[HN Gopher] Fudge: Reverse Tetris
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       Fudge: Reverse Tetris
        
       Author : smarm
       Score  : 74 points
       Date   : 2023-07-14 23:04 UTC (23 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vividfax.itch.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vividfax.itch.io)
        
       | gigel82 wrote:
       | It's an interesting experiment; but way too frustrating to never
       | be able to get to a finish...
        
       | hinkley wrote:
       | And which one does this piece go in? That's right, the square
       | one!
        
       | 1letterunixname wrote:
       | Anyone remember Welltris, 2.5D Tetris?
       | 
       | There was a cottage Silicon Valley business that sold a mouse
       | input TSR for Welltris called "Mouse Commander" that did what it
       | says on the tin. The line drawn logo on the manual, that came in
       | a plastic bag with the diskette, was a mouse sitting on a tank
       | mixed with *tris elements. I can't find a single reference to it
       | on the web.
        
       | e_y_ wrote:
       | Interesting concept, but it feels like a distillation of the
       | "insanity" difficulty mode of a roguelike where the only way to
       | get a high (or low) score is to win the lottery. Repeatedly.
       | 
       | I'd echo liquidise's comment; some limited ability to rotate the
       | pieces would add strategy instead of just spamming the reroll
       | button and pattern-matching. The frequency that you're allowed to
       | use the ability could serve as a difficulty slider.
       | 
       | It doesn't even take that much interactivity to make a mostly
       | RNG-based game more fun; compare a basic slot machine to video
       | poker.
        
         | tomxor wrote:
         | Kind of agree.
         | 
         | The only strategy I could find was to not play pieces that make
         | compatible future pieces less likely, mainly by trying to keep
         | the surface as flat as possible, as soon as it gets real spikey
         | you are not really making progress due to probability.
         | 
         | But once you get down to a small numbers it's mostly pure luck.
         | Best I could do was 7, only way i'm getting a better score is
         | by rolling the dice a whole load of times more which I don't
         | feel incentivised to do because there's no skill left to
         | refine.
         | 
         | Maybe a tweak will make it skill based again.
        
       | z5h wrote:
       | I REALLY REALLY like this. This is gold. I'd buy a polished-up
       | version of this on iOS.
        
       | rmrfchik wrote:
       | Fun game. But it ate all of my RAM :(
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | graypegg wrote:
       | One small thing, clicking each block is a bit tedious. It would
       | make this feel a lot more effortless with two tweaks:
       | 
       | 1. Drag alone the blocks to mark them
       | 
       | 2. Select every block for me when it's unambiguous which
       | tetramino I'm trying to draw
       | 
       | So if I had                   [R]eroll  abcdef            x
       | xxxxxx 3            xx     xx xxx 2            x      x  xxx 1
       | xx           xx                xxxx
       | 
       | And I click on d1, you should immediately drop the box since it's
       | impossible to choose another tetramino (or another location of
       | box) that includes that cell, and would be a valid move. Same
       | goes for a3, since the only valid play would be that specific T.
       | 
       | However, if someone chose e1, since theres two different options
       | for a box in that space, (top left d2/bottom right e1 and top
       | left e2/bottom right f1) you have to wait till the second cell
       | selected (or third if they select upwards) to drop the box that
       | fits.
       | 
       | Does that make sense? It would just make play go a LOT faster.
        
       | gumby wrote:
       | Fun! This gets really hard at the end -- best I could get was to
       | 3.
        
       | gokaygurcan wrote:
       | My "lowest score" is 4 and there's literally no strategy possible
       | to finish this game without big chunk of luck. I think I'll keep
       | playing a few more hours but I don't see any way to beat that 4
       | tbh.
       | 
       | (if you managed to finish, again, it's pure luck, no strategy)
        
       | liquidise wrote:
       | This is a great concept that feels like it's about 80% there.
       | Some suggestions if the author is here/reading:
       | 
       | 1. I badly want the ability to rotate pieces. Perhaps it's too
       | strong to have this universally, but maybe i get 1-3 piece
       | rotations recharged on each Reroll?
       | 
       | 2. Having multiple of the same orientation piece isn't great, but
       | a few times i got 3 pieces in identical orientations. This is
       | really fun-sucking and i'd either code that case out or weight it
       | to be very unlikely.
       | 
       | 3. UX-wise it would be great to be able to hold my mouse down and
       | drag across pieces to highlight them instead of needing to click
       | on each block individually.
       | 
       | Feedback aside, i really love the concept here and think it's a
       | great first pass. Some UX improvements i think could make this a
       | really addicting game. Awesome job.
        
         | Tepix wrote:
         | Sometimes you really want two pieces in the same orientation.
         | Like when you're about to finish the game and you need two
         | horizontal lines...
        
         | jareklupinski wrote:
         | also, it should be a valid move to insert a t-block from the
         | side
        
       | Etherlord87 wrote:
       | I really like it. I've setup myself to win a few times so far,
       | but never got the right blocks to finish:
       | https://i.imgur.com/Sci8KEU.png Then again I didn't play it a
       | whole lot just a few minutes. I like how your score is the
       | minimum score, though considering that I almost finished it (luck
       | based), it's probably too easy.
        
       | kbutler wrote:
       | Didn't expect to like this, but enjoyed it.                 -
       | Mentioning that you can't rotate would have helped me get started
       | - I'd like to not have to "unclick" blocks to select others -
       | probably just a list of the last 4 selected, so you can change
       | your mind without going back       - And maybe a drag interface
       | would be helpful - either drag over the blocks to select, or drag
       | the shape to your desired location       - Something about the
       | graphic design of the edges of the blocks almost looks blurry to
       | me       - Would like a more achievable "clear board"/win
       | condition.  Maybe if there are no blocks below the top row or
       | possibly top two rows, could show the blocks that would appear
       | next?
       | 
       | Great job - got to 2 once, then back down to 3, then hit three
       | identical pieces, and said it was enough!
        
       | tomelders wrote:
       | I made an iOS game years ago along similar lines called "Block
       | Depot".
       | 
       | It was like a warehouse for Tetrominoes, where you'd get orders
       | and deliveries. So you had to get blocks out, and put blocks in.
       | 
       | Nobody played it.
        
       | epivosism wrote:
       | Very cool! Is there a reason I can't rotate the pieces? Also
       | being able to click and drag to draw a piece would be better than
       | clicking them one by one.
        
         | epivosism wrote:
         | Ah, I get it now. It's pretty fun!
        
           | epivosism wrote:
           | I got to 2. Towards the end it's somewhat random. The issue
           | of getting stuck with multiple copies of the same piece is
           | slightly annoying. Does the player need more control, to
           | raise the skill cap? Losing my entire state when hitting R
           | increases the randomness. If I had a true "next piece"
           | display I feel like there could be a version where I plan out
           | a long fun chain
        
             | awesomelvin wrote:
             | [dead]
        
             | OkayPhysicist wrote:
             | I also got to 2, though the closest I actually ever came to
             | winning was an eight made up of two tetrominoes, just not
             | the ones I needed.
        
       | ksherlock wrote:
       | Maybe it's just me but ... it starts out fun then it stops being
       | fun when there's only a line a few lines left. If the game ended
       | after 10 re-rolls or whatever, I would replay in the hope of
       | doing better next time. As it is, I have no interest in replaying
       | it.
        
       | dandanua wrote:
       | Too addictive. Got to 1.
        
         | MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
         | I got to 2. I was SOOO CLOSE to 0 but had the wrong shape.
        
       | butz wrote:
       | It's great when you can quickly try out some quirky little game
       | right in your browser.
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | I like the idea of the Tetris expanded universe. It is
       | interesting to see where the falling blocks are coming from, and
       | where they are going when they disappear. When you play Tetris
       | you are only playing in one part of a larger sequence of events.
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | It should lean into the 'fake' names given to the Tetris pieces
         | too like "orange ricky" and "smashboy", perhaps building a
         | whole backstory and explanation for such a funny idea:
         | https://kotaku.com/jeopardy-airs-a-hilariously-incorrect-bit...
        
       | alisonatwork wrote:
       | Great relaxing game for a hot Saturday night. I think the best
       | addition given that it already has fruit machine mechanics would
       | be a "hold" feature. This would add a bit more strategy at the
       | end when you have clusters of 2 or 3 blocks and you have a piece
       | that could be useful if the next random drops fall optimally in
       | that cluster.
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-15 23:02 UTC)