Welcome to the wonderful world of Tetris done quick! Tetrisconcept is an amazing Tetris community with a lot of Tetris the Grandmaster players. Tetris the Grandmaster = TGM. Here I post a bunch of videos to keep you up to date with the latest Tetris goodness. Then, you can introduce yourself in the introduction thread! I DO want to make an exception though. There is a very strong TGM emphasis, but we also do have a lot of NES Tetris players and so few people know Koryan, I figured I should post this here. Now. Terror Instinct. We've had an instinct of terror discovering that not only 5 minutes probably was too long for the world record holder of TGM 3, 4:36:70 is humanly possible! This is probably the most impressive play by KAN, a Japanese player who, even to this day, keeps pushing his limits. Death. My best run is here. It's longer than the world record. This run surprised me. Now, I guess I should talk more about the world record. You see, Kashiwa0903 was surely looking for a good run. But this doesn't describe it. If you don't clear a line at the end of a section, the game stops counting the level and you don't advance. This is called level stop. This world record shows 8 seconds. Of level stop. Eight. Seconds. Of level stop. There are a lot of philosophies about what to do when in a situation that's prone to level stop and this is here, right in our faces, to say : "Maybe sometimes, you can just take the slow road and still get world record." Maybe sometimes, you can just play the way you want. This record hasn't been recently approached, but we see a lot of players doing their thing, playing Death the way they want to play. I encourage you to do so. And pretty much with the same idea, "Maybe sometimes, you are not the fastest but you still are awesome." 309 was the Death world holder for a long time, and when he decided to take on Shirase, TGM 3's super fast mode, it was expected that he gets the world record for that too. The surprise is that he didn't. His runs however are a gold mine of finesse and foresight. Let his runs be known for the good of mankind. In case those runs are too fast, you can always look for some interesting concepts, like playing doubles, alone. Interested? Why don't you look at a run from Nahucirujano? Then, you can always look at the rest of his channel. And that's it. A lot of videos are to be watched, and a lot of games to be played. I hope you'll enjoy the ride. Stay awesome!
While it did fall a bit short on the TI part, I'd say it went pretty well. Congrats to everyone for the great performance! Edit: Also, GMs all around~!
Thanks everyone! I thought it went pretty well overall. I was really slow at TGM1 cause I was nervous and trying to talk, and Kevin and I both messed up and missed S9 in TAP Master after making every other requirement, but other than that, I think things went great. Qlex blew us all away with a very fast Death GM, Kevin finished the TI M-roll and reached 1200 in Shirase, and Poochy made it almost all the way through blindfolded Sakura. It was unfortunate that the setup times were pretty long, but it was because our setup was really crazy - we had to haul in different TV's for the runs, since the LG TV's they had in the marathon room wouldn't sync to TAP's video output, and we had to set up two sets of PSU, Supergun, PCB, SCART to component converter, active component splitter, and video scaler (we gave them pre-upscaled HDMI video from OSSC's that they provided, which is why the video quality was much better than last year). So we had to move a CRT TV, plug in power for 5 devices, and connect one ATX power, one JAMMA, one SCART, one HDMI, one RCA audio, and three component video cables - twice! That's not to mention the additional setup necessary when we switched to TGM3.
Great show, amazing Death GM performance by Qlex! (probably the best TGM moment of all the GDQs) and the blindfolded Sakura by Poochy was a great exciting watch (even though all the EX stages weren't played) Well done.
Thinking back on it, it's rather amazing that four people who can get TGM1 GM on demand were all in the same place at the same time.
I'm not gonna tell GDQ what to do, but maybe they should consider getting some RGB compatible monitors at one point. It's baffling to me that arcade can be such a complicated setup, considering it's pretty much the most "plug-n-play" solution possible. I loved watching the runs, but I gotta admit that, having told my girlfriend that I just needed an hour to watch this, it was embarassing that such an insanely large amount much time was spent just switching one arcade board with another. Even just switching from one player to another on the same board took ages, which I can only assume is related to their sound/headset setup, which might have been more complex than it needs to be? I have full understanding that things like these are always more complex than they look, and from my own experiences there are always more technical issues than anyone would expect, especially when you need to split video signals on multiple boards at the same time. But these guys have an entire week of streaming video games, so I'm a little disappointed that things don't go more smoothly than they do. No hard feelings though, I'm sure they are doing their best. Apart from the technical difficulties though, congratulations on a great show. The commentary was amazing, and congrats to Qlex on his pretty much perfect "Absolute Death" run. I loved the fact that everyone got a GM in their TGM1 runs, and Poochy doing blindfolded Sakura is just beyond my level of understanding. A live GM ranking from Kevin on TI would have been an amazing way to blow it all up, especially considering the previous GDQs where the difficulty of a GM ranking has been continously emphasized, but the fact that he was as close as he was, was great.
You're right about the long setups being partially for audio. The Power-Up guys were adjusting levels and that kind of fancy stuff, even though the boards didn't want to cooperate. If they weren't there, there could've been at least two embarrassing moments during setups in there (kudos to the producers for being on top of things)! Long story short, the audio setup is as complicated as it needs to be for an event this size. It also didn't help that TGM games aren't exactly the best behaving boards out there in terms of video output... Keep in mind, though, TGM was the only arcade run in the whole marathon. We're totally crazy compared to most others at GDQ. Most runs can be generally accounted for beforehand, they know how to hook things up themselves, they have their own hardware, and the consoles themselves are rather reliable. Arcade PCBs (shoutout to the type x), however... After watching the VOD, the GDQ guys did a really good job! The games were, at the very least, perfectly visible. To people who aren't massive capture nerds, it looked perfect (though there was some weirdness on TI's video, and the second TGM1 had fuzzy wonky audio). Everyone did such a good job, if that's the last TGM showcase at a GDQ, that's fine by me. Everyone absolutely killed it. Commentary was on point and the games were amazing. Maybe this GDQ will even un-cancel TGM4 a third time!
Watching it right now, not sure if this would be a better question for the introduction thread but what would be a good place for someone who wanted to start on pc with a controller. I already own a fightstick (not sure if thats what you call them for tetris, but I have it from being a street fighter player) and I'd love to play using that. I'm on windows 10 if thats relevant. Thanks in advance!!
Mame will detect a fightstick without any issues (where "without any" may mean you have some). I started on keyboard and transitioned to a fightstick reasonably quickly, within a few months of playing. Starting out on a fight stick though would probably have been better. The only issue would be you've probably got an 8-way restrictor set, 4-way is more usable for tetris (seeing as there are only four directions), and if you've got a Sanwa JLF stick, you'll be able to change it to a 4-way. Caution with this though, the restrictor plates are fragile and unless you heat it up (I read a thread on these forums once saying it needs to be incredibly hot) then you'll probably break it after a few swaps. I probably should stop reply to a hardware question though in a thread welcoming people though. There's a hardware subforum with a bunch of fightstick questions, have a skim through those, and if you still have questions make a new thread and be prepared to fall down a rabbit hole of Tetris
I'm just watching the VOD again (I was very tired when it was live and don't remember everything). Did @KevinDDR almost Freudian slip and say opponent when they were playing doubles? I know they were joking about it, but it didn't sound deliberate in one case. I do like that this keeps coming up I enjoy explaining it to people a lot. Also, that @Qlex death, so nice! I forgot how good the last 50 levels were Anyway, nicely done guys, I really enjoyed it, both the first watch and this watch, and I'm sure I'll watch it many more times showing people.
Rad, what game specifically should I start off on in Mame? I've played plenty of casual tetris before, but never taken it seriously.
Start off with TGM1. Starting with later games can teach you bad habits that can be hard to break, also TGM1 is the easiest to hit GM in. Definitely check out this guide: http://kitaru.1101b.com/TGMGUIDE/index.htm
I think everyone recommends to start with TGM1. As for when to introduce yourself to TAP (TGM2+) that's up for debate. I mainly played TAP when I was consistently making 500 and wanted to practice on a faster mode (TA Death) to make the 20G portion in TGM1 easier to play. There's also a 20G code in TGM1 which I used first to practice the 20G, which is slower than Death. You may struggle to hit 300 consistently for a few weeks. Once you start hitting 500 you'll start hating 20G. Once you start finding the 20G portion of TGM1 easier though, you'll start hating the 300-500 portion of TGM1 and TAP. Also, progress may be hard to see sometimes, so I liked using https://tetris.wiki/TGM_Guide#Achievement_list to track my progress, especially early on. I'm not sure how you go for motivating yourself, but I retroactively discovered that recording some of my early games and watching them back a year later really helps see how far you've came, and no one will complain if someone else is streaming Tetris If you haven't watched it, the first time TGM was at a GDQ has really good explanations about each of the games (and @Kitaru does an amazing secret grade which wasn't shown off this time). @colour_thief did a really good job explaining everything! Once you've got the muscle memory down for pretty much everything you can think of, I think it's Kitaru who hosts a "tetris guide" which I still go back and read at least once a month to make sure I'm not missing something I could be using in my play, I found that invaluable to learning weird little nuances about the rotation system when I first started playing. So, tl;dr, start with TGM1. I believe I'm not allowed to tell you where to find it because legal issues and all that, but it's pretty easy to find. Drop into irc (#arika on quakenet) if you have difficulties setting it up, someone will likely help you there, TGM1 can be a bit of a pain because of the extra files you need. As a side note, I've only been playing for about a year and a half, so if someone has other suggestions, they're likely going to know more than me, so take everything I've said with a grain of salt. A question to the people who have been in the community longer than me, is there a "where to start and how to improve" type of guide anywhere I can direct people to? If not, would it be good for someone (I guess I volunteer unless someone else wants to) to write one introducing the games, talking about the modes and what not, but not have any of the technical details like the wiki has which can be overwhelming at first? Edit: @PARTY MAN X linked the guide hosted by Kitaru I mentioned.
It's a running joke over here. Unless your partner is completely in sync with you then chances are they will become a pretty big hindrance so they may as well be an 'opponent' at that point For the game to start out with, as everyone said TGM1 is the go-to game for beginners. The grading system is way more lenient so it's easier to see progress and if you start on TGM3 you will end up relying on a lot of things TGM1/TAP don't have (Most common reliance being the I piece wallkick.) Always gotta hate awkward G. Too slow to treat it like <300 yet too fast to treat it like >500 so it always ends up being really messy sections. As far as I know both the linked guides are all we really have for on-demand info to new players. Though once players understand the basics I'd say it'd be good for them to maybe stream a few games on occasion as a lot of us lurk in Tetris Twitch channels and would be fine with giving a few tips and analysing gameplay. Just remember there is no all-cure guide for getting good at TGM. Practice is crucial.
Oh yes, I'm well aware of that, it just didn't sound deliberate by Kevin at one point, just something I found funny. It's so ingrained in us that we unconsciously call them an opponent I might start drafting something then that describes the three games and what I perceive as the advantages and disadvantages of them then, where to start and why to start there, leaving out all the technical details which are documented in other places. I found it a bit overwhelming when I first started playing, now I've got some experience I should pay it forward
Regarding the long setup times I would challenge ANYONE to, on their first try on the real stage, splitting to component and HDMI, set up in less time than we did. There are a LOT of wires to plug into things and laying it all out when you have no space (like we had) takes a lot of time. I think this year went pretty well! Would have liked TAP Master M/GM and Ti GM, but I'd say it still went better than ever before. I'm not sure the audience reaction was as hot this year, but honestly it was still incredibly fun as a sort of US/NA TGM meetup. I don't mean to pump it up too much as I don't plan on resubmitting for a long time but that was a blast! Congrats to all the players and thanks everyone for watching.
Once again, I'm not saying anyone did anything wrong, the SGDQ tech guys probably have more experience with this stuff than I do (though I'm still confused that Arcade keeps being treated like such an archaic and foreign technology) I'm really just wondering what the issue actually is, and obviously having to convert to both component and HDMI already sounds like a pretty superflous bottleneck, but then again, if their standard setup is already set up to receive and split both signals (which I would assume, considering how many other consoles use those formats) it's worth doing as I guess it eliminates other bottlenecks. But if you already know beforehand, that the setup for some reason is complex and demanding, I would make sure to set it up on a different table, off-camera, ready to roll in as soon as it is needed. Then it doesn't matter if the setup takes 3 hours, you could still ideally switch instantly, allowing a buffer for the mandatory unexpected issues that will always occur. But hey, I know unforeseen problems will always be a thing. I just couldn't help the feeling that everyone watching was getting really impatient, which is too bad - especially between each run. At least people loved the show this year as well, and I can only hope that the TGM community is finally gonna flourish thanks to all this exposure.
When KevinDDR logged into Ti, I was expecting him to use the GDQ account and "being lucky" getting a GM examination... But that would have been nerve-racking. There were still nerves like it should be, and KevinDDR did the only right choice, to play it slow and cool, and survive the roll instead of pushing for GM or a good time. Just think about it, getting a GM without the examination is just the same as getting any other grade to a newcomer, visually speaking (different for someone really knowing what Terror-Instinct means, it should have been called Tetris:Slowly-Suffer). Basically, there was only one choice, and it was done perfectly
