Tetris (NES video game)

The score received by each line clear is dependant on the level. Each type of clear, being a single, double, triple, or Tetris, has a base value which is multiplied by the number 1 higher than the current level. For any level ${\displaystyle n}$, a single will give ${\displaystyle 40*(n+1)}$ points, a double will give ${\displaystyle 100*(n+1)}$ points, a triple will give ${\displaystyle 300*(n+1)}$ points, and a Tetris will give ${\displaystyle 1200*(n+1)}$ points.[3] The game also awards points for holding the down key to make pieces fall faster, awarding 1 point for every grid cell that a piece is continuously soft dropped.[3] Unlike line clears, this does not scale by level.

This scoring convention makes scoring Tetrises much more efficient than scoring an equivalent amount of lines through smaller line clears. At level 0, a Tetris awards 300 points per line cleared, a triple awards 100 points per line cleared, a double awards 50 points per line cleared, and a single awards 40 points per line cleared.

One of the most limiting factors in NES Tetris is the speed at which a tetromino can be moved left and right. When a movement key is pressed, the piece will instantly move one grid cell, stop for 16 frames due to delayed auto-shift, before moving again once every 6 frames[10] (10 times a second, as the game runs at 60 fps[11]). At the higher levels, waiting for this delay is unfeasible as the pieces fall too fast. To circumvent this delay, a technique known as hypertapping was developed. When hypertapping, horizontal tetromino speed is maximized by rapidly tapping the D-pad more than 10 times per second.[12] Since 2018, the hypertapping technique was heavily utilized in Tetris tournaments. Players flex the bicep until it tremors, and use the high speed tremor to tap the thumb on the D-pad.[6] This technique has inspired young people to acquire NES consoles to play Tetris competitively. In contrast to the older player base of past tournaments, every world champion from 2018 to 2021 has been below the age of 18, and has used the hypertapping technique.[6]

In late 2020, a technique known as rolling was discovered by competitive NES Tetris player Chris "Cheez_fish" Martinez.[13] When rolling, a stationary finger is placed on the D-pad, while the other hand's fingers are drummed across the back of the controller, pushing the buttons up into the stationary hand. This technique is much faster and not as physically straining as hypertapping.[14] Rolling allows players to move pieces horizontally up to 30 times per second, which has allowed players to play far past level 29. Since 2021, rolling has enabled numerous world records and is used in tournaments such as the Classic Tetris World Championship.[13]

The soundtrack was written by Nintendo composer Hirokazu Tanaka, who also scored the Game Boy version.[16] Focusing on Russian classical music,[8] the soundtrack features arrangements of "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker and the overture from Georges Bizet's opera Carmen. The former replaces the arrangement of "Korobeiniki",[7] present in the Game Boy version, which has become strongly associated with Tetris.[16]

The 1990 Nintendo World Championships were based on A-Type Tetris, Super Mario Bros., and Rad Racer. In each round, contestants were given a total of six minutes to score as much as possible across all three games.[27] As the Tetris score was multiplied 25 times in the final tally, the prevailing strategy was to immediately exit the other two games to spend all available time in Tetris.[28]

In 2009, Harry Hong became the first independently verified person to achieve the maximum score of 999,999 points, known as a max-out score. Earlier plausible but unverified max-out scores were claimed by Thor Aackerlund c. 1990 and Jonas Neubauer c. 2002.[6] Currently, the world record for most points in a single game belongs to Eric "EricICX" Tolt at 6,492,500 points set on 17 August 2022.[29]

Since 2010, the NES version of Tetris has been featured in the annual Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC), which consists of a 1-on-1 competition to score the most points. Specialized cartridges give both competitors the option to use the same piece sequence. As of the 2023 tournament, cartridges have also been modified to include a "super killscreen" at level 39 where pieces fall 2 cells per frame. [30]

Since 2017, the tournament Classic Tetris Monthly (CTM) has run every month with the same 1-on-1 format as the CTWC. The CTM rules are more relaxed than those of the CTWC, allowing the usage of emulators and third party hardware.[31][4]