I have been playing Tetris on the original Game Boy for 20+ years. My record on the A game is 219 lines. (I never really went for high scores but I think my best is 400,000+.) However, for the past five years or so I have mainly been playing the B game, specifically level 9 high 5. My aim has been to complete the level with an increasing number of tetrises. I started trying to complete it with four tetrises and after a while this became relatively easy so I stepped it up to five. This was certainly harder, but not impossible, and I achieved it many times. So I stepped it up to six... (which involves only completing, at most, four lines that are not part of a tetris.) That was three years ago and I have still not achieved it (and this is an honest estimate) in several hundred thousand attempts. I was interested to read on another thread that the randomiser for this version is badly programmed and contains an error. This would certainly explain a lot of what I have experienced in my many games but it does not explain everything. Is there something more to the B game programming at this level? I once managed to get five tetrises with a remaining line to achieve another but the stack was already ruined so I knew I wasn't going to get it. On three or four occasions I have got four tetrises with 5+ lines left and I have got three tetrises with 9+ lines left maybe 20 times in total. A sure way to know that an attempt at six tetrises is doomed is to get off to the best possible start. On occasions I have managed to get a tetris as my first score, (this is never planned, I am forced into the situation before realising that a tetris is possible.) however, I have never managed a second tetris in this situation, despite still having four lines to lower my stack base to a level that I have scored more tetrises. Related to this, I can get off to a very good start, due to the garbage starting a little lower and the right pieces coming, and having a viable, low starting base (akin to high 3) and only having used one or two lines. I have never got more than one tetris in this situation. Similarly, many times, from a favourable start, I have used all four spare lines to get an almost unbelievably low starting base (akin to high 2). I don't think that I have achieved a single tetris from this position, the I piece never comes. I have only ever achieved multiple tetrises after using an opening three or, more often, all four lines and having a starting base above a certain height (akin to high 4). On to the timing of the pieces; if I have stack that is (9x4)-1 and requires one more piece to set it up for a tetris, I would estimate that it is almost 50/50 that the next piece will be an I piece, and more often than not it will be unusable because it will block the completion of the tetris. If this is the case and I have to put the I piece elsewhere then the next piece will also not complete the 9x4 (usually an O piece) and now comes the flood of I pieces, four, sometimes five in a row, all being laid flat or piled up on the other side until it is game over because my stack is still one square short for a tetris. However, if I can complete the 9x4 by standing the I piece upright and still be able to complete the tetris then that will be the last I piece of that game. Related to this is the amount of times that the I piece will come one go too late to complete the tetris. Also, if I create a 2x4 gap in my stack then obviously two I pieces would fill that nicely, very quickly comes the offer of the first I piece with the preview showing a different piece. If I place the I piece upright in the gap then that will be the last I piece of the game, however, if I place it elsewhere then I can be sure that another I piece will be next in the preview pane. Also, the amount of times that when placing a piece means that I have to choose which specific piece(s) must shortly follow to continue the game and four times out of five it is the wrong choice. These are not problems that I was aware of whilst trying to complete five tetrises on this level, or in the A game. Also, the amount of times that I have little option but to build the corner of my stack one line too high, and if this happens the I piece will nearly always come and, of course, will always get stuck on the corner. Perhaps that last point is related to my gameplay and ability and I freely admit that I am just as likely to ruin a game in a promising position by turning a piece the wrong way. However, combined with the other factors that I have mentioned and my ability to acheive three and four tetrises (out of six) and five (out of five) tetrises in a game, it is my opinion that it is not a faulty randomiser that is preventing me from achieving six tetrises on level 9 high 5 but that it is programmed to be virtually impossible, and indeed, deliberately frustrating in the process. Perhaps it is only possible once in every X games, and when that game comes you better play perfect and not trash it at the start because you didn't like the initial layout. Does anyone have any experience of this on the Game Boy, or on the NES? (I'm guessing that the NES version is the most comparable to the Game Boy but I have not played it.) I would appreciate any insight into what I have posted. Thanks. (I realise that my statistics are all estimates but this is all I can offer and I have tried to be accurate.) (Apologies for the length of this post, I wanted to get all the facts out. I guess it is three years on the same mission and 20 years of Tetris all spilling out.)
There isn't anything in the programming that would explicitly make it impossible, but the combination of the screwy randomizer, shorter playfield (18 rows in GB instead of 20), and poor mobility (slow piece movement requires the player to tap rapidly instead) would likely contribute to making this a very frustrating exercise. It might be worth giving it a shot in NES and seeing how you fare.
Thank you for your reply. Can you be certain about the programming? Has this version been decompiled? With everything that I mentioned above, I am not convinced.
The piece selection method has been disassembled and analyzed at length. Other parts of the code have been glanced over and there doesn't appear to be any reason to believe something malicious exists (unless you count the faulty selection method itself).
OK, thanks. A lesser man than myself might have dashed his Game Boy on the bathroom floor by now, but a bigger man than myself might not be playing Tetris on the loo for countless hours over the years. After about a year I did think that, if I ever complete it, I will have to record the finish and post it somewhere, but don't hold your breath.
