Submission #2627: Baxter's NES Tetris "All modes" in 06:59.71

At the time of writing this, there are two published NES Tetris TASes: "Fastest 999999" and "Mode B". These two, in combination with a published Tetris DX TAS lead me to cancel my Gameboy Tetris submission to avoid the impending rejection due to "too much Tetris movies". In the meantime a Tetris DS submission was published, which begged the question what to do with my current Tetris "playaround" submission.

I would dislike it if the content of one of the current NES Tetris TASes were to be obsoleted, as I think they have their own interesting aspects. To avoid making it too difficult for the judges, I came up with the following possible 'solution':

This TAS is the result of copypasting the "Fastest 999999" TAS, "Mode B" and the "playaround" submission. If this TAS obsoletes the currently published NES Tetris TASes, there will be one less published Tetris TAS, which means there is room for the Gameboy Tetris TAS. I plan to uncancel this TAS if the response to this idea is positive.

I came up with this plan so that:

What follows are the submission texts of these three TASes:

This movie clears the A mode of Tetris at level 19. The goal of this movie is to get as score of 999999 as possible. It is 325 frames (5.42 seconds) shorter than Primo's submission (*). This makes it 734 frames (12.23 seconds) faster than the Acmlm's currently published run.

I made the platform a little higher. This mainly saved time at the start, since Primo had to build up his blocks a little lower. This saved about a second. After this, Primo stayed at the top, so it didn't matter that much for the rest (maybe a little). During the rest of the run, I saved frames here and there which added up to the other 4.41 seconds. It's hard to really compare frames at tetris with other runs, but I tried to do it a little with Primo's run, to give myself an impression on how I was doing... so I thank Primo for his run.

Funny note. You get 1 when holding down when dropping a piece. Roughly 1 point for each tile the block drops. Moving the block left or right, or manipulating will lose the points that block had 'gained' at that point for holding down. This run clears 164 lines, which means 41 tetrisses.34 tetrisses at level 19 for 24000 points each. 3 tetrisses at level 20 for 25200 each. 2 tetrisses at level 21 for 26400 each, and 2 tetrisses at level 22 for 27600 each. Add this up and you will get 999600 points. This means you need to get 399 points from holding down. This run gets exactly 399 points with holding down (not a single one more).

(*) I was thinking about when to end the input for this run. Primo wrote: "Input ends at the earliest posible frame when further input cannot prevent game over." This wasn't true however, since pausing the game prevents the game from ending. Instead of this, I stopped the input to create the shortest AVI time. If you look at when the ending starts, my run is 313 frames faster than Primo. If Primo had used the same way of ending his input, the input of this movie would have been 324 frames shorter.

This movie clears the B mode of Tetris at level 19 and height 5. At this mode 25 lines must be cleared to finish the game. The goal of this movie is to finish the game as fast as possible, without leaving any blocks on the screen. It is a 701 frame (11.68 second) improvement of Chef Stef's run.

The main improvement is a better strategy, where more lines are completed at once. Initially, I was about 10 seconds faster, but then I noticed the number of blocks the level started with was an odd number, so it wasn't possible to clear all lines. This was very frustrating. It did mean that the actual number of blocks that you start out with was also manipulatable, which could be used in my advantage too. This is why in this movie, the tetris at the end actually clears four lines. Due to this, my second attempt was faster than my first, ending up with a 11.65 second improvement.

This is a Tetris playaround. In this TAS, I aim to create the most impressive/difficult pattern I could think of. It might look random at times, but every block is carefully planned and manipulated. The planning of this TAS might have been more work than the actual TASing itself. Shortly before I die, the 18th line of the pattern is completed.

I didn't randomly pick a pattern. I also considered drawing an imagine, but the width is only 10 blocks and there are also other limitations, like a hole being required on every line. In the pattern I picked, every block needs to be carefully planned. The pattern cannot be formed by repeating a certain sequence of blocks. After quite a few drawn out plans, amongst which were several failed attempts, where I noticed later that I had forgotten a tile somewhere, I got a final where relatively little lines were needed to create the pattern. When I came at the topic, I couldn't stick to my plan, as there were limitations in movement and pieces cut off. I was really happy to manage a 17th line. I didn't even consider the possibility of an 18th line until later. I was really surprised it was possible in the end, it also made the ending less arbitrary, as right after I complete it death is inevitable.

Thanks to NxCy and Nitrodon for being my soundboard for this playaround.

Baxter: It's clear the majority wants the playaround movie seperately, and I agree that's the best option. People can directly see whatever they wish, and don't have to discover there is more content after the credits. I'll be uncancelling the playaround submission. Sorry for the trouble!