It also means that I can never slow my pace, as a momentary lapse could mean game over. It’s a nightmarishly fast way to get knocked out. If I’m unlucky and can’t fend off the flood of garbage blocks, my entire board can fill up in an instant with one attack. This of course, is never easy - it is Tetris after all. As this meter fills up, I need to shift gears and try to clear as many lines as possible to counter the attack. Grey blocks mean I have some time before they appear, yellow means they are getting close, and a wild red color means my next dropped block will usher in the arrival of unwanted blocks. The blocks change appearance depending on their impending arrival. On the left side of my screen is a growing queue of the garbage opponents can send my way. If someone is about to send you blocks, you’ll know Image: Arika/Nintendo via Polygon But the game is also eager to show me exactly who has me in their crosshairs. It’s bad enough knowing that at any given moment, someone might cram garbage blocks on my screen. When I’m targeted, the board of the player who is hoping to offload their blocks onto my board is connected to mine with bright yellow lines. One of the most in-your-face elements is the game’s targeting system. While I’m focused on my game, I also have to be conscious of the 98 other Tetris games happening all around me in real time.Įven more dramatic than that, at any given moment, Tetris 99’s UI will highlight the immediate danger I’m in because of my opponents. In each game of Tetris 99, I’m squaring off against a horde that’s also all scrambling to clear lines. Introducing 98 other players to the mix only makes the challenge even more frantic. Its random nature means I never truly know what to expect each time I play. Clearing blocks send garbage blocks to opponents Arika/Nintendo via PolygonĪ typical game Tetris can be intense. True to the battle royale genre, this game of knockout happens until one player is left standing.
If too many blocks flood a player’s screen, they are knocked out of the game.
As I clear lines, I can send garbage blocks over to one of my many opponents, filling their board up with extra lines they need to clear. The execution is straightforward: It’s competitive Tetris, but instead of one-on-one battles, Tetris 99 is a 99-player free-for-all. The game’s developer, Arika, does this not by ramping up the speed, but by pitting you against 98 other players looking to knock you out. The surprise release this week of Tetris 99, a battle royale-esque version of the game now on Nintendo Switch, goes to show that Tetris can indeed be made more intense. While the formula has had a few shake ups since then, little work has ever been needed to make the easy-to-learn, impossible-to-master game any more challenging. The core gameplay of Tetris is designed to be nail-biting.
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