Tetris Super 12

[Adabella Frierdich]

SRShas super wallkicks. Unlike most rotation systems with super kicks, these wall kicks are relatively modest. When the player attempts to rotate a tetromino, but the position it would normally occupy after basic rotation is obstructed, (either by the wall or floor of the playfield, or by the stack), the game will attempt to "kick" the tetromino into an alternative position nearby. Some points to note:

The logic behind Arika's modifications is that the I wall kicks are now symmetric about the y-axis when rotating from or to a horizontal orientation. One noticeable consequence of this is illustrated in the following example:

Instead of directly assigning a set of ( x, y) kick translations to each of the 8 possible rotations, TTC actually employed a different approach, and instead assigned a set of ( x, y) "offset" values to the 4 rotation states. The kick translations are then derived by taking the difference between pairs of offset data. When rotating from A to B, subtracting B's values from A's will give the kick translation for the rotation one way; and subtracting A's values from B's will give the kick translation for rotating back the other way.

There is another complexity to TTC's implementation: the derived translations are relative to a different datum. So far on this page, kick translations have been defined relative to "basic rotation", but TTC uses what forum user nightmareci has named "true rotation". "True rotation" is still a mathematical pure rotation with no translation involved; however, the rotation center always coincides with the center of one of the four constituent minos. (Recall that the apparent rotation center of the I and O tetrominoes in basic rotation coincided with the intersection of gridlines). This means that for "true rotation", the rotation center for the O piece is not at the geometric center, so the piece will have a "wobble" when rotated. The first kick translation has to be used to correct for this wobble.

This Tetris port is unusual because the game is designed to end by becoming too fast to play, after a certain number of lines are cleared. Score must be accumulated through efficient play, rather than pure endurance, before the game ends. These circumstances have led to its use as an esports game. Although the highest game speed was intended to be unplayably difficult, it was shown to be manageable with novel controller grips developed in the 2020s.

This version of Tetris has two modes of play: A-Type and B-Type. In A-Type play, the goal is to achieve the highest score. As lines are cleared, the level advances and increases the speed of the falling blocks. In B-Type play, the board starts with randomized obstacle blocks at the bottom of the field, and the goal is to clear 25 lines. The level remains constant, and players choose the height of the obstacle beforehand.[2]

During play, the tetrominoes are chosen randomly. This leaves the possibility of extended periods with no long bar pieces, which are essential because Tetrises are worth more than clearing the equivalent amount of lines in singles, doubles, or triples. The next piece to fall is shown in a preview window next to the playfield. In a side panel, the game tracks how many of each tetromino has appeared in the game so far.[2]

In A-Type, the level advances for every 10 lines cleared. Each successive level increases the points scored by line clears and changes the colors of the game pieces.[2] All levels from 1 to 10 increase the game speed. After level 10, the game speed only increases on levels 13, 16, 19, and 29,[a] at which point the speed no longer increases. On level 29, pieces fall at 1 grid cell every frame, which is too fast for almost all players, and it is thus called the "kill screen".[3] The developers of the game never intended anyone to play past the kill screen, as the game does not properly display the level numbers past 29,[4] but with modern speed techniques, skilled players can play past level 29.[5][3]

When starting a game, players can select a starting level from 0 to 9, but if the A button is held on the controller when selecting a level, 10 additional levels are added, raising the starting options to 0 to 19.[2] When starting on a later level, the level is not supposed to advance until as many lines have been cleared as it would have taken to advance from level 0 to the starting level.[2] Due to a bug, the levels will begin advancing earlier than intended when starting on level 10 or higher.[6]

At the end of an A-Type game, a substantial score yields an animated ending of a rocket launch in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral. The size of the rocket depends on the score, ranging from a bottle rocket to the Buran spaceplane. In the best ending, a UFO appears on the launch pad and the cathedral lifts off.[6] After a high-level B-Type game, various Nintendo characters perform in front of the cathedral.[6][8]

The definition of "beating the game" has changed over time with the development of novel controller methods designed for high-level play. After clearing around 1550 lines, the game is at risk of crashing due to inefficient multiplication operations.[6] Crashing the game in this way is popularly considered "beating the game", a feat first achieved on 21 December 2023 by 13-year-old Willis Gibson, known by his online alias "Blue Scuti".[9][10][11]

This scoring convention makes scoring Tetrises much more efficient than scoring an equivalent amount of lines through smaller line clears. At level 0, a Tetris awards 300 points per line cleared, a triple awards 100 points per line cleared, a double awards 50 points per line cleared, and a single awards 40 points per line cleared. For example, a single in level 0 is worth 40 points and a Tetris worth 1,200 points. A single in level 9 is worth 400 points and a Tetris worth 12,000 points, and a single in level 29 is worth 1,200 points (same as a Tetris on level 0) and a Tetris on level 29 is worth 36,000 points.

One of the most limiting factors in NES Tetris is the speed at which a tetromino can be moved left and right. On the NTSC version, when a movement key is pressed, the piece will instantly move one grid cell, stop for 16 frames due to delayed auto-shift, before moving again once every 6 frames, or 10 times per second.[12][13] At higher levels, waiting for this delay is not feasible because the pieces fall too fast.

A technique known as "hypertapping" is used to circumvent this delay. When hypertapping, horizontal tetromino speed is maximized by rapidly tapping the D-pad more than 10 times per second.[14] The technique involves flexing the bicep until it tremors, so that the high-speed tremor taps the thumb on the D-pad.[5] Thor Aackerlund was the first hypertapper,[5] but the technique was very rare until it was popularized by Joseph Saelee in 2018.[15] Jacob Sweet of The New Yorker described hypertapping as "turning [the] thumb into a jackhammer."[5]

Aackerlund, a hypertapper, first demonstrated that level 29 could be beaten in 2011; he is shown reaching level 30 in the documentary film Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters.[5] From level 30, the game's level counter stops working correctly, further suggesting that the developers did not believe level 29 could be surpassed.[3][4][19] Level 31 was first reached in 2018 by 15-year-old hypertapper Joseph Saelee who eventually cleared four more consecutive levels until level 35,[20] and by 2020 hypertappers had gone as far as level 38.[21] Kyle Orland of Ars Technica explains that because of the rolling technique introduced by Martinez in 2020, "players were getting good enough to effectively play indefinitely on the same 'Level 29' speed that had been considered an effective kill screen just a few years earlier."[21] By 2022, the highest level reached was 95.[15]

The final matchup in the Classic Tetris World Championship in 2022 resulted in competitors Eric Tolt and Justin Yu both reaching two million points in a game and levels 73 and 69, respectively. To prevent extremely prolonged games, the CTWC has modified their competition cartridges in 2023 to include a "super killscreen" at level 39, where pieces reach the bottom of the well in only a sixth of a second - two blocks per frame.[22][23][third-party source needed]

An integer overflow bug is first encountered at level 138, where color palettes would be loaded from unrelated areas of memory, creating unusual and unintended game piece colors. In particular, levels 146 and 148, nicknamed "dusk" and "charcoal" by players, feature black game pieces that are extremely difficult to see against the black background, hindering further progression. Additionally, the score-counting code could crash the game after about 1550 lines are cleared, corresponding to level 155.[6]

In December 2023, 13-year-old roller Willis Gibson from Stillwater, Oklahoma, was the first to complete the "charcoal" level 148.[25] He continued playing and reached a game crash on level 157, with a score of 6.85 million points.[citation needed] Because Tetris had been considered unwinnable (due to games necessarily ending with "topping out"), Gibson is credited with being the first person to "beat the game" since its release in 1989.[26][27][28] In a statement, Tetris Company CEO Maya Rogers congratulated Gibson for his "feat that defies all preconceived limits" of Tetris.[29] Cofounders Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers met Gibson in January 2024, calling his playthrough an "amazing, amazing achievement."[30]

If it is possible to avoid the conditions which crash Tetris, completing level 255 would overflow the level counter back to level 0.[31] Before this level can be reached, players must contend with another bug first encountered at 2190 lines, where an integer underflow causes the level counter to erroneously not increment. The next level is only reached after clearing an additional 810 lines.[6]

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