I think I'm done testing catch... the leveling up is pretty much the same as with mission marathon:
- Make 4x4 grids to clear blocks, this will also increase your health if it isn't at its max and shoot beams of light. You will lose health if blocks reach the bottom, if you rotate into blocks, or if you hit a metroid. If your health is empty, it's game over.
- Scoring works as follows (I think): For each block that sticks to your main block, you get 10 points. If you have a 4x4 block or bigger, you will get N*N*level*10 points. N is the amount of blocks that are part of 4x4 boxes. Note that it's quadratic. Using the light to kill a metroid also gives points: 1000*level.
- Once again, you can only select levels 1-5 at the start. Similar to mission marathon, after clearing blocks twice, you move on to the next level. So after clearing 10 times, you are at level 6, and 38 times, you reach level 20. After clearing 40 times, the game ends, and you get the credits. When returning, you can pick level 1-20, and it's also finite, so once again 40 clearings.
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This mode will take significantly longer. My slowed down test which got 40 clearings twice was about 18 minutes. A TAS should be a LOT faster though. Normally, you will get 10 seconds after you get a 4x4 grid, to add more blocks, but this can be skipped, by triggering the light instantly. A run which unlocks the level would probably do that often.
If it is possible to make a 112 combo 40 times at level 20, the total score will be maxed out to 99.999.999. (For reference, at cyberscore, the record for biggest combo is 102) This is most definately possible, so I guess the goal would be to get that as fast as possible and then die.
I'm curious to see how this mode will look when properly TASed... will it be interesting and short enough to see it cleared by forming 40 combo's twice? My guess is that it will be.
Maybe, if all these modes are completed twice (once to unlock the levels, once for high score), should they be done in a more random order (as in, unlock levels, then do some other mode, then come back to set highscore)?
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Edit: Oops, when making this post, I thought the combo score was maxed out at 999.999 (see charge at the bottom):
It turns out however that more will be added to the score though, which should make it possible to get 99.999.999 and aim for fastest time getting that. I changed the above post accordingly.
(Also note how nicely the above and bottom screen connect. It's as it is one big screen instead of two.)
Here is the movie http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/438175518/Tetris_DS_Baxter.fm2 (Change .fm2 to .dsm after downloading)
I didn't include an avi, since I'm actually hoping someone will verify that the movie doesn't desync for someone other than me.
I could now continue to unlock level 20 at mission marathon... but for more variety, I'll do that later, and unlock level 20 at catch mode first. These are the modes, goals, and the order I plan on doing in the TAS:
- Mission time trial mode, level 1-5
- Catch mode, unlocking level 20 as fast as possible
- Regular marathon mode, unlocking level 20 (should this be done as fast as possible?)
- Push mode, (If it works, first game, get a draw) then beat level 5 as fast as possible
- Mission marathon mode, unlocking level 20 while playing around
- Catch mode, get the maximum score of 99.999.999 as fast as possible
- Regular vs mode, beat level 5 as fast as possible
- Regular line clear mode, get highest possible score as fast as possible
- Mission marathon mode, get maximum possible score while playing around
Edit: Might be good to also mention which modes won't be included.
- Regular mission marathon, getting the maximum score of 99.999.999 (this would take, even a TAS, over an hour)
- Puzzle mission mode, no strategy precision, speed, whatever needed. Nothing interesting or entertaining could be done
- Touch puzzle mode, same as above, everything is preset
Touch tower mode, speed doesn't influence score whatsoever, one can think as long as one likes. It would be about getting good randomness when starting the game, and doing a huge amout of puzzling to get combo's... this can be done regularly just as well. The randomness can't be easily manipulatd in a TAS, and I doubt someone in a TAS could score higher than regular scores. Stylus rerecording is also problematic.
