Note that if there are others like me who have never set foot into game dev and are curious, there is the CS50G Introduction to Game Development at [1].
If your browser supports your controller, you can set it up under Config > Controls. You'll need to bind the buttons yourself by setting it to Custom, though. Sorry!
I've also been playing this game for about 4 years and I'm nowhere near that level, but the progression you're able to make by learning new techniques is still very rewarding.
Really nice implementation of Tetris. Tried multiplayer, got screwed in 20 seconds. The music should probably be something along the lines of norwegian death metal to set the tone for that massacre.
Yeah... I played a few rounds and after getting my butt kicked incredibly fast, (side note: I love Tetris and am the household champion in comp. games), I thought there was something fishy going on.
Yep, bots galore. A simple Google search turned up an open source bot on github[1], meaning there are probably better bots hidden within the community.
Ugh. So many online games today are ruined by cheaters.
Haven’t tried multiplayer yet but there are definitely bots on the solo play leaderboard. The fastest time for getting 40 lines in blitz mode is 15 seconds. It’s not humanly possible.
There's no WASM, it's mostly vanilla JS, together with the PixiJS library, which does 2d WebGL rendering. It has in-house libraries for text rendering, particle systems and the such. It's not super strong, but as long as you understand the limitations of the browser and try to adapt to the client's machine, you can get a very decent experience in. I hope this game sparks a bit of a trend of trying to make more genuine gaming experiences in the browser.
The community has written a great wiki page about the game for those looking for more details without looking around inside the game: https://tetris.wiki/TETR.IO
OMG, this brings back memories. I miss Quinn so much on OS X. With its lovely community I spend endless hours over the years with this addicitive game (play). As cool as Tetr.io is, out of the box it does not compare to the smoothness of the Quinn experience. But maybe there are more tweaks to the game options to come closer to Quinn.
But I will never know as I cannot allow myself to be drawn back into that black hole of Tetris addiction.
Hooray! I built the Quinn website[0] and user/high score/game tracker back in the day when I was learning PHP. The archive of that site is pretty great! Even has my own player page[1].
I found and played Quinn and really wanted to play with others so I reached out to the developer to ask whether there was a community of players anywhere and that led us to a conversation about building the site and system. It was great fun.
I was playing Quinn a bit a few years ago. Someone brought it up and I found it. It definitely did not run as great as I remembered. Now I don't even think it would run at all...
> TETR.IO is a modern yet familiar online stacker. Play against friends and foes all over the world, or claim a spot on the leaderboards - the stacker future is yours!
Quite OT: how do people get adsense (or other advertisers) on apps/games like these? I have a few apps that I would love to try an monetize but whenever I apply for adsense I get rejected for "lack of content".
Don't use adsense for web games. Take this advice from someone who had to deal with them. You're just one sniff away from Google's algorithm locking down your account and impacting your earnings.
Short answer: you don't, Google doesn't like them. If you have a huge amount of players, you may be able to get in contact. TETR.IO uses AdinPlay, which does use the same Google network, but without being immediately thrown out of the network
How do they avoid the lawyer cats? I'd heard that the Tetris company was very...zealous with protecting their IP, including anything that looked too similar to Tetris.
Add the name that is intentionally similar to "Tetris" and I don't think they have snowball chance in hell to win if they decide to go after them.
The gameplay itself and the rules are not copyrighteable, but "look and feel" is.
From wikipedia:
"Wolfson discussed which aspects of Tetris were copyrightable as expressive elements, and which aspects are part of the general idea that cannot be protected by copyright. According to Wolfson, copyright cannot protect the idea of vertically falling blocks, or a player rotating those blocks to form lines and earn points, or a player losing the game if those blocks accumulate at the top of the screen. However, Wolfson determined that several aspects of Tetris qualify as unique expression that is protected by copyright. This includes the twenty-by-ten square game board, the display of randomized junk blocks at the start of the game, the display of a block's "shadow" where it will land, and the display of the next piece to fall. Wolfson also granted protection to the blocks changing in color when they land, and the game board filling up when the game is over."
Yeah I was wondering the same thing, looking at this it seems they have been pretty active at it, even removing a Tetris android wallpaper application.
The Tetris Company doesn't have any rights to the game, as Tetris isn't patented. They tend to claim they have "trade dress" rights, but the elements they claim as such in the Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive[1] case aren't actually protectable.
They're all either technical elements of the game (like the movement of the pieces, or the shape of the board), or visual elements of the game that do not have any recognizability (as in, if you removed them, people will still recognize it as Tetris, like the colors of the pieces). In the end, the only thing that makes people recognize Tetris as such, is the shape of the pieces, potentially the fact they fall down. Those are all technical elements, so they can't fall under trade dress.
Trade dress is meant to protect things like the design of Coca-Cola bottles (curvy bottle, red label, white text), where said design language is very meaningful (you recognize the Coca-Cola section from far away just by the design), non-technical (any other bottle would work equally well, the product stays the exact same), and confusing if copied (if you picked one up but it turned out to be Pepsi, you would be well confused). Trade dress is not meant to act as a stand-in for a patent.
Sadly, DMCA is very anti-developer in this regard. A small developer who relies on a publisher (like Steam, or the App Store) to publish and monetize their game, can have their game taken down in minutes with a (fraudulent!) DMCA claim, with no real way to appeal. If you do try to appeal, like in said Xio case, you won't actually have any money to deal with the following court case (which TTC will happily stretch as far as possible to bleed you dry), since while you are under DMCA claim, you have no audience, and no way to monetize. Due to that, you will have to pretty much withdraw from the case, which is what happened in this case. Had there been enough pushback from Xio Interactive in this case (which, would cost them a LOT of money), they could have won. It's a very skewed system.
To prevent this, TETR.IO is self-published (not on Steam, etc.) and has many pillars it stands on. This makes it nigh-impossible to take down with a simple DMCA request. To take down TETR.IO, you would need to start a court case. And then, the developer can keep their game up in the meantime, as then, the game is innocent until proven guilty, instead.
The Tetris Company has not sent any legal message to TETR.IO, and I personally doubt they ever will. It's important to remember that if TTC loses such a case, they would go out of business. The only business TTC has is selling their (snakeoil) Tetris License. Such a license would become nearly worthless if it was proven the trade dress isn't real.
So, they would probably rather just keep an eye on me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd rather sell a license to me, as that would be far, far less risky for them, unlike sending an email to Steam.
Reminds me of the original version of blockles [1] on i'minlikewithyou (later OMGPOP) [2]. That was one of my favorite games back in the day. From reading the Wikipedia article, it looks like they were a YC company too.
This is highly subjective, but I spectated a few games and the amount of shaking that is happening seems excessive to me. Maybe the kids are impressed by all the shaking going on, but I find it hard to focus when the thing I'm focusing on keeps jumping around.
On a related note, I think screenshakes are extremely overused in indie games. It's so cheap to add that it cheapens the games.
- Threw a grenade? Boom. screenshake.
- Shot a bullet? Boom. screenshake.
- Picked up an item? Boom. screenshake.
- Let out a big sigh? screenshake.
- Physically shook your display? Double screenshake.
- Rolled your eyes at all the screenshakes? There's a screenshake for that too
In StarCraft, the screen didn't shake even if you dropped a nuke on someone else's base. I guess the good folks at Blizzard at the time didn't watch that one GDC talk, "Juice It or Lose It", so they had to come up with a different way to make a good game.
I have nothing to contribute except "this is exceptionally well done" so I'll just add the TGM invisible Tetris video I watch occasionally to boggle at:
This is cool! I'm guessing inspired by Tetris 99 available on Nintendo Switch.
Thank you for having an anonymous mode!
edit: After playing and watching a bit it's very obvious that if you want to win you'll have to use a bot. A quick google search turns up a a couple pre-made bots you can download and start running yourself. It's fun to see bot vs bot in the multi-player quick play.
[+] [-] BossingAround|4 years ago|reply
Note that if there are others like me who have never set foot into game dev and are curious, there is the CS50G Introduction to Game Development at [1].
[1] https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-to-game-develo...
[+] [-] nope96|4 years ago|reply
This is the coolest web game I've ever seen. So fast and smooth even on my ancient laptop.
I didn't know you could do this in a browser. Now I want to see a Subspace remake to complete my 90's nostalgia trip.
[+] [-] osk______|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdsa|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makach|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] y4k4r1|4 years ago|reply
If you're interested to learn more there's a couple sites that teach advanced techniques ( https://four.lol and https://harddrop.com ).
I've also been playing this game for about 4 years and I'm nowhere near that level, but the progression you're able to make by learning new techniques is still very rewarding.
[+] [-] kokon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inDigiNeous|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strikelaserclaw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdfjkl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nevster|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmh0000|4 years ago|reply
Yep, bots galore. A simple Google search turned up an open source bot on github[1], meaning there are probably better bots hidden within the community.
Ugh. So many online games today are ruined by cheaters.
[1] https://github.com/misterhat/tetrio-bot
[+] [-] zuudo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pimlottc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gudetamwa|4 years ago|reply
it’s insane how good you can get in so little time tbh
[+] [-] hsiang_jih_kueh|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skillissue|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hwers|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] osk______|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yakshaving_jgt|4 years ago|reply
Obvious example: https://acko.net/
[+] [-] simonlc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] simonlc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] splittingTimes|4 years ago|reply
But I will never know as I cannot allow myself to be drawn back into that black hole of Tetris addiction.
[+] [-] cdubzzz|4 years ago|reply
I found and played Quinn and really wanted to play with others so I reached out to the developer to ask whether there was a community of players anywhere and that led us to a conversation about building the site and system. It was great fun.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20121217095902/http://www.simonh...
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20090326045241/http://www.simonh...
[+] [-] simonlc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonlc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eXpl0it3r|4 years ago|reply
From: https://tetr.io/about/
[+] [-] ehsankia|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tallianar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Matheus28|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] osk______|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zuudo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shp0ngle|4 years ago|reply
And there is a precedent - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_Holding,_LLC_v._Xio_Int.... - Tetris sued a developer of iOS game, and they apparently have precedent about "look and feel".
Add the name that is intentionally similar to "Tetris" and I don't think they have snowball chance in hell to win if they decide to go after them.
The gameplay itself and the rules are not copyrighteable, but "look and feel" is.
From wikipedia:
"Wolfson discussed which aspects of Tetris were copyrightable as expressive elements, and which aspects are part of the general idea that cannot be protected by copyright. According to Wolfson, copyright cannot protect the idea of vertically falling blocks, or a player rotating those blocks to form lines and earn points, or a player losing the game if those blocks accumulate at the top of the screen. However, Wolfson determined that several aspects of Tetris qualify as unique expression that is protected by copyright. This includes the twenty-by-ten square game board, the display of randomized junk blocks at the start of the game, the display of a block's "shadow" where it will land, and the display of the next piece to fall. Wolfson also granted protection to the blocks changing in color when they land, and the game board filling up when the game is over."
[+] [-] inDigiNeous|4 years ago|reply
Probably because Tetr.io is non-commercial ?
* https://www.reddit.com/r/Tetris/comments/ka43wx/tetra_online...
* https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/1vzwe8/got_a_dm...
* https://harddrop.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8135
[+] [-] osk______|4 years ago|reply
To prevent this, TETR.IO is self-published (not on Steam, etc.) and has many pillars it stands on. This makes it nigh-impossible to take down with a simple DMCA request. To take down TETR.IO, you would need to start a court case. And then, the developer can keep their game up in the meantime, as then, the game is innocent until proven guilty, instead. The Tetris Company has not sent any legal message to TETR.IO, and I personally doubt they ever will. It's important to remember that if TTC loses such a case, they would go out of business. The only business TTC has is selling their (snakeoil) Tetris License. Such a license would become nearly worthless if it was proven the trade dress isn't real. So, they would probably rather just keep an eye on me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd rather sell a license to me, as that would be far, far less risky for them, unlike sending an email to Steam.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_Holding,_LLC_v._Xio_Int....
[+] [-] tylercubell|4 years ago|reply
[1]: https://youtu.be/-JziMvyIyKI?t=24
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMGPop
[+] [-] optymizer|4 years ago|reply
On a related note, I think screenshakes are extremely overused in indie games. It's so cheap to add that it cheapens the games.
In StarCraft, the screen didn't shake even if you dropped a nuke on someone else's base. I guess the good folks at Blizzard at the time didn't watch that one GDC talk, "Juice It or Lose It", so they had to come up with a different way to make a good game.[+] [-] exikyut|4 years ago|reply
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lE_UHhqAd1c
(Yup, still feels so much longer than ~6 minutes. Crazy...)
[+] [-] lillecarl|4 years ago|reply
Browser: Brave Browser 96.1.33.106 OS/Kernel: Linux hostname 5.10.88 #1-NixOS SMP Wed Dec 22 08:31:00 UTC 2021 x86_64 GNU/Linux CPU/iGPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz
Neither of these are particularly weird specs for using the web.
[+] [-] nickstinemates|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bullen|4 years ago|reply
It's more like a simple version of Puyo Puyo or Puzzle Fighter.
[+] [-] bartread|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flanbiscuit|4 years ago|reply
Thank you for having an anonymous mode!
edit: After playing and watching a bit it's very obvious that if you want to win you'll have to use a bot. A quick google search turns up a a couple pre-made bots you can download and start running yourself. It's fun to see bot vs bot in the multi-player quick play.