TETREVIL bastard tetris

Thread in 'Discussion' started by esialb, 11 Feb 2012.

  1. I've written a clone of bastet (bastard tetris), called TETREVIL. Like bastet, TETREVIL uses an AI to give you the worst piece it can. (However, it doesn't share any code with bastet; I've never even seen the bastet source but but bastet is a console app written in C/C++ and TETREVIL is a Java applet and standalone app.)

    TETREVIL looks 3 moves ahead to try to give you terrible pieces. It slightly randomizes the piece selection, and tries to give an equal distribution of pieces. I've taken a couple weeks working with the IRC channel #tetris on irc.quakenet.org to give it features like customizable controls, proper coloration, SRS support with kick tables, and more.

    TETREVIL can be played online as a Java applet or downloaded to your computer for standalone play. If there is internet access it will submit your score after each game to a high-scores database, which drives the high score on the intro page.

    TETREVIL has been done entirely in my spare time and is a relatively new hobby. I welcome and would greatly appreciate comments and suggestions.

    You can play TETREVIL online at http://www.tetrevil.org/
     
  2. Muf

    Muf

    Still waiting for a permutation of one of these games that doesn't rely on just spamming S and Z a gazillion times in a row. Feels cheap, man.
     
  3. You must suck at manipulating the sequence, muf. ;3
     
  4. Well, internally, there is no extra "weight" given to S or Z. If you get them a lot it means the algorithm has determined that they are the least useful/most harmful pieces for you. It doesn't do that for me. Effectively playing against TETREVIL means you have to change how you play.
     
  5. Muf

    Muf

    [​IMG]

    I don't know what "tries to give an equal distribution of pieces" means, but this isn't it. Also, this is exactly what Bastet does.
     
  6. l2overhang
     
  7. TETREVIL works by assuming perfect play by the user according to its fitness function. Ironically, the easiest way to get a high score is to play poorly. Try doing a sloppy job for the bottom few rows of the field, so S and Z stop being so strongly bad for you. The piece distribution works by randomizing how it scores the board, and as long as S and Z are so obviously the worst the equal distribution multiplier just can't have a strong enough effect.
     
  8. Muf

    Muf

    I've pondered the Bastet issue before, and my theory is that Bastet and alikes are over-engineered, or "too hardcore", if you will. Instead of trying to analyse the playfield, which will always skew the randomiser in favour of S/Z/T/O and completely break the game for people who are trying to play well, I think the more obvious (and much simpler and elegant) solution is to selectively starve players of certain "coveted" pieces for a short time, while ensuring "fair" distribution overall (so essentially a modified TGM randomiser). What happens then is whether you try to play well or not, it feels like you're not getting the piece you need, and the game ends up frustrating without being able to put the blame on something as simple as "I got 5 Z pieces in a row". If you pay attention, you notice all 7 pieces are being dealt, just not in the order that would have been convenient. I think that leads the way to the ultimate Bastard Tetris, where you keep playing because it taunts you, but it keeps making you lose. As it stands, I just quit games like these because they're fundamentally not fun.

    I will put that into a game eventually, but don't hold your breath. I just wanted to put it out there because I forgot half of what I thought about last time this issue came up.
     
  9. Well, you can play it in "bag" mode now, which may address your issues. The default in bag mode is a bag of size 21, which means in an absolute worst case you get the same piece 6 times in 7 turns, since in addition to the bag restriction no piece can be dealt more than 3 times in a row. It's not as hard as the normal randomizer mode, but hopefully something more people will find a "fun" alternative.
     
  10. Muf

    Muf

    Yeah, I played it last night on Zaphod's recommendation. A lot more fun, definitely! You have to tickle people's sense of masochism with a game like this :sneaky:
     
  11. Would you recommend having it start on bag mode, then?
     
  12. Zaphod77

    Zaphod77 Resident Misinformer

    Now if he will just make evil strict history it will be even more interesting.

    this is where it will NEVER deal one of the last 4 dealt, but will otherwise try to be as mean as it can.

    If it turns out to be an issue, then also add code in it to guarantee droughts don't happen for too long (12? 15?). I'm not sure how hard this will be.
     
  13. Muf

    Muf

    I would cross check with a few more experienced players (than me) to try and balance out the difficulty vs. piece flood ratio. Piece floods are lame, but if the randomiser behaves too normally then it's not Bastard Tetris anymore.
     
  14. Zaphod77

    Zaphod77 Resident Misinformer

    My experience says that the default 3 bag is evil enough to catch you off guard and make you lose if you try to play normally.

    It still may be too easy to beat with proper strategy, though. I know one bag is not enough, at least with the current algo it uses to pick pieces.
     
  15. I watched myndzi from #tetris play over Skype recently, and 1-bag is nowhere near difficult enough for an experienced player, and I don't think it's possible to make it so. 3-bag is more difficult, but myndzi can still beat it easily.

    Another issue is that of where I want this game to be going. Is it supposed to be evil tetris that you link your frienemies to? (Ugh, can't believe I just used that word.) Or is it supposed to be a fun but challenging game? The best compromise I can think of is to have the web version be downright nasty and the standalone version be the fun game for experienced tetris players. The tetris players are willing to download NullpoMino, hopefully TETREVIL with things like extensive (and saved!) customizations would be worth downloading too.
     
  16. Zaphod77

    Zaphod77 Resident Misinformer

    so while an experienced player who knows what's going on can handle the 3 bag, your typical "frienemy" will still get owned pretty badly by it, at least for the first quite a few games.
     

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