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Tetris v1.00 (C)1997 by Iain King ================================= /===================================================\ |This is Shareware - see bottom section for details.| \===================================================/ Why another version of Tetris? Who knows. I just wanted to see if I could make one, and also because I couldn't find a standard Tetris game. I've got Tetris Pro, but it has silly power ups (though the music is cool). So this is my attempt. This Tetris is programmed in Blitz Basic 2, which was made by those cool dudes at Acid software. Wahey! This program was tested on an A1200, because surprisingly enough, thats what I've got. It should run on any Amiga at full speed. It might not on a 500/500+/600, but I can't test it so tough. It should run fine, just maybe slower. N.B. I haven't implemented any music, mainly because music in games is usually really annoying, and if you want to listen to music, you stick your Hi-Fi on. If you want you can switch the sound fx off as well. I've integrated Tetris' sound control with your Television/Speakers. Simply turn the volume control on your respective device to 0 and the sound will stop itself until you turn the volume back up. Feel free to send me your palette's/block designs - if they're any good (lets face it - they'll be better then mine) I'll put them in the next release. ============================================================================ Contents First, a note on controls. How to play the thing The game of Tetris Then about the BlockDesign program Then about the Grabber program Then about the palette (changing it) Lastly some other stuff This is Giftware Files Bugs My addresses ============================================================================ Controls. -------- A joystick in port 1 (the joystick port) or the cursor keys may be used to control Tetris. In the menus <Fire> and <Return> activates. In game, <Fire>, <Up-Arrow> and <Right Shift> rotate the shape around Left/Right move shape left/right Down drops shape ============================================================================ How to play? ------------ After double clicking on tetris, a screen should open up at a menu, showing you four options: Start ----- Simple - starts the game Normal ------ This is showing that the difficulty is set at 'normal'. Hitting it will cycle it through 'normal' 'hard' and 'very hard' difficulty settings. The difficulties work like this: 'normal' Go up a level every 20 lines 'hard' Go up a level every 10 lines 'very hard' Go up a level every 05 lines 'impossible' Go up a level every 01 line Level ranges from 1 to 50, where fifty is ludicrously fast (block goes down a row every 1/50th of a second) There is a seperate score table for each level. Colour ------ Hitting this toggles it between 'colour' and 'black'. Switches the backdrop colour. 'colour' generally looks nicer, but 'black' offers higher contrast (and maybe a smaller headache from watching the screen to long). Quit ---- Saves high score table to current directory then quits ============================================================================ The game of Tetris ------------------ Once you hit start you're into Tetris properly. I'll briefly sum up what it's about for both of you who don't know. A randomly determined block appears at the top of the screen ( you can see what the next block is in the view window to the top-left). It will start moving downward, and you will be able to guide it left and right and rotate it. When the block reaches the bottom, or lands on top of another block, it will sit there and another block will appear at the top of the screen for you to control. This goes on until the screen is filled at which point its game over. BUT WAIT! The whole point is, that if you manage to lay the blocks so that an entire row is filled (i.e. a horizontal row with no gaps), it will disappear, and all the blocks above it will fall down into the space. So all you have to do is keep making lines to stay alive for as long as possible. Sounds simple don't it? :) A couple of hints: 1) If your block won't rotate, it's probably because there is something next to it stopping it : move it away from any obstacles 2) A block doesn't land the second it touches something below it - you can still slide it for a couple of moments. 3) because of 2, if you've left an overhang, you can slide a block under it to fill the gap. 4) The more lines you get at once, the more points you get for doing it, and there is a special bonus for completely clearing the screen. ============================================================================ The BlockDesign program ----------------------- Not everyone's tastes are the same (mine vary according to what day it is), so Tetris has an option that allows you to use a different set of blocks. The different sets of blocks are stored in the 'blocks/' sub directory, which should be in the same dir as the Tetris program. BlockDesign should also be in the same dir as the Tetris program. When you click on it it will pop up a file requester (in the blocks dir) asking you to select a blocks file. It should contain (to start with) something like: checked plain square torn marble stone These are the blocks supplied with Tetris Double clicking on one of these will copy it into the tetris.shapes file in the Tetris program directory, selecting the block set.* If, in the blocks dir there is also a relevant palette file for the block file you selected, this will also be copied to the Tetris program dir. I.E. if you select 'torn' and 'torn.pal' exists, then this will also be copied *. If you want to have a smaller installation, simply delete the blocks directory and the BlockDesign program, making sure you have a valid tetris.shapes file in the tetris program directory (run Tetris - if it works, you've got the file). The BlockDesign program is not a necessary file for tetris to work (see bottom bit for a list of necessary files) ============================================================================ The Grabber program ------------------- You may be thinking: Having the BlockDesign thingy is all very nice, but all his blocks are shit, and you'd basically be right (I am *not* a very good artist), but cheer up - you can draw your own blocks to use. In the Tetris program directory there should be a 'gfx' dir containing a tetris.iff picture file. This is a template, and what you should use to draw your own blocks. (It is actually the picture file that the 'plain' block set was grabbed off of). To create your own blocks, simply do this: 1) Load up DPaint (or whatever you use), with a screen format of 320x256x16 colours. The colours work like this: 0 Background 1 Block Shadows 2 Block Middle colour dark (can really be anything) 3 Block Middle colour light (ditto) 4 Block Highlight 6 Menu Text 7 Menu Shadow 8 Menu Highlight 10-14 Use as you want The palette on the tetris.iff file should give you an idea. See next section for more info on the palette. 2) Load up the tetris.iff file. You should see collection of 3d blocks. 3) Draw your designs. You should keep the same shape as the ones given, and its a good idea to keep the shapes with the 3d edges, as Tetris has some in built 3d stuff, and will act like the blocks are 3d even if they are not. *DO NOT MOVE THE BLOCKS ABOUT* Grabber needs the blocks to be in the correct position, and each row must all have the same leading vertical position. To avoid huge problems simply load tetris.iff and DO NOT MOVE THE BLOCKS - draw inside them. The easiest way to do this is to draw your design on the first block of each set, then using brush and rotate functions, paste it over the rest. It is possible to use the same brush for all the L shapes, ditto for the S shapes, by using the mirror function. Once you've done that, switch to a reserve screen and load up the gfx/borders.iff file. This is all the outlines of the shapes. Grab it as a brush, switch back to your picture, and paste it over your shapes - instant 3D! N.B. Blitz can't handle iff's that have been saved with a stencil, so don't. 4) Save your picture in the Tetris program dir, as something like 'myblocks.iff' 5) Run the Grabber program 6) In the first file requester select your picture file 'myblocks.iff' 7) In the second requester, it should automatically have opened into your 'blocks' directory. If not then find your blocks dir, then type in a filename at the prompt : this will be what your block set is called. 8) Grabber should load your picture, scan for the blocks, redisplay them. Once you hit the mouse, it will save them off to your chosen filename, then clear the screen and reload them. If they all appear OK on the screen it should have worked. Hit the mouse again to exit. N.B. grabber will also save your pictures palette to te relevant palette file in the blocks dir 9) Run BlockDesigner, and double click on you block set 10) Run Tetris and start a game - you should have your only little set off blocks. Aren't they nice? ============================================================================ Changing the palette -------------------- The colour info for Tetris is kept in the 'tetris.pal' file in the Tetris program dir. it looks like this: 0 Background 1 Block Shadows 2 Block Middle colour dark 3 Block Middle colour light 4 Block Highlight 5 White 6 Menu Text 7 Menu Shadow 8 Menu Highlight 9 Menu Text Highlight 10 Null 11 Null 12 Null 13 Null 14 Null 15 Menu Background Highlight You cannot set colours 5,9,15 as they are reset by the program. You can edit all the rest. You can do his easily enough - just load the palette file into DPaint (or whatever) and change the values, then save. There is a file: 'palette.iff' that displays a menu and a block - handy for designing your palette. NOTE ---- Some (all) of the blocks in the blocks dir have .pal palette files. BlockDesign will copy these over onto tetris.pal as well as the actual shape file. Either delete the block.pal files, or change them instead of the tetris.pal file, or keep a backup of your palette in the defaults directory. If you manage to loose your blocks/palette, the default ones are in the defaults directory - simply copy them across. ============================================================================ Other stuff ----------- OK. First, Tetris is Shareware. If you play it a lot (which hopefully lots of you will), you should send be some money. 5 pounds sterling (8 dollars I think) sounds about right to me for the phase reversal that resulted from writing this (I ended up awake/asleep in the wrong 12-hour cycle). You can send the money to the address below. Please support Shareware, as some people will stop writing cool stuff if you don't. The files you have should be: Tetris Tetris.info Tetris.doc Tetris.doc.info BlockDesign BlockDesign.info Grabber Grabber.info tetris.shapes chars.shapes tetris.pal sfx/ BassDrum2 Ohman FallingPiano thunder defaults/ tetris.shapes tetris.pal gfx/ tetris.iff palette.iff borders.iff blocks/ checks checks.pal plain plain.pal squares squares.pal torn torn.pal marble marble.pal stone stone.pal If they aren't there then they SHOULD BE! Here is a list of the files that Tetris *needs* to run Tetris tetris.pal tetris.shapes char.shapes sfx/ BassDrum2 Ohman FallingPiano thunder Of course, I wouldn't recommend deleting the docs or the icon for Tetris. A list of credits here: ----------------------- Programming and graphics were all done by me: Iain King The 'Torn' block design was based on the blocks in Tetris Pro, done by: Art The marbling texture for the 'marble' blocks was off: the A on the AF Photogenics coverdisk (so thanks to Amiga Format) Ohman taken from MotherLode, which was written by: Some cool bloke (I can't find the disk - sorry) Thunder taken from 'The Dark', a totally excelent mod by Nico Arianoutsos Bugs ---- There is a bug with the keyboard - it occasionally locks up. I'm 99% sure that this is Blitz's fault and not mine, so don't bother telling me about this one. If it severely annoys you then a) pretend its a random difficulty enhancer, or b) use the (eurch) joystick Grabber has some strange little bug in it. The shapes generated will still work, but during play you might notice gaps between blocks on the horizontal connection (one block atop another). Haven't got a clue whats doing it, probably the fact that Grabber is just a flung together morph of an earlier grabber I had made to catch sprites for a different game. If your desparate, you can either (if there good blocks) send the piccy of them to me, or get a hold of the Blitz Basic 'shapesmaker'. Blitz has been released a couple of times on Amiga Format in a run-only version (no creating executables), but all that you would need is the program in the tools drawer called 'shapesmaker'. You might look for a back issue. You could also look on the 'net. Obviously I can't include someone else's commercial program here, but other people might have. Remember and save the palette if your doing it this way. I get really happy if people report bugs to me, so please do. My address ---------- I can be reached through lots of places (2 at least): If your sending stuff, then this is the address: Blairs Croft Creetown Newton Stewart Scotland DG8 7DF Bugs reports can go there too, but more preferable is my email address, which is: iking@cs.strath.ac.uk And if you want you can check out my web site (it's got some other Amiga stuff I made on it) at: http://www.strath.ac.uk/~aeu95140/ Have fun!