Why I Still Play Tetris

I have a weird relationship with Tetris. I first played it at a very young age, having one of those Tetris controllers that plugged directly into the TV through Component. But this post is more about guideline VS Tetris, which I only started playing in high school about 8 years ago. I mostly play on TETR.IO now, since it looks pretty great (jstris is much more minimal) and has solid matchmaking (Puyo Puyo Tetris is very dead).

About Guideline VS

For anyone unfamiliar, this is a 1-on-1 match where both players receive the same queue of pieces and try to make the other player top out. Clearing lines sends garbage to your opponent based on the # of lines cleared, with a bonus for special "spins". You lose a game when your board is filled to the point that there's no space for your next piece to spawn. I typically play matches that are first to 5 wins. Garbage comes from the bottom of the screen, and consists of a row of blocks with a single "hole" that can be filled in with a piece to clear it. There are other small mechanics that vary between clients, but this is the general idea.

Usually, the player that is able to send more attack (garbage per second) wins. There are two ways to send more attack:

• Play faster
• Clear lines more efficiently (e.g. doing spins, back-to-back combo)

Most people can play fairly quickly with a bit of practice, but struggle to use their pieces efficiently. Concretely, clearing 4 lines at once with the I piece sends 4 lines of garbage, while clearing 2 lines only sends 1 line. Beyond that, doing a T-Spin Double also sends 4 lines, but only requires building 2 lines to clear instead of 4. Most efficiently, you would be attacking with almost every T and I piece in your queue, rather than using them to build the stack.

There is some strategy involved, but not a lot. For example, you can time your attacks to surprise your opponent, or learn intricate setups to send large attacks at once. However, a lot of gameplay below a very high level is essentially singleplayer: maximize your attack while making sure you deal with garbage and avoid topping out (i.e. not being too greedy). If your opponent was replaced with a RNG that occasionally added some garbage to your board, you would play almost the exact same way.

My Thoughts

Even though I've been playing Tetris for several years now, I feel that I only continue to do so because of some addiction, rather than actually enjoying it. Half the time when I boot up TETR.IO, I come out feeling unhappy or frustrated, but without fail I end up playing some games the next day. I don't have very many bad habits, but this certainly feels like one.

The main factor is that I play very slowly compared to everyone around my rank, which means that I'm forced to be very efficient to keep up¹. The difference used to be more dramatic, but currently I play about at about 1.5-1.6 pieces per second, while my opponents play near 1.9-2.2 pps. This big of a speed advantage nets some very important benefits:

• Better survival, since they can typically place 2 pieces to downstack in the time it takes me to place 1 piece to attack
• Less requirement to play efficiently; can simply place pieces where currently convenient and fix it later
• Can cycle to a particular piece much quicker, thus not needing to think about "wasting" a piece somewhere

In contrast, I need to place my pieces exactly where they need to be and not waste any of them. Otherwise, I won't be able to counter their garbage or reach the next I or T piece to push them over the edge. This results in very high-stress matches, where making a single mistake will cost me a game and I need to punish several mistakes by my opponent to win. I feel like I'm continuously at a disadvantage, even though I know the ladder system works and I do win about 50% of my matches. Overall, I make signifcantly less misdrops than my opponents and send more attack per piece, which is why I'm in this rank range.

It feels pretty irrational to keep playing when I don't find it fun. I once made the analogy that it's like I'm addicted to wrestling: something that I'm clearly genetically disadvantaged at (if you've ever seen me), though it could be overcome with hard work. It feels like I'm chasing some subconscious urge every time my hands feel tingly, like someone that can't stop biting their nails. Gambling is addictive because the thrill of winning comes unpredictably, only once in a while. There are a number of things that could be triggering that habit in me. Being able to methodically counter a fast playstyle is extremely satisfying, and it's like I'm teaching them a lesson about thinking more about their pieces. The high-stress nature is also exhilirating: it gets my adrenaline going since one move can be the difference between winning and losing. However, I would say it's overall frustrating to play against others much faster than me: I often feel like there's no way I could win without simply playing faster myself.

I've made a few attempts to quit, though not very seriously. I think I need another game that engages my fingers while only requiring ~10 minutes for a full session and minimal warmup. (I normally end up playing for closer to 30 mins anyways, but I always start because I tell myself "I'll just play one match...")