially within the play zone.
  • garbage pieces are sent, pushing the top pieces above the spawn zone.

Top outs result in a game over.

Loss condition

There are several variations of what constitutes a top out:

  • Block out: a piece is spawned overlapping at least one block in the playfield
  • Lock out: a piece locks when it is entirely out of bounds (that is, in the vanish zone above the ceiling)
  • Partial lock out: a piece locks when it is partially out of bounds, even if it would clear a line
  • Garbage out: After lines are cleared and garbage is added, a block remains out of bounds

Different games have used different combinations of these conditions:

This list is incomplete.

The 2009 purported leak of the Tetris Guideline defines a variant of garbage out, "top out", as the situation when garbage forces the top of the stack past the top of the 20-line buffer zone above the playfield.