Tetris 99 notes
Tuesday, June 9th, 2020 17:58![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zimenaI've been playing Tetris 99 for a bit again. It's still an amazing game, and I wish I could play it more... but I've learnt that I have to be careful with it, as it tends to leave me feeling achy and ill if I spend too much time with it in one go. There are a few reasons for this, let's see:
* Annoying background music: I'd take the "real" Tetris song (you know the one!) over this nagging electronica any time. Well, I actually quite love the "old" Tetris music. This, though? Needs a setting to turn off the background music, while keeping the sound effects on. Sadly, there is no such thing. I turn the volume down as much as I can, while still being able to hear the "useful" sounds comfortably, but the music is still grating.
* Techno graphics style: The game has a lot of blinking points everywhere. The graphics style fits right in with the music. Even if you're focused on your own board (and tetrominoes are nice enough to look at), you will always see a lot of movement at the edge of your vision - other players' boards, targeting shifts, target lines showing which players are targeting you with garbage etc.
* Focus, focus, focus: If you play regular Tetris in Marathon mode, it's mostly a relaxing activity, at least until the pieces start to fall too fast (or until you screw up and need to work your board back into shape after nearly losing?). Tetris 99 is completely different, and your mind has to be in focus mode right from the start. If not, you can have a board that looks perfectly nice in the part that you built up yourself, but you will still lose quickly from having garbage lines sent your way.
I'm sure other people can tolerate this better than I do, but I've learnt that I need to play the game a little at a time. Too much of it WILL result in headaches and muscle pains due to staying focused and strained for too long.
I know I sound overly negative now, because I started with the negative things... but I actually really enjoy playing this game. It's great to be able to compete at Tetris in this way, and it feels really nice to make a good result. Unfortunately, the second place I got some time last summer is still my best result ever, but I did a few 5th/6th places recently, and I hope to improve on them now that I'm playing again (I had stopped for a long time after last summer, due to the things mentioned above).
Also, tactics: I've found that it's important to remain "uninteresting" to the other players at the beginning of the game. Preferably, avoid having people sending garbage your way from the off. If you are being targeted at the beginning, it might be because the person YOU are targeting has "targeting attackers" on. If so, move your target manually until you find someone who isn't targeting you back. If you get multiple people targeting you from the off, briefly target attackers to show them that you're aware, then move your target manually again in order to possibly scare them off. This does not always work, but it helped me a lot of times.
Another thing to be aware of, is that combos count in this game. If you can make a Tetris, and then clear one or two more lines with your next piece, then CLEAR THOSE LINES. Do not use the next pieces to build up your next 3-4 line clearance. Clear them even if they're just one or two lines, for as long as you can keep doing so.
By the way, garbage sent your way from other players is not always just garbage. If you get sent multiple lines from the same player, garbage that got sent together will fit together. In other words: there may be easy tetrises in your garbage lines. For that reason, it's important to keep your board as "even" as possible. Avoid making a tower of S/Z-pieces, for example. If your board is even enough, you won't have to clear large amounts of it to get to that long piece-shaped hole in your garbage, directly underneath your own building.
There are probably more things I wanted to mention about the tactics, but it escaped my mind right now. I might come back with more notes on this as I play more, though.
* Annoying background music: I'd take the "real" Tetris song (you know the one!) over this nagging electronica any time. Well, I actually quite love the "old" Tetris music. This, though? Needs a setting to turn off the background music, while keeping the sound effects on. Sadly, there is no such thing. I turn the volume down as much as I can, while still being able to hear the "useful" sounds comfortably, but the music is still grating.
* Techno graphics style: The game has a lot of blinking points everywhere. The graphics style fits right in with the music. Even if you're focused on your own board (and tetrominoes are nice enough to look at), you will always see a lot of movement at the edge of your vision - other players' boards, targeting shifts, target lines showing which players are targeting you with garbage etc.
* Focus, focus, focus: If you play regular Tetris in Marathon mode, it's mostly a relaxing activity, at least until the pieces start to fall too fast (or until you screw up and need to work your board back into shape after nearly losing?). Tetris 99 is completely different, and your mind has to be in focus mode right from the start. If not, you can have a board that looks perfectly nice in the part that you built up yourself, but you will still lose quickly from having garbage lines sent your way.
I'm sure other people can tolerate this better than I do, but I've learnt that I need to play the game a little at a time. Too much of it WILL result in headaches and muscle pains due to staying focused and strained for too long.
I know I sound overly negative now, because I started with the negative things... but I actually really enjoy playing this game. It's great to be able to compete at Tetris in this way, and it feels really nice to make a good result. Unfortunately, the second place I got some time last summer is still my best result ever, but I did a few 5th/6th places recently, and I hope to improve on them now that I'm playing again (I had stopped for a long time after last summer, due to the things mentioned above).
Also, tactics: I've found that it's important to remain "uninteresting" to the other players at the beginning of the game. Preferably, avoid having people sending garbage your way from the off. If you are being targeted at the beginning, it might be because the person YOU are targeting has "targeting attackers" on. If so, move your target manually until you find someone who isn't targeting you back. If you get multiple people targeting you from the off, briefly target attackers to show them that you're aware, then move your target manually again in order to possibly scare them off. This does not always work, but it helped me a lot of times.
Another thing to be aware of, is that combos count in this game. If you can make a Tetris, and then clear one or two more lines with your next piece, then CLEAR THOSE LINES. Do not use the next pieces to build up your next 3-4 line clearance. Clear them even if they're just one or two lines, for as long as you can keep doing so.
By the way, garbage sent your way from other players is not always just garbage. If you get sent multiple lines from the same player, garbage that got sent together will fit together. In other words: there may be easy tetrises in your garbage lines. For that reason, it's important to keep your board as "even" as possible. Avoid making a tower of S/Z-pieces, for example. If your board is even enough, you won't have to clear large amounts of it to get to that long piece-shaped hole in your garbage, directly underneath your own building.
There are probably more things I wanted to mention about the tactics, but it escaped my mind right now. I might come back with more notes on this as I play more, though.
