I have been focusing on the Death Mode, and I absolutely love this game! I can tell I am starting to get better, and would like to take my game to the next level (literally). I am consistently scoring over level 100, and usually about level 130-140. Just today, I finally broke level 200 (207)! Now I'm ready to take it to the next level. I can tell you right off what my biggest problem is and that is when I get pieces that "don't fit" anywhere (especially a few in a row) and I have to improvise, I need to know different ways to assemble the various pieces until I can get back on track (i.e. - work through the garbage); in particular what to do with the S & Z shaped pieces. I am placing them where I can, and I can tell when I have a bad placement, I'm just not 100% sure why; I just know that I'm screwed. I've tried going to a couple of Japanese sites, but I couldn't really make heads or tails of it. I tried using some kind of translation software on the site from Alta Vista, but that only made me more confused I've never really played Tetris before this year (Although I have the MAME WR at Bloxeed, that game is a whole different ball game, and I went in the tank when the pieces sped up) so mainly I started playing a couple of month ago. Just by trial & error, I have started "cascading" (I think that is the proper term), and using 2 buttons to rotate both counter-clockwise & clockwise, which has helped immeasurably. The same goes for holding down the button and having the piece enter the screen rotated 90 degrees CCW or CW, and slipping pieces under other pieces. I don't know what any of those cheat codes are that this forum talks about, but I would like to try and get them so I can practice on the faster speeds. I believe my reflexes are fast enough for 20G mode, but I need to know how to place the pieces by instinct. Playing Master mode didn't help much as I still do not know all the placement techniques & tricks that I should. Once I know them, I can apply them to Death Mode. This is a personal goal of mine to reach Master rank by the end of the year, and eventually Grandmaster. Any help or attention wil be greatly appreciated Thanks! Robert Griffin http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=22&p=41327
Learn when to create overhangs, what moves are least damaging, and when to cover columns. Examples: 1. Uh oh, there's no place to fit that S! 2. Damn that T orientation! 3. That T just keeps getting in the way! EDIT: Sorry, to navigate, hit on the arrows to go back and forth between frames.
Works fine in Opera. Welcome Robert. Sadly the sort of stuff you're asking to learn is rarely talked about and hard to teach in words. Possibly the best thing you can do is post a replay so we can comment on various piece placements. As a general rule, holes in the centre are harder to get rid of than those on the sides. In addition to simply making holes on the sides instead of the middle, lots of garbage clearing strategy revolves around fixing holes in the centre, even if it creates holes on the sides. A tradeoff for the lesser of 2 evils if you will.
with lot of motivation i think you can do it. but your first primary objective is to be able to reach the lvl 500 gap. Once you "done it", you'll see if by your time if you can do it "before the end of the year". Unfortunately i'm sad that people just jump on death mode as is if was the only game mode. Master mode will certainly bring you lot of basics stacking behavior that you'll probably miss in T.A. Death. as Kusanagi said : "more you are specialized, more you are weak" (witch is of course, also true for myself) But it's the way to be... welcome and good luck man
These are very interesting. Thank you! Im not quite sure exactly how they work and what all the different check boxes and buttons are for, but I can tell what the purpose is for and Im sure I will figure it out. Thanks for the welcome Colour Thief! Yes, after thinking about it, you are correct; teaching something like what I am asking may be difficult. I would probably need to see them worked through in a replay, unless i figure them out by myself through trial & error. There are various tricky scenarios that I encounter on a regular basis, and I need to learn what the ideal placement of the next piece is based on the piece given. That would be great if someone could critique me! I would be happy to send in an .inp or post a replay, just let me know where! Amnesiayou were the one who turned me on to that game and this site in the first place! I know to many my goal may sound ridiculous to some people, but I have to have some kind of goal to shoot for or else whats the point? Pardon my ignorance, but Im not quite sure what the level 500 gap is (sorry, I told you I was new at this). I definitely agree with you Jagorochi, and I actually do play Master mode, though just not as much. My best on Master mode is only level 414, but I havent played it in a few weeks. Ill see what I can do on that mode again. Very true, and I dont want to fall into that trap as well! Thank you!
I thought Master before 2008 was a bit optimistic, but I didn't say anything. The main stumbling block before 500 is 300. You need to be able to get to it regularly, and not die because of the big speed increase (like I tend to do). Practice in Master is definitely a good thing. So is going here: http://www13.plala.or.jp/TETRiS_TGM/kouza/index.htm Feeding that into Babel Fish or Google should give you a translation which, though far from perfect, is good enough for you to perhaps get a gist of what the pictures and animations are demonstrating. I found it helped me immensely.
I know my goal may be a bit overly optimistic based on what I have read about skill progression, but like I said, I have to set my sights on something Is there another speed increase after 300? I know it speeds up after 100, but I've only made it to just over 200 so far. I really wish I could find a cheat code or file for MAME so I could practice on those higher speeds as well. Are they out there? I will be doing more practice on Master mode based on the feedback I have gotten here so far. Amnesia pointed out that site as well, but the Babel Fish translation was a bit...ethereal...to say the least. I will see how the Google translations fares. Thanks for the tips & comments
I'd just upload the INP to a random filehost and post the link here. In Death, the game speeds up every 100 levels, with the final speedup at level 500. Level 300 is the most notorious speedup... Even if you reached it for the first time with your screen very low, it would kill you quickly. Pieces lock so quickly that a lot of moves that were previously viable can no longer be executed, and you havve to change your play style to accomodate it. Master before 2008 is doable with lots of practice and sustained motivation, but if you're like most people a more likely accomplishment would be Gm in TGM1 or reaching level 999 in TGM2 Master. But honestly, the play thing to play is generally whatever you find fun... Simply playing improves your skill, so play and mix things up in whatever way holds your interest. To clarify, getting M in Death mode means more than just surviving to level 500... You have to get there within 3:25. Our wiki is a decent resource for this sort of information, and would probably entertain you for a while. And finally about a cheat file... Open notepad or whatever you like, paste the quoted text from this post, and then save it as "cheat.dat" in your MAME directory. Make sure you turn on cheats in MAME (varies depending on your version but commandline is -c) and then you can access cheats from MAME's TAB menu.
I agree with you here. The faxct is that I really do enjoy playing on Death Mode very much, so the journey will be an enjoyable one! Thanks Colour Thief, the file works like a charm! As a matter of fact, I loaded up level 301 and I lasted a whopping 19 seconds... Looks like I've got some practice ahead of me
I think it would be a good Tetrisconcept project to try and provide an English translation to the Kouza TGM page.
I was thinking the exact same thing! After looking at that page (with the Google translation which was much better than the Bable fish translation - IMHO), I could see there was much useful information to be learned, so I'm anxious to spend some time absorbing all the diferent chapters. I would certainly be willing to do my part
You could give this a try. I'm sure there's a more elegant way of doing this, the way the colour fades to the point of lockflash isn't entirely accurate, but other than that it should work: Code: :tgm2p:00000000:06064BE0:00000078:000000FF:P1 Lock Delay (enabler) :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000078:0000001E:P1 Lock Delay (enabler) :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000078:0000001A:P1 Lock Delay (enabler) :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000078:00000016:P1 Lock Delay (enabler) :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000078:00000012:P1 Lock Delay (enabler) :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000078:00000011:P1 Lock Delay (enabler) :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000078:0000000F:P1 Lock Delay (enabler) :tgm2p:62000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:P1 Lock Delay :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000076:3 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000073:6 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000070:9 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:0000006D:12 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:0000006A:15 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000067:18 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000064:21 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000061:24 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:0000005E:27 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:0000005B:30 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000055:36 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:0000004F:42 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000049:48 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:00000043:54 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:0000003D:60 frames :tgm2p:00090000:06064BDF:00000001:0000001F:90 frames :tgm2p:00010000:06064BDF:00000002:FFFFFFFF:Infinite Delay
http://www.sendspace.com/file/m5krjv i was bored so i made this autohotkey script for mamep3 (the one without the backgrounds). heh i didn't know which topic to post it in but it runs smooth for me, so it must be a good version of mame for training. i don't have a link to download mamep3 though the script gets you started up faster with less typing and searching, and it also makes it easier to save and watch games. it isn't cheating or anything like that. you need autohotkey to run it. http://www.autohotkey.com/ thanks mat for linking to ahk here at TC before, it's a great program.
