Pro Tip of the Day - tetris http://protipoftheday.com/taxonomy/term/150/0 en Pro tip: Dealing with meaningless stats http://protipoftheday.com/node/509 <p>Take a look at this screenshot from the arcade version of Tetris</p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/stats1.png" /></div> <p>Over on the right you'll see your 'stats', or a representation of the Tetriminoes you've had to deal with in Bar Chart form. My guess is that it's there if you're playing Single Player so that the right side of the screen won't be blank.</p> <p>Now take a look at this screenshot from Galaga</p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/stats2.png" /></div> <p>Once you end your game, you're presented with your 'Hit/Miss Ratio', which tells you how accurate you were with your shots.</p> <p>What do these things have in common?</p> <p>Mostly that they don't really mean anything. It might be kind of interesting to know your accuracy, or if your Tetris puzzle gave you lots of Z pieces, but you can't really do anything useful with the data, and it won't really make you a better player.</p> <p>So don't sweat it.</p> arcade galaga general meta NES pro tip statistics tetris Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:14:49 +0000 Will 509 at http://protipoftheday.com Pro tip: Tetris is (usually) balanced http://protipoftheday.com/node/419 <p>It's really easy in competitive Tetris, especially if you're matched up against someone who's at about the same skill level that you are, to feel like the game comes down to the selection of pieces you get. But, in most games of Tetris, both players get the same pieces. It really comes down to who can put them in place the fastest. </p> <p>Which is kind of hard to wrap your head around, I know, so I prepared the video below where I use the same controller input for both controllers and play a short round of competitive Tetris.</p> <div align="center"> <object width="500" height="405"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/inCkK58En54&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/inCkK58En54&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"></embed></object></div> <p>It's actually pretty illuminating. Everything's the same: pieces dropped, garbage sent, all of it.</p> <p>Of course there are probably variants of Tetris that don't make everything equal like this, but you probably don't want to play those.</p> ds game boy gba mechanics NES pro tip SNES tetris Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:58:48 +0000 Will 419 at http://protipoftheday.com Pro tip: The Tetris T-Spin http://protipoftheday.com/node/389 <p>In Tetris, you occasionally will have to maneuver pieces so that they fit in spaces where it doesn't initially look like they're going to fit.</p> <p>Like this T-piece, for example. </p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/tetris_t-spin1.png" /></div> <p>It would totally fit in that hole on the left column if some of those pieces weren't in the way.</p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/tetris_t-spin2.png" /></div> <p>But if you let it get partway in</p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/tetris_t-spin3.png" /></div> <p>And then rotate it at the last second, it slides into place</p> <p>Which is easier to show in animated .gif form</p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/tetris_t-spin.gif" /></div> <p>This is a pretty useful maneuver, since it lets you slip those T-pieces in places where they wouldn't normally go.</p> arcade ds game boy game boy color NES pc playstation pro tip ps2 SNES tetris xbox xbox 360 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:08:25 +0000 Will 389 at http://protipoftheday.com Pro tip: Hiding the Next piece in Tetris http://protipoftheday.com/node/133 <p>You've very likely heard about Tetris, so I won't bother explaining how it works to you. </p> <p>One of the things that you'll notice, though, is that over on the right side of the screen there's a preview of what piece is coming next, which is very useful information.</p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/tetris_next1.png" /></div> <p>However, by just pressing the Select button you can make that box clear.</p> <div align="center"><img src="http://protipoftheday.com/sites/default/files/tetris_next2.png" /></div> <p>Supposedly this is to make the game more challenging. Which it does, but only by destroying some of the strategy, so I'm not really sure why you'd want to do it. You can press Select button again to make the piece reappear.</p> <p>This also works in the original Game Boy version.</p> game boy NES pro tip technique tetris Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:25:10 +0000 Will 133 at http://protipoftheday.com