jason_m wrote:
Tetramino has the usual Tetris clone behavior when a any block goes off the top even off to the side, game ends.
Top out when a block is in row 21. As I understand it, Tetяis (by Atari Games/Tengen), The New Tetris, and Tetris DS Push all use this rule.
Quote:
The Licensed Tetris version will not end the game quite so fast .... only when the top area is completly filled with blocks.
Top out when entry position overlaps a block. Most recent "guideline" games use this, such as Tetris Worlds and Tetris DS standard. So do the (older) games where the piece enters inside the playfield, such as Tetris (NES), Tetris (GB), and Tetris The Grand Master.
When I developed Tetramino, I wasn't aware of the
vanish zone that appears to be part of
the guideline by now. Right now, the display code puts the (decimal converted) score and lines where the vanish zone should be. But if I were making Tetramino today, I would use 24 rows with the top four hidden, and the score in a separate buffer. That's what Lockjaw uses, but then Lockjaw runs on GBA hardware, which has much more video memory bandwidth than the NES PPU, and it doesn't have two playfields to update.