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For the past few weeks, I have been going over the Tetris game modes that appeared over the years. So far, I have covered, marathon, 2P, Sprint, Tetris 99, and classic Tetris. Today, I’ll be covering the remaining game modes, N-Block, party mode, and one I forgot about earlier, ultra.

As I have stated in my last blog, this game mode is my least favourite. Unlike other classic or modern Tetris game modes, this one falls some where in the middle. The game mode has features like holding and hard drop, features present in modern versions of Tetris. However, lacks other features such as ghost blocks. The game mode even holds characteristics of classic Tetris, being its sluggish feel and Tetraminos to stick together like glue. All of these quirks make Tetris feel weird to play, for me anyways. Most of the time, I go into a game of N-Block with the mind set of classic Tetris. If your don’t have a good feel for the board or your build, you can easily make a mistake with the hard drop. Most of the time, I resort to holding down the soft drop instead. 

On the other hand, there is party mode, which is a staple in any modern multiplayer Tetris game. I find this game mode very chaotic but fun. Most of the time, party mode plays very similarly to 2P. However, the changes made to party mode feel very different. Usually, there are more than one opponent. Like 2P your objective is to be the last one standing while sending garbage to top others out. What makes party mode feel so different are the power ups. During the game, you can collect power us which can positively affect you, or negatively affect other players. The power ups very from game to game, but the general concepts of certain powers are wide spread. For example in every Tetris game that’s has a party mode, there is always a blinding power up in some shape or from. In Tetris friends, the blinding power up results in a completely black screen for a few seconds. While in Puyo Puyo Tetris you can still see a portion of the screen every few seconds, but this effect lasts longer than its Tetris friends counterpart. Unfortunately, sometimes the power ups feel to broken or don’t do anything. In Tetris friends, there is a power up which can clear up a messy build in an instant making it very powerful. However, there is also a power up that increases fall speed of the pieces for opponents and that is it. For any advance Tetris player, this effect might not as well exist. For me, this game mode can be very varied between games. All of these traits make the game just alright. 

Finally, there is ultra mode. I like to think this game mode is the counterpart to sprint. In sprint, you try to clear 40 lines as fast you can, while in ultra you gain as many points as you can in a certain amount of time. If you are clearing for lines in sprint, then you clear of points in ultra. All of this leads player to try building a tall build and use back to back Tetris to collect the most points. However, when comparing sprint and ultra together, I honestly prefer sprint. Sprint is more widespread than ultra and it skill are transferable across game modes. I think ultra can be a fun addition game mode but isn’t necessary.

Out of these three, I believe ultra is my favourite. I find enjoyment in all Tetris games I play, but unfortunately, I find not all Tetris game modes are made equal. Overall, I have had a lot of fun talking about the Teris game modes over the past four weeks.

For the next few weeks, I will be talking about the remaining Tetris game mode I forgot about in my last blog. Some notable game modes that I forgot about were classic Tetris, N-Block Tetris, and Party mode. I decided to only focus on classic Tetris this week instead of multiple game mode, because of how much there is to cover. From how classic Tetris differs from future iterations to DAS and hyper tapping, there is a lot to talk about. 

Classic Tetris has such a long history, it goes by many names. I like to call it classic Tetris while others call it Tetris 1989, the year it was introduced. Generally, this game mode refers to one of the first versions in Tetris. At first glance, it may seem like this game mode is just like marathon but they are very different. Unlike certain versions of marathon, classic Tetris has a definitive end. After reaching a certain number of points the game can’t add anymore, practically making it pointless to play any further. Most people in the community call this a Max Out. Alternatively, if you don’t get a Max Out in a certain amount of lines, you’ll reach the kill screen. Basically, when you advance a level, the fall speed of tetraminos increase. The kill screen is just the level were the pieces fall so fast anyone who Isn’t a hyper tapper will top out.

In Tetris, there are two different ways people move their pieces in the game. The first group, the most common, are the players who use DAS. DAS or delay auto shift is when you hold down left or right and the pieces moves in that direction. The inherent problem with DAS is the delay part in its name. When you initially hold down the left or right button, the effects aren’t immediate. There is a small window of time where the piece just won’t move at all. DAS players circumvent this by holding down a button before the pieces appears on screen. Anyone who wants to play at the competitive level needs to master this timing of button pressing. On the other hand, there are the hyper tappers. Hyper tapping is an innate ability that can’t really be learned. Compared to using DAS, you do the complete opposite. Instead of holding down the button, you rapidly press it. Using this method effectively removes that window of time where a piece doesn’t move in DAS. Honestly, if you just compare the two play styles, hyper tapping is just better. However, this does not mean DAS players are bad by any means. In fact, the world champion of Tetris for seven years before got dethroned in 2018 was a DAS player. 

Classic Tetris also is unique in its piece generation. In modern Tetris, all versions rotate through a cycle of pieces insuring you get a long bar in a certain period of time. Classic Tetris on the other hand doesn’t have this, and pieces are generated completely at random. With this system in place, a player can go a hundred lines without being able to get a Tetris. As a direct result of this, players end up needing to clear lines that aren’t Tetris to keep them from topping out and wells open. When a person clears lines to keep their wells open, people generally call this burning. The name came around because you are essentially burning line you could use to get a Tetris. The whole situation also Isn’t helped by the fact you can’t hold. In most versions of modern Tetris, you can save a piece for later use. Unfortunately, this feature is seemingly absent from all versions of classic Tetris. Another missing feature depending on the version, is the list of what tetraminos you will get. At best you’ll get to see you next four pieces and at worst one. The icing on the cake that is classic Tetris, is that pieces instantly connects. All of these things make classic Tetris a cruel game mode to anyone who is used to modern Tetris. 

Overall, classic Teris is a game mode I don’t often play because of its difficulty. However, classic Tetris is surprisingly not my least favourite game mode. Despite all of the perks that disappear when you jump from modern Tetris to classic Tetris, it’s still fun. Compared to modern Tetris, classic Tetris moves at a much slower pace. If I want slow game or if I feel like it, a round of classic Tetris is always nice. Instead, the honour of least favourite game mode goes to N-Block Tetris, which will be the next game mode I cover.

This week, I will be talking about Tetris 99. I’ll be talking about its gameplay and my thoughts of the game. 

Unlike other player vs player Tetris games that contain a bunch of gimmicks, Tetris 99 is pretty straight forward. The main menu is pretty bland with only two options, playing a round or looking at your stats. If you decided to play a game, you will be put into a waiting room with 99 other players. Once 99 players join, the match begins. At the start of the round you can choose four mode that will determine where your lines go, random, medals, knock out, and attacker. Random does what it says and matches you up with random people. Medals is a lot more unique compared to the other three, because it is a Tetris 99 exclusive. Basically if you knock out a player, you gain medals that will boost how much points you earn and if you knock out a player with medals already, you gain their medals. So if you choose medals, you target people with a large amount of medals. Knock out mode makes it you target players on the verge of death, making it easier to knock them out. The final mode is attacker, and this mode makes you target the player in first place. By default, the system has you set to random, but you can change it to suit your play style. Once you know who you’re targeting, the game begins. For the most part, the game is quite lax during the first few lines. However, the difficulty ramps up twice during the game. The first difficulty spike occurs when only 50 players remain and the second when there is 10. Depending on what score you get, you will gain a set certain amount of points for your account. Generally, the higher the level, the more likely you’ll be targeted by other people.

So far, I really love and dislike the game at times. First is the menu, I honestly don’t mind the straight forward approach the developers decided to go with. The reason for this is it makes finding a match a breeze. Forcing everyone to play one game mode makes the waiting less than two minutes most of the time, which is not something I can say for every game. Sometimes I wish there were some added features like room creation or allowing you to play with friends. Another feature I would have liked is a worldwide leaderboard. Right now, all you can do is compare scores with others who have the game. As for the gameplay, I find the actual Tetris experience fine. My problem is with the targeting, I honestly find it very inconsistent. Sometimes, you could have no one sending lines to you while other times, there can be five people trying make get you top out. I also would complain about the controls but this is more of a switch problem, and not a Tetris 99 problem. It’s just the way the buttons are placed and lack of d-pad makes quick pace play hard. So far, I’ve only manage to win one game, get second four times, and third once. I find this quite sad seeing as I’m the best Tetris player out of my group of friends. Although, I may be able to chalk up my lack of skill due to the ergonomics. Perhaps in the future, I will invest in a pro controller or a keyboard adapter. 

In the end, I enjoy the game quite a bit. It also helps that it’s free and only needs Nintendo’s subscription service, which is something most people already have. The different modes are cool, getting Tetris is still fun, and getting top ten always makes me happy. Overall, I like the game a lot and hope to win more games in the future. 

This week, I will be talking all the Tetris modes I play and why. Normally when people think of Tetris, they think of a variation of Marathon. Of course I’ll be talking about the most common game mode, but there are plenty more to talk about!

First is the most common game mode and personal favourite, Marathon. A normal game of Tetris, will likely be Marathon to most people. In this game mode, there are no power ups or hidden features by default. The blocks fall, you place them, they get faster as the game progress. The most differences I find in Marathon between different websites or consoles is how the game ends. Normally you lose the game if you top out, but the game can also end after a certain level. One of the reasons I stopped using the website Tetris Friends is because of this level limit. Compared to the current website I play Tetris on, Tetris Friends only goes up to level 15. When I first started, this level seemed like a pipe dream but now it’s kind of casual to me, being able to finish a round one handed. If you also take it to the next level, Tetris Friends rewards a certain type of play style. In Tetris people usually score in two ways, back to back Tetris’s and T-spins. Tetris’s are easier to get but T-spins earn more points. In the end, the top players are the ones who can cram as many triple T-spins they can before hitting level 15. Alternatively, there are the websites that go on endlessly increasing in speed every level until it is physically impossible to play. The current website I use is Tetris.com, which increases the level limit and speed from Tetris Friends. The website also lets you jump levels so you don’t have to play 15 levels just to get to level 16. So far, I’ve only barely been able to get to level 25, which is the highest level you are able to jump to. 

Another common game mode I see is Sprint. However, depending on the website the name could be different. Fortunately the goal of the game is the same, to clear 40 lines as fast as possible. Sprint also doesn’t use a point system. Meaning a single is worth just as much as a Tetris, being zero points. Besides playing against the clock and using no points, it doesn’t have anything else too defining. Back in Tetris Friends, my friends and I would compete to earn the lowest time (This being after hitting our limits in both Marathon and 2P). However, now most of my friends don’t play and I occasionally see if I can top my own record, being around sub 1.30.00. 

Finally, the last game mode I will be talking about is 2P. I call this game mode 2P but it is essentially the game mode that pits you against bots are varying level. Basically, most of the time you build and clear lines to send to your opponent. In order to send lines, you must clear at least two lines at once. On your opponents screen, the sent lines will appear as grey blocks boosting their build several lines, which may or may not cause them to top out. When my friends and I use to play Tetris regularly, this was are favourite game mode. We use to see who could have a highest win ratio. However, we stopped due the the difficulty of the bots become too hard. 

Overall, I have played a lot of Tetris game modes. However after all this time, my favourite remains modern Marathon. There of course many other game modes expanding beyond these three, an example being classic Tetris. Unfortunately, if I were to do a comprehensive list, this blog would be far too long. In the end, I may come back and expand on my explanations of Tetris game modes. 

This week, I will be talking about the courses I have this semester. Compared to my last semester, this one is a lot more heavy. Last time, I had a lot of electives. However, this time, I have Math, Science, Food and Nutrition, and English. I’ll explain what we have done so far and my opinion of them.

So far in English, we haven’t done that much. It doesn’t help that we had a snow day and a supply in one week. We’ve looked at some literacy devices and plot graphs. Both of these things aren’t new to us and are just review. From what I could gather, I apparently got one of the better English teachers. As to what I’m looking forward to, it would likely be Macbeth. Apparently it a Shakespearian play that revolves around a king and rebellions. I am generally interested in these kinds of things outside of school and invest a bit of time learning about history through the internet.

Compared to English, our Science teacher is trying to move us at a fast pace. However, he has his reasons for this. Apparently, a lot of assemblies occur during the second period and he has a lot of material to cover. I guess this holds some truth considering we already had two assemblies during the second period. So far, we have been looking at cells. Specifically organelles of a cell and cell division. Out of all my courses, I believe my Science teacher gave me the most homework so far. All in all, the course isn’t that bad. I have some friends with me and the teacher seems nice.

After lunch, I have Food and Nutrition. Apparently, this course is supposed to teach us cooking but that hasn’t happened yet. Out of all my courses, this one feels like its moving at snail’s pace. We have barely done anything over the course of the week. We played some get to know you activities for two days, then a snow day occurred, had a supply, and we finally started doing something productive on Friday! Honestly, food and nutrition reminds me of tech class in grade 9. At least, we learned and food safety…

Finally, my last class is Math. So far, the pace we have been moving at is in between English and Science. Unfortunately, I have heard pretty bad things about my teacher. Fortunately, nothing has happened to make me dislike my teacher yet. So far we have just been reviewing topics from grade 9, making everything feel very lax. However, I got the feeling things will be picking up quickly and I need to stay on my toes.

Overall, I have a really heavy semester this time around. I get the feeling Science and Math, are going to be the hardest of the four. Food and Nutrition is a bit too lax in my opinion and I hope we get to do some cooking soon. As for English, I just want to pass the OSSLET. In the end, despite my heavy workload, I hope to have as much fun as I did last semester!

This week, I will bet talking about my media arts ISU. I’ll be talking about what I created, how I created it, and my goals for the project.

The art work I created was a short 2 minute animation. In the animation, it shows a girl walking to a cafe only to lose her wallet. She spends most of the animation looking for her wallet. Eventually, she finds her wallet, buy some coffee, and the animation ends. The title of the animation is “The Missing Wallet”. I chose the name because that is the main focus of the plot. Some obvious elements in the animation is movement and colour. H

I created my art using photoshop and iMovie. In photoshop, I started by creating the girl. From there, I used frame animation to make minor changes. Using frame animations, I achieved blinking, arm movement, hair movement, and the illusion of walking. After creating a scene in photoshop, I moved exported the clips to iMovie. Once I had all my clips in iMovie, I added sound and transitions to make the animation scenes flow.

Some my main goal of this project, was to create a 2 minute or more animation, do it in an anime art style, and make sure the animation flows. Thankfully, my artwork met all my goals. Initial stages, I was panicking slightly. I barely had the first scene done, I couldn’t see how long my animation was, and the scenes in photoshop looked choppy. However, once I put all the scenes together, I believe I have achieved most of my goals.   
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Overall, I have learned many things from this project. I have learned how to use more tools in photoshop like the guidelines or how to mirror object. However, I have learned from many mistakes from messing up countless times. If I were to do a similar project, I believe I could do it much faster and possibly even better. In the end, the project is not what I imagined it to be, but it is close enough to satisfy me.

This week, I will be talking about the speaker I made as my final project in period 3. I’ll explain how I made the project and my overall thoughts on the piece.

First, we created a rough draft that will be the basic design for the speaker. For my rough draft, I drew a hexagon shaped speaker with a stand. Unfortunately, some ideas never followed through due to time restraints. Once we had our rough draft, we chose our wood. I ended up going with an assortment of different hardwood for the front, and pine for the middle and back. Unfortunately, I need to change my design because there weren’t enough pieces. After choosing the wood, I found two other classmates and started gluing our pieces.

While we waited for the glue to dry, another classmate and I began working on the back. Since we didn’t have enough hardwood, we used pine. With the squad piece of pine in hand, we then cut it in half for my classmate and I. On my own, I then used the table saw and miter saw to get the wood to the correct dimensions. I then spent a larger chunk of time at the planer, getting the back to a reasonable size.

After my back was fully cut to size, I began to cut the strips I would be using for the interior and middle. Since I had some leftover hardwood after squaring the piece, I used strips of hardwood the two most visible edges. Once again, my design changed at this point. The strips of the hardwood weren’t long enough, so my hexagon design turned into an octagon. At this point a break from the middle to cut the speaker holes in my front. Once I located the center of my holes, we moved to the drill press to make them. From this point I went to the router table beside it, to make the edges of the recently cut hole smooth. With a fully completed front, I turned my attention back to the middle. When I had my two strips of hardwood, I then moved to the band saw to cut the rest of the middle. The most challenging part when making the middle was definitely cutting some of the smaller pieces. After cutting the exterior of the middle, I began cutting the pieces for interior channels. First, I cut out the pieces that would allow my phone to rest in the speaker without falling through it. This process required three parts, being two rectangles and an L shaped piece. The reason for the excessive amount of material was the need for a small gap so the sound could reach the channels below it. From that point, I began working of the rest of the interior. To make sure I wouldn’t interfere with any of the holes, I traced them using the front as a reference.

Once I had the basic layout of my middle, I started the gluing process. This step obviously entails the use of clamps, the wooden strips, back, and glue. The reason I chose to clamp each piece individually, was the fear of having several interior pieces move, ruining the channels. However, the time restraint caught up with me, and I clamped everything together, back, middle, and front, even though pieces were still drying. Once the piece was strong enough not to fall apart, I took it to the miter saw and table saw to square it. After the piece was squared, I used the miter saw to cut the angles, creating the final shape of the speaker. When the final shape was finally cut, I moved back to the router table so I could have a nice edge all around my piece. I then began the long tedious process of sanding. After sanding with the 400 grit sandpaper, I applied the poly using a brush. After applying two coats of poly and sanding with the 900 and 100 grit sandpaper, I applied the wax using a paper towel. Finally, I used another piece of paper towel to buff the piece. At that point, the speaker was fully assembled.

Overall, I’m really proud of my speaker. I used all the skills I learned over the year and I felt this was a good summative. I think the speaker looks good and look forward to using it. In the end, the speaker was a good way to wrap up the semester. I hope to make something again in the near furture.

This week, I will be talking about Puyo Puyo Tetris. I will talk about the games features, gameplay, and how I feel about it. On the switch, there are two versions of Tetris. There is Puyo Pyuo and classic Tetris. I ended up getting Puyo Puyo because it was more modern and I feel like I’m getting a lot more out of it. Unlike classic Tetris, Puyo Puyo is a crossover between Puyo and Tetris. Honestly, I think most people bought the game for Tetris because that’s what I see on youtube. I won’t be explaining what Tetris is, because I think most people know about it. Puyo, on the other hand, is much more interesting. Instead of creating lines with tetraminos, you connect jelly in groups of four or more. The jellies appear in groups of two, fall like tetraminos, and if you play with other people, they can block your build. I think Puyo is interesting, but I wouldn’t play it in a serious game. For example, another player. There is also a story mode you can play. However, I don’t really care about the story, but each level has a goal to reach within a time limit. For example, one level could have you clear 30 Tetris lines in 2 minutes. Each level has a star rating ranging from 1 to 3. To get a star you need to fulfill extra objective or go above and beyond what the normal task was. Ironically in my game, all the Tetris levels are 3 stars while the Puyo ones are at one.

As for gameplay, I find it alright. After playing a few rounds of marathon, I find this version of Tetris leans more towards perfect clears. It doesn’t really affect me in a big way, and I won’t be changing my play style to get more points. However, there is one thing that really bothers me and that’s the controls. The Switch by defaults uses the analog stick, which is terrible. What I mean is, the analog stick works fine, but it’s not meant for Tetris. At higher levels especially 14 and 15, it is really easy to miss drop with the analog stick. In the end, I usually use the arrow keys, instead of the analog stick. Unfortunately, this creates new problems. Most notably, the grip. If I want to play with the arrows keys, I need to hold my left hand lower than my right. Doing this makes holding (Tetris feature not actually holding) harder and playing uncomfortable.

Overall, I find the game really fun. I always liked Tetris and being able to play it on the Switch makes me very happy. The Puyo aspect of the game also intrigues me and I hope to play more of it. As I have stated before, the only thing that bothers me is the grip. Perhaps in the future I will invest in a more ergonomic controller. I guess it would be nice to play online, but I’m not paying for a subscription. In the end, I really enjoy Puyo Puyo Tetris and will continue to play it. 

This week, I will be talking about Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. MHGU was one of two games I bought for the Nintendo Switch. MHGU is a single player RPG, so it’s very similar to games like Skyrim. When you first start the game, you create your character. The first thing I noticed was alright graphics. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. It looks similar to an upscaled SWTOR game in my opinion. In terms of story, this game has next to none of it. The best you get is a semi-tutorial. I say semi-tutorial because they don’t explain the crafting, Palicos, movement, fighting mechanics, etc. I didn’t even know how to sprint until I played around with the controls with a bit. However, I looked into this and apparently most MH games are like this with the exception of MHW. I’m kind of disappointed that there is no real story, but that wasn’t the main reason I bought the game.

Instead of a story, you get to take on quests. These quests can range from gathering materials to hunting giant monsters. From the monsters, you can collect rare material, which can be used for creating armors and weapons. I was actually overwhelmed by the weapon system at first. In the game, there are over 10 weapon classes, and each class has a wide range of weapons. Suffice to say, there are a lot of options in terms of weapon customization, something I enjoy. However, my favorite piece of equipment are the Palicos. Palicos are basically bipedal cats, that are very cute. If you didn’t know already, I’m a cat person. Overall, I really like this games selection of equipment.

So far, I haven’t played as much as I would have liked. In terms of how far I have progressed, I’m still in the beginning stages of the game. The quests are generally ranked by stars, ranging from 1 to 7. I’m still doing 2-star quests, so I haven’t fought any big monsters yet. However, from the youtube videos of people hunting, it looks very exciting.

In the end, I really like the game so far. MHGU has a lot of weapons, armor, and cats to choose from. In the future, I would like to reach the coveted G rank, which are special quests above the 7 stars. Maybe in the future, I will get MHW. They say the experience is very different but the core gameplay is the same. Overall, I want to continue playing MHGU and don’t regret the buy.

This week, I will talk about my new console, the Nintendo Switch. I will be talking about the games I bought with it, and why I bought the console in the first place.

First, I had several reasons for purchasing the Nintendo Switch. One of them is just getting a new console. Over the past couple of months, I contemplated getting a new console. The reason for this was that our old Xbox 360 doesn’t support the new games. Around the time of the introduction of the Xbox One, Microsoft and other companies stopped making games for the old console. The reason for this was probably to move on with the time, but now I couldn’t play any of the new games, which required new hardware.

I could have bought the Xbox One. However, the Switch also has some appealing features which I will explain. One, the Switch was portable. If you live with me for any amount of time, you will quickly realize I like to spend a lot of time on my room. Since the Switch is portable, I can bring it with me without needing to set up a tv, speakers, etc. Two, some of my other friends have the Switch. From what I can tell, most people in our school have PS4, then the Switch, and finally the Xbox One. Almost nobody has the Xbox One and none of my close friends have a PS4.

Secondly, I will talk about the games I bought for the switch and why. I bought 2 initial games. The first game was Moster Hunter Generations Ultimate, which I will refer to as MHGU from now on. MHGU was actually one of the many games I wanted to get. However, with how little money I had, I need to choose one. The main premise of the games is to hunt giant monsters, but I will go into deeper detail when this game gets its own blog. The second game I bought was Touhou Kobuto V. Will admit this game was kind of an impulse buy, but I don’t regret it. It also only costed $25, which when compared to the $80 of the popular games, isn’t much. Suffice to say, I don’t regret getting the console or the games. However, there is one game that Isn’t owned by me which I play quite often. The game in question being Puyo Puyo Tetris. Out of all the games, I probably spent the second most amount of time playing Tetris. However, I didn’t purchase it, daddy did. When I first decided to get this console, I decided I would pay for it with my own money. Then daddy offered to subsidize some amount of money for the console, but I refused. The reason for this Isn’t because I want to keep the console to myself, but instead have insurance. Unlike my phone or my laptop, I wanted full control over the Switch. Unfortunately, since Tetris was downloaded off the eStore, my control over the Switch has been compromised. In the future, I will most like give daddy the 45 something dollars to pay off the Tetris game.

Overall, I enjoy my new Switch. I don’t regret buying any of the games and look forward, to playing with my friends. I find it nice to own a device that I have full reign over without any pull from anyone else. In the end, I hope to get all the games I wanted, but that’s going to take some time.