weekly contest VGS Weekly Contest - Tetris

[Makar | 1,946]

3 minutes ago, Sumez said:

The original Tetris is pretty crappy, I'd just stay away from that. Sega Tetris or NES Tetris are the first ones that refined the game to something truly playable.

That's not true. You'll have a lower scoring potential, which can be an issue in certain situations, that I've touched on, but if you're screwed from getting an I piece draught, that's your own fault as the player.

I agree with that, it's about adapting to more information on the fly, but that should also be matched with a higher skill requirement IMO, which you only get from playing against another human player. It's really a different game entirely.

Yea I just need to play the NES Tetris a bit more to adapt my modern day strategy. I usually leave the far left or far right wide open and go for back to back or even back to back to back tetrises. That isn't really possible in NES Tetris and leaving the middle open rather than the far right or left might actually be a better strategy. I just gotta practice. 

And yes, with new Tetris, the only real competitor is another human. I could literally go on forever in marathon mode on Tetris axis on the 3ds even when the speed is maxed out. 

[Sumez | 2,928]

Always leave the right side open on NES Tetris, unless you have a situation where you can optimize for a more dynamic stack. The left side is viable, but getting the I piece over there is harder, so I only go for it if I'm somehow forced to stack up on the right side.
Leaving the middle open might be more viable for a few purposes, but just maintaining the hole in the center is going to cost a lot of non-tetris line clears which will heavily affect scoring. I'd say it's truly valid only as a level 19+ strategy. The threshold in this game is so tight that you want a majority of your line clears going towards tetrises, as all other clears aren't worth near as much. If you do clear a non-tetris it should ideally be a single (which is directly opposite from a lot of other versions of Tetris).

Definitely don't save up for back-to-back though, there is no bonus for that. If you have an I piece coming up, and 4 solid rows waiting, you'll always want to clear the Tetris, unless you have another I piece dependency that's giving you trouble. Because you never know when the next one is going to show up. The randomizer is infuriating, but it's a good test of Tetris skills.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Sumez

[Makar | 1,946]

1 hour ago, Sumez said:

Always leave the right side open on NES Tetris, unless you have a situation where you can optimize for a more dynamic stack. The left side is viable, but getting the I piece over there is harder, so I only go for it if I'm somehow forced to stack up on the right side.
Leaving the middle open might be more viable for a few purposes, but just maintaining the hole in the center is going to cost a lot of non-tetris line clears which will heavily affect scoring. I'd say it's truly valid only as a level 19+ strategy. The threshold in this game is so tight that you want a majority of your line clears going towards tetrises, as all other clears aren't worth near as much. If you do clear a non-tetris it should ideally be a single (which is directly opposite from a lot of other versions of Tetris).

Definitely don't save up for back-to-back though, there is no bonus for that. If you have an I piece coming up, and 4 solid rows waiting, you'll always want to clear the Tetris, unless you have another I piece dependency that's giving you trouble. Because you never know when the next one is going to show up. The randomizer is infuriating, but it's a good test of Tetris skills.

Getting a little better. Finally got to level 16 lol. (And yes I know the competition is over but I finally have some free time).

[mbd39 | 2,016]

Here is the former champ Jonas Neubauer casually getting three maxouts in a row while carrying on a conversation. He makes this game look so easy!

 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

3 hours ago, Makar said:

Getting a little better. Finally got to level 16 lol. (And yes I know the competition is over but I finally have some free time).

You never know when it will come up in the contests again!

[BeaIank | 1,616]

Final scoreboard posted.
Congrats to @Sumez for his 1st VGS Weekly Constest win, @bertsampson for a respectable 2nd place and @mbd39 for a valiant 3rd place, almost breaking 500k!
Sadly, no one maxed the score this week. I am kinda disappointed.

@ninjistar I agree, yes. I should have asked people to start on level 18 for a fairer, more balanced challenge.