Extreme Tetrom

A Pico-8 falling-block puzzle game with an extremely high skill cap  by Kistaro, Nyeogmi, and Vanessa

Controls

Gameplay

• Move Piece: ⬅️  ➡️
• Rotate Piece: ❎ or 🅾️  -- on PC, that's X/Z, V/C, or M/N (mix and match!)
• Hold piece: ❎  and 🅾️ together
• Soft drop: ⬇️
• Hard drop: ⬆️
• Pause: Enter or Esc (can restart round from here or change sound settings, too)

Menus

• Navigate: ⬅️ ⬇️ ⬆️ ➡️
• Confirm: ❎ or 🅾️

Gameplay

Extreme Tetrom is based on some other falling-block puzzle games you might have heard of, whose names must not be spoken of for trademark reasons. Unlike most versions of this classic series, the speed and challenge of this game can reach extreme levels, intended to challenge even the most experienced players of the genre. Arika, Inc. pioneered this style of play with their TGM series; Extreme Tetrom owes a lot to TGM, but it is not a TGM clone; it is its own game, designed both to give less-experienced players an on-ramp to extreme-difficulty play and to provide new challenges for the very best players in the world.

Things To Watch Out For

• The lock timer only resets when a piece falls down further into the matrix -- it does not reset just because it is moved! You cannot extend the lock time by spinning a piece in place. No stalling allowed!
• If you hold a rotation button while a new tetrom spawns, it will spawn rotated. If you hold both of them, it will swap with the hold piece before it ever spawns. There's no way to do both at once!
• "Kicks", where rotation may push the tetrom around so it can find somewhere to make the rotation work, should feel largely familiar to modern players of falling-block games. However, Extreme Tetrom will not let you kick back up into the air! Climbing over small bumps is still possible.
• If a tetrom kicks upwards, then falls back down to its original height, the lock timer does not reset. The center of the tetrom must reach a new lowest point to reset the lock timer!
• The time required to start auto-repeat decreases through the game, so if the controls suddenly feel very slippery, you will need to get used to tapping them more quickly. This decrease in shift delay is required so the game remains possible, because the interval between a tetrom locking down and the next one spawning decreases as the game speeds up.
• Just like TGM, the level increases with every tetrom you drop as well as every line you clear, until you hit a section barrier, which can only be cleared via lines. 

Modes

• Marathon: A familiar, classic mode! How quickly can you clear 150 lines?
  • This is a good way to get used to Extreme Tetrom. 
  • The controls work just like in the faster modes, but the speed curve is similar to that of standard, mainstream games in this genre.
  • Gameplay speed changes only at section barriers.
• Scoreathon: How high a score can you reach within 150 lines?
  • This is another classic mode.
  • It uses the same speed curve as Marathon.
• Intermediate: Your first hint of the true challenges this game can bring.
  • Your goal in this mode is to get a high grade. You are graded on consistent, skilled play at a rapid pace. Larger clears, combos, T-twists, and streaks of consecutive quads and T-twists all count towards your grade.
  • This game will get faster with almost every Tetrom you drop, although most section barriers will give you a respite -- well, a brief respite, anyway.
  • You win this mode when you reach level 768. High-tier grades are awarded only after clearing the game with a sufficient qualifying basic grade.
  • It is impossible to reach the rank of Grandmaster in this mode. Grades reached in this mode are not comparable to grades reached in other graded modes.
• Grandmaster: Prove your skill.
  • This is the primary mode of Extreme Tetrom. It is scored the same way as Intermediate, but the rank of Grandmaster is achievable.
  • You win this mode when you reach level 1024.
  • This mode becomes much faster than Intermediate.
• GM Plus: For a change of pace.
  • This adds garbage rows to Grandmaster, plus some other surprises late in the game.
  • Scoring is identical to Grandmaster. In practice, this mode is harder, so the same grade is harder to reach in GM Plus.
• Intense: Because sometimes Grandmaster is just too easy.
  • In this mode, your only goal is to clear as many sections as possible. It does not matter how you get there.
  • This game starts at 20G, with tetroms falling to the bottom of the matrix in a single frame. Then it gets faster.
  • Survive.
  • This mode has an end. Can you reach it?
• Intense Plus: Because sometimes you would like to lose even faster.
  • This adds garbage to Intense mode.
  • Garbage spawns more frequently than in GM Plus.
• Extreme: For the masochistic.
  • This is substantially faster than Intense Plus, with even fewer tetroms between garbage rows.
  • I have no reason to believe that this mode is humanly possible.
• Infinite: For people who like to play for a high score, with no limits.
  • This mode starts out as identical to Scoreathon, but it does not end after 150 lines.
  • The pace of the game will continue to increase, section by section, far beyond the end of Marathon.
• Sprint: Marathon for the impatient.
  • How quickly can you clear 40 lines?
  • Like Marathon, your only score is time.
• Blitz: The complete Extreme Tetrom experience in 128 tetroms -- or less.
  • You're playing for a high score, like Infinite and Scoreathon.
  • This mode ends after 128 tetroms fall. You must survive all 128 tetroms to qualify for the high score board.
  • Gameplay speed increases very quickly in this mode.
• 20G Trainer: Hone your 20G skills.
  • This mode is scored like Intermediate mode. It ends after level 768.
  • The first section of this mode is the slowest 20G in Extreme Tetrom, giving more time to lock the tetrom than anywhere else. With each section, it becomes less generous.
  • This is your chance to practice 20G gameplay and strategies, without immediately having to play at full speed!
• Lightning: Awful weather for a sprint, isn't it?
  • This mode is scored like Sprint mode.
  • The mode starts out in the dark - and soon, your matrix will only be illuminated by brief flashes of light, every time you drop a tetrom. And then, near the end, it gets even harder...
• Invisible: Because Lightning isn't enough of a memory challenge.
• This mode is scored like Sprint mode.
• Tetroms disappear as soon as they lock down. You will never be shown the contents of your matrix - you don't even get the brief glimpses that Lightning offers you.
• The ghost piece is still here, so it can help you trace out the top of your stack. Well, it's here for the first half of the game, anyway...

Modding

If you own Pico-8, you're encouraged to write your own modes! You'll need to delete some existing modes to make room. Mode definition is largely declarative. Among other highlights, gravity is interpolated from CSV files represented as multiline string literals. Game speed aspects other than gravity, which are also stored as CSV, can change every section but not every level, and are not interpolated. 

To get started, you should probably look at init_game and the modes table to get a sense of what defines how the game operates. Feel free to ask questions in the comments about how the code works, I encourage mods and derivative works and I'll do my best to answer promptly!

Special Thanks

My co-developer, Nyeogmi, has their own games on Itch! Go check them out.

This game is based on PicoTetris 1.1, by Vanessa, a developer I have never met. Vanessa, thank you for sharing your game and allowing derivative work -- I hope I've done your excellent core engine justice. Your overall architecture should still be recognizable, although a lot of the details are casualties of cramming for tokens or optimizing for performance to reach a steady 60FPS.