LdDB
Ludum Dare #44jam

Tetris: Tempo

by valid
co-authored: @jace, @kmazzio
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.31
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.47
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.44
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.08
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.12
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.24
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.62

Tetris: Tempo

MenuScreen.PNG---

What is Tetris: Tempo?

Tetris with a twist! Play NES-Style tetris with a time limit (your life). For every line you clear, you gain time. If you clear a tetris (4 lines), you gain even more time. You can spend your time on blocks and add those to your queue.

Once you lose, submit your score and see if you make the leaderboard!

Controls (re-bindable in menu)

All movement keys are re-bindable in Menu>Key Binds, but by default are:

Move Left: a

Move Right: d

Hard Fall: w

Soft Fall: s

Rotate Clockwise: c

Rotate Counter-Clockwise: v

Numbers 1-7: Purchase their respective block

NumPad 1-7: Purchase their respective block

Pause: Escape

Adjust Volume: Bottom right corner of the menu, or from the in-game pause menu (Press Escape).

---

Pictures

Gameplay.PNGKeybindings.PNGLeaderboard.PNG

Motivation

We felt that the theme was a little tough to brainstorm with initially. We decided to make a simple game, using a proven concept, and add a little to it. This is standard tetris, but you are on a timer and can spend time to buy more blocks. This was two of the team members first time making a game, and we believe it came out pretty well. We appreciate any and all feedback!

screenshot

Comments27

Cuppycat
Cuppycat30 Apr 2019, 02:59
Unfortunately I get missing DLL errors (love.dll, lua51.dll, sdl2.dll)
longbowrocks30 Apr 2019, 03:03
Seems to depend on Lua and a few other things I can't identify. love.dll missing? What's that from?
dasPanjo
dasPanjo30 Apr 2019, 03:15
Great game. I like the idea of buying new block in exchange for time, but I noticed that I didn't used it that much. A really nice feature is the (online?) leaderboard.
ayama30 Apr 2019, 03:23
The game sounds and looks very interesting, but I get the same errors (love.dll and sdl2.dll). Could you probably paste the dlls?
Valid
Validauthor30 Apr 2019, 03:28
@cuppycat @longbowrocks @daspanjo @ayama Hi! Thank you so much for finding that issue. I pushed an update out that hopefully fixes it. It is our first time using Love2D and have found it to be sub-par when it comes to game distribution :( Let me know if this works!
Cuppycat
Cuppycat30 Apr 2019, 03:39
@valid it works now! Did a bit of testing, and the default keys confused me compared to how other tetris-like games do it. But after changing keybinds it was good :) Nice idea :D Keeping this game on my desktop, will try to get a highscore tomorrow
longbowrocks30 Apr 2019, 03:59
Came back and I'm glad I did. That's amazing polish for something done by three people in 72 hours. It even has volume control and keybinds!
Valid
Validauthor30 Apr 2019, 04:30
@cuppycat thank you! I look forward to seeing your high score :)
ayama30 Apr 2019, 04:31
It worked! Wow, there is even a leader board:O
Daviscartes30 Apr 2019, 15:14
I really like Tetris game, but I think it's kind of tricky. It's not quite suitable for the theme and the 'currency' you add is kind of useless? Or sth else. Anyway I enjoy the game pretty much, and reach second on your leaderboard XD. Hope for some more interesting innovation in Tetris!
Waldinx
Waldinx1 May 2019, 00:41
Took me awhile to get used to the controls, so I switched them. I love that feature, by the way.
Managed to get top 3 on my second try, after figuring out what buying was.
TheSomeoneXD
TheSomeoneXD1 May 2019, 00:46
Made it 3rd place! The piece buying I don't think is too useful, but I think it could be somewhat fixed by it immediately switching your piece. I personally am not too fond of Classic Tetris so this wasn't the best experience for me, but it was still pretty fun!
ristoretto
ristoretto1 May 2019, 21:58
Functional tetris game :) (maybe would add bag randomization, picks one of each piece before dropping the same again, or two bag, there are some variations out there (got like four squares in a row))

Feels like the pieces are too expensive, so can't afford them early and feels kinda stressed to look to the side and pick one in an emergence situation. Maybe if it was possible to buy extra useful blocks. or if some blocks never drop naturally (like line pieces).
Raphiell1 May 2019, 22:49
Well polished, and an amazing concept! I think there were too many controls though, maybe only have one available to buy at a time, and it changes periodically?

Overall, well done and very impressive!
Rheel1 May 2019, 23:30
Very nicely done! Thank you for allowing me to change the controls to something I'm used to, so I could actually play without forgetting what the controls are again. Buying a piece is a very nice addition, but maybe it would have been nice to make some pieces more expensive (the straight four is more useful than some others)? Overall I'm really impressed, and well done!

Small issue I wanted to add: the music seems to not loop correctly. It would loop a bit after the end, then start at the beginning again.
ryusui
ryusui2 May 2019, 00:43
Always a big fan of Tetris and of Love2D. As someone who's played a lot of Tetris 99 recently, though, I'll admit the lack of gamepad controls and hold mechanic, along with the slightly touchy gameplay, throws me off quite a bit. ^_^;
LiauJ
LiauJ2 May 2019, 01:21
Huh... it wasn't until after playing this game I realized that I rely heavily on the sound of the block hitting the bottom. That really made it hard, I don't know why.

I was just shy of the leaderboard too! I probably could have made better use of the piece purchasing, but towards the end it I had a difficult time juggling between watching the blocks and figuring out what to buy. I just suck at Tetris lol. It's a great game! Needs just a little more audio and visual feedback in my opinion.
davidsheadgames2 May 2019, 01:26
Definitely a functional version of Tetris. The loop for the music isn't quite right, though... Also, I don't enjoy the up to drop immediately (up usually rotates the piece in most versions of Tetris) and the buying mechanic kinda costs more than the piece feels worth (even the straight block) Having an online high score mechanic is cool though!

I found a bug where you could basically get free blocks by buying a block endlessly until death, then start the game again and have the purchased blocks. It doesn't do much though, as there appears to be a cap on how many blocks you can queue up at a time.

Nice work tho!
Valid
Validauthor2 May 2019, 01:48
@davidsheadgames Hey thank you for that feedback! If you aren't a fan of 'W' for hard fall, you can rebind them from the menu or the pause menu. Thank you for that bug, I will take a look into it :) Additionally, I plan to fix the music this weekend. Thanks!
Geckoo1337
Geckoo13372 May 2019, 20:59
TETRIS!!! This is an interesting use of theme. You did a good game under this tiny engine - I am very impressed by your work. I feel the same feelings with the original game. And the music, what can I say? Well done ++
nihilaleph2 May 2019, 22:43
Well, what can I say, it's Tetris! Only problems I have with it has already been said, like the music loop, the lack of hold and a bit touchy controls (or maybe I'm just not used to play it on keyboard anymore). Also really appreciate the leaderboard. Great work!
falak
falak3 May 2019, 10:12
Error

src/entities/grid.lua:314: attempt to index a nil value

Traceback

src/entities/grid.lua:314: in function 'rotate'
src/entities/grid.lua:100: in function 'update'
src/states/game.lua:18: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
...
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function
.\lib\boipushy\input.lua:61: in function 'update'
[C]: in function 'xpcall'

UPS!

Besides this one small error the game is really fun! I think it would be better if the block bought immediately replaces the falling block, but maybe it's just me. Good luck!
Valid
Validauthor3 May 2019, 20:24
@falak Hey, thats a new one! Thanks for finding that and including the stack trace. I'll take a peak into that this weekend. Thank you!
JoaoG
JoaoG3 May 2019, 23:03
I've always liked Tetris, and this one is great! The theme is really a bit difficult to debate and maybe you've run away from it a bit. Anyway the game is very good. I liked the attention to detail and the concern of the player to be comfortable with the controls, the ranking is a very welcome bonus. I'm glad that you guys have updated, I tried to play before and I came back because it's Tetris and I could not stop trying again xD

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