TetrisParty T1 Round 2 Field Climber Tips and Tricks [Archive]

jjdb210

12-15-2008, 05:27 AM

So, getting a head start on Tuesday's round 2, I've begun practicing this round.. Anyone got any advice for building the steps faster other than just massively quick movements? I don't think we have anything on the wiki about building steps do we?

It also got me thinking, there are a lot of people out there that have wiimote->computer bluetooth profiles (so that you can use your wiimote on your PC)... But is there anyone out there that has a computer to wii profile (so you can use your PC as a wiimote?) I wonder if we could perhaps get some faster gameplay for some people if we could "rig" a new wiimote for the PC... just an Idea, but that kind of defeats the fairness of it all I suppose. Just looking for some early suggestions while I try to get a head start on this round as opposed to continuing to push myself further into the top 10.

LANAsiDOOG

12-15-2008, 09:18 AM

i've used my classic controller for the wii on the pc via bluetooth and a program called glovepie

so yes its possible to play with controllers... you just need a program that tells the control to map it to keyboard buttons

t-block

12-15-2008, 09:18 AM

Doesn't seem to me like using the PC instead of the Wiimote would get you much faster. Tetris Party is a really slow game, and I'm sure most people's speed are limited by the delays in the game, not by their fingers.

Field climber is weird... I haven't done a whole lot with it yet, but there are a few things that I picked up. Probably the most important one is that if one block falls on top of the field climber, whether by a tetromino or by a row clear, he won't be crushed, but will instead be moved to the top of that row. This helps a lot when you have to dig him out, as I've noticed that quite a few times I've had a starting position that had the climber in a well where it's easy to stack to get a triple, but needs another I-block to get a tetris. That means that if you have the climber at the bottom of a well, and an I-block down that would result in a triple, the single block leftover from the I-block won't crush the climber. The other way to use this that's common sense is to place a block on top of the climber, instead of in front of him. This can save you some room laterally before you have to head the other way (turning takes time too I find), and also saves time in that the climber is one level higher without waiting for him to actually climb.

Second thing is that you can push the climber around with the falling tetromino to a certain degree. I haven't figured out a lot with this one, like when you can do it, when you shouldn't do it, or what you can even do with it, but I'm sure it'll be helpful.

Lastly, I think the climber can anticipate where the next block is going, and by anticipate, I mean the ghost piece placement >_> I'm sure you've already run into times where the climber just stops, even when there's a stretch in front of him that he can go across. It definitely feels like where the tetromino is falling is what's affecting it, but I'm not sure, and if it is, I'm not exactly sure how it works. Maybe someone else knows.

So what're everyone's times like atm? I'm at 12 minutes I think with one of my first attempts.... haven't really finished the 10 levels in a while. Just wondering where I'm at =x

iphys

12-15-2008, 10:59 AM

I'm really not a fan of this mode. It seems like the opposite of puzzle mode in Tetris Plus in that instead of clearing lines to get your guy to the bottom you build an ugly mess to get your guy to the top -- I never liked playing those Tetris Plus puzzles, and it's like they copied that idea and somehow made it even less like Tetris. Mainly it just annoys me because it's so easy to accidentally kill your guy, box him in, or knock him off your tower, and meanwhile he's squeaking away at you or wandering in the opposite direction you want him to go -- I really lose my patience on the last levels (sometimes I just get pissed off and squish him on purpose for the satisfaction).

You have to be careful when you're piling blocks on your climber to climb through, because sometimes they just squish him into a hole and box him into it. He doesn't seem to like to climb through a horizontal I, because I find that often just squeezes him out the side and drops him off your tower. One time when I had a wide enough base to not knock him off and dropped a horizontal I onto him, it actually squished my climber to death, so I don't know if he wasn't finished climbing through the last piece when I dropped the I on him or if it's because of the width of the piece that he doesn't like to climb through it. I usually try to place the I as a stair off to the side because I've had so many problems trying to get the climber to climb through it.

I've had the patience to complete about 5 full games, and my best time was under 8 minutes, but I think the best times are under 4 minutes. I'm probably just going to try to get a good enough time in this round to help make the top 500, because this isn't a mode I like to play over and over again.

t-block

12-15-2008, 11:04 AM

Yeah there are a lot of aspects to it that seem rather random at the moment. I've gotten pretty frustrated too, but all in all I think I like the mode. Just ran through it, and I got a time just over 8. I don't understand how it's possible to get sub-4 over 10 levels...

iphys

12-15-2008, 11:40 AM

If there are people who can complete 150 full lines in 4 and a half minutes or so for Marathon, I think it's conceivable that people can do 200 incomplete lines in under 4 minutes to complete Field Climber (not that I can see myself doing it). On the higher levels there seems to be a lot of luck involved in whether you get a good start that you can quickly get your climber to climb from, or whether you have to clear a lot of lines first.

iphys

12-15-2008, 11:49 AM

BTW, in case you aren't aware, you can check your time against what other people have done so far before the tournament if you go to the local play records in the records section.

durga2112

12-16-2008, 08:15 AM

Hmm, I just completed the Field Climber round, but there is nowhere for me to update my ranking for round 2. Just a caution to those who may not enjoy this game mode and don't want to do it too many times - wait until you can actually see the rankings for round 2 before attempting it. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif

Billmaan

12-16-2008, 10:11 AM

Yeah, the same thing happened to me. I'd better not have to suffer through this again. As long as my time (14 minutes) keeps me in the top 300 or so I'll be content. At this point I really loathe field climber guy and was tempted on several occasions to squish him with an I block.

jujube

12-16-2008, 11:10 AM

i bet you wouldn't squish girl-traveler Viki (http://www.filedudes.com/TeenTris-screenshot-13076.html). she's so sweet and innocent, just enjoying her travels.

che_lives

12-16-2008, 12:38 PM

how many times do you have to save this guy? i keep killing him in lv4..

t-block

12-16-2008, 01:20 PM

lol

10 levels, no retries.

Those sub-5 minute times must be people retrying every level until they get the ideal starting position/blocks, then finishing it in under 30 secs. The tournament doesn't let you retry individual levels, so I'm thinking top score will be under 7 minutes or so? I can't see a sub-5 time appearing when there's no restarts.

Anyways, I made a few attempts just now, and I gotta say, I'm starting to share in everyone's frustration with this mode. Still managed to get a decent run, finishing just over 9-minutes. It would have been sub-9 if not for a terrible I-block misdrop on level 9 that took me a good 20 seconds to fix. Good luck guys http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif

iphys

12-16-2008, 04:38 PM

No retries? Man, that's going to be even more frustrating considering how easy it is to kill that pip-squeak. It will definitely make it harder to get a good time, because you're going to have to stack with so much caution. Usually I just stack like crazy and don't worry how many times I kill him.

tepples

12-16-2008, 07:38 PM

No retries? Man, that's going to be even more frustrating considering how easy it is to kill that pip-squeak.
Ask anybody who has played Lumines vs. CPU mode. There are no continues and no quickloads; if you don't maintain an undefeated season, you have to start over from game 1.

iphys

12-16-2008, 07:45 PM

Took me 5 attempts to finish the game. It's only the first day, but so far, not a lot of people have completed it, so I wonder if a lot of people will. If people didn't finish in the top 500 in the Marathon, they might just get annoyed and give up on this one. I sure hope I don't have to try for a better time to make the top 500, but I guess I'll wait and see.

I still don't entirely get how crush-vs-climb works. I tried to put a T sideways on a staircase with the 1-square-high part on top of my pip-squeak, and somehow that 1 square crushed him. It seems like it depends on what's to the sides of the pieces or something, because if the square to the right of the square that crushed him hadn't been occupied by the rising staircase, I think he probably would have just climbed through that T. There was another time that I tried to drop an L on its back, which usually he just climbs through, but the 2-square-high part was up against some blocks on the right and somehow that crushed him even though I was pretty sure he wasn't even under the 2-square high part of the L when I dropped it. I wish they would just penalize you by adding time or flags or something if you accidentally crushed the guy, because it's so annoying having to start from scratch when it's not always obvious what's going to squish him and what isn't.

tepples

12-16-2008, 09:40 PM

I wish they would just penalize you by adding time or flags or something if you accidentally crushed the guy, because it's so annoying having to start from scratch when it's not always obvious what's going to squish him and what isn't.
The rules are probably as obscure and counterintuitive as the rules for a T-spin.

The Tetris Company and/or its licensees have lately been horrible at documenting the rules of the game. There wasn't any section on scoring in the Tetris DS manual. It took from 2001 (Tetris Worlds) to 2008 (Tetris Party) just to finally get the definition of a T-spin (3-corner no kick) into the manual. And Arika, well...

zarvok

12-16-2008, 10:03 PM

I still don't entirely get how crush-vs-climb works. I tried to put a T sideways on a staircase with the 1-square-high part on top of my pip-squeak, and somehow that 1 square crushed him.

Are you sure about this? I don't think it can happen. It can be very hard to tell whether he is fully on the square you were dropping 1-square-high part on, though.

There was another time that I tried to drop an L on its back, which usually he just climbs through, but the 2-square-high part was up against some blocks on the right and somehow that crushed him even though I was pretty sure he wasn't even under the 2-square high part of the L when I dropped it.

Weird.

The rules do seem a little inconsistent. One thing I noticed is that normally, if the guy is in a J-or-L-shaped hole and you drop a J or L in there, he gets crushed. This does not happen if two lines clear as a result. It does happen if only the top or bottom line of the J or L clears. But he does not get crushed if only the middle line clears - he seems to pop up into the middle and then pop up to the top.

I think the rules here would be very hard to document. Having played it a bit, I kind of doubt they were even well thought out - they probably just programmed something and however the corner cases came out, those are the rules.

iphys

12-16-2008, 10:18 PM

I don't think I've seen scoring included in a manual since Gameboy Tetris, which is ridiculous when it's the goal of the Marathon. T-spins should have been explained from day 1, because I had no idea when I got Tetris Worlds and I put the game down before I ever had a chance to discover them.

Yeah, I'm absolutely sure he was under the 1 square of the T, and I've even crushed the climber under a horizontal I once, so he can be crushed by just one square depending on the surroundings. I'm wondering if it's calculated based on both the vertical and horizontal distances between the climber and the opening going around the edges of the pieces, because it doesn't seem to just be based on the number of blocks above him.

zarvok

12-16-2008, 10:18 PM

So, we have an upper bound on possible time - the best rank right now is 8'27'15. It seems clear that it will be possible to shorten this by minutes. But, let's look at the other side, how about a lower theoretical bound.

The best time I have achieved so far on round 1 is just under 15 seconds. While achieving this, about half of his upward movement is "popping" as a result of drops (fast) and about half is climbing (slow). Typically, a block goes down, he pops, then immediately starts to climb up a higher part of the block that just dropped. I don't know if there is any way to preempt this upward climbing motion, perhaps by simply dropping the next block quickly enough. There is also some luck involved - if you get three Is in a row you can pop him up three levels very quickly.

Do we think it's possible to go much faster than 15 seconds on level 1?

Let's work with the 15 second estimate for a minute. Levels 2-4 also seem possible to do pretty quickly. It's easy to do the first 3 levels in under a minute, and probably possible to get the first 4 down to a minute or 1:10.

After that it gets murkier. Does anyone know if there are strict rules about the minimum depth of the starting hole at level X? Lots will depend on luck - his starting position, the starting blocks (lots of Is are helpful in the late levels) and the flag locations. It seems like with a lot of luck - many Is, a starting location he is easy to pop out of, and flags placed conveniently - these levels can be beaten pretty quickly, say under 30 seconds.

Of course, it won't be the case that all this works out repeatedly in a single run. If you could solve each level in 15 seconds, that would be 2.5 minutes. The first 5 levels in 15 seconds and the last 5 levels in 30 seconds would be 3 minutes 45 seconds. I'd guess that's somewhere near the best time that could be achieved by an expert over many many runs looking for good luck.

muf

12-16-2008, 10:42 PM

And Arika, well...
The TGM instruction cards are actually suprisingly verbose. They even mention a limit of 1000 accounts on Ti, after which the account that's been unused for the longest time gets deleted.

zarvok

12-16-2008, 11:28 PM

Well, I got my time down to 7'55. I think will quickly see another minute or two shave off the leaderboard, but it's going to be slow going after that...

tepples

12-16-2008, 11:50 PM

I don't think I've seen scoring included in a manual since Gameboy Tetris
The manual for Tetris Blast (USA version of Bombliss) had a chart with explosion sizes for each number of lines. The manual for Tetris Zone had a scoring chart.

The TGM instruction cards are actually suprisingly verbose.
I was referring to the grade point system, the requirements for COOLs (especially the section COOL, which appears to have been disguised on purpose), the requirements for the invisible roll, and the requirements for an exam. Do the Ti instruction cards explain those?

muf

12-17-2008, 12:39 AM

I was referring to the grade point system, the requirements for COOLs (especially the section COOL, which appears to have been disguised on purpose), the requirements for the invisible roll, and the requirements for an exam. Do the Ti instruction cards explain those?
None of those actually need to be explained. "Play fast, and get many tetrises" is pretty much the only advice you need. If you play fast, you make the section cools, if you play fast and get many tetrises, then you will also get many grade points. This is exactly what makes the TGM series so elegant. There are no gimmicks, no weird exploitable scoring mechanisms like T-spins, or some secret way of playing like ST-stacking, just plain old, play fast and get many tetrises. It even tells you when you're doing well and when you're not.

Lenna

12-17-2008, 02:23 AM

Ack.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that hates this mode.

Seriously, though, I think everyone pretty much said the gist of what I think about this mode - its incredibly frustrating, and a lot of it is based on luck due to the blocks at the beginning. I guess maybe I'm being too conservative and not taking any chances with the "stack a piece on top of the climber" idea - instead I'm making lines from the top down if there's holes in my field. Maybe thats why my time is so horrible... (17'19"36 as first score submitted - near the bottom of the leaderboard of like 40 people)

Anyways, yeah. I'm just hoping that less than 1000 people will finish this round. (I already figure this round will be my weakest round)

jujube

12-17-2008, 02:26 AM

oh so you really can squish him? http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif i thought it was just a joke.

iphys

12-17-2008, 02:42 AM

zarvok

12-17-2008, 03:42 AM

I've just been doing a little experimenting to see if I can figure out what is happening with these accidental killings. You can generally place an O or even a vertical I on top of the climber without crushing him and he will pop out to the side, but if the side is blocked by other pieces or the wall then he can be crushed, so it matters what is to sides of your pieces. When he is climbing up to the next level, it seems that he is effectively still on the lower level, so if you place a horizontal I or anything one-square tall on top of the square he is climbing up, that means death if there is no where for him to pop left/right/down. It looks really crazy, but he can pop down through a piece that has already been placed if it's only one block thick and he has not finished climbing up before you place the next piece on top, which is sort of annoying but also a life saver. Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is to be careful about stacking pieces on the climber while he's climbing.

Yeah, this all seems right to me. I've been trying to get the timing for the earliest instant you can drop a tile on him after he climbs into muscle memory. It seems to be sometime while he is straightening his back.

In the higher levels, dropping things on him becomes tricker, because the tetrominoes fall too quickly for you to wait and place them while he is standing still.

I got my time down to 7:09. This mode has some weird rules and is not really very tetris like, but it does have its own charm.

jjdb210

12-17-2008, 06:21 AM

Now given I've only done 1 real run so far (it hit in the 9's), I think this is what I know about the little man...

1) if you put 2 blocks on him, and he has no where to go, and no lines are cleared he dies.
2) *I think* (haven't fully confirmed this) if you drop 1 block on him, and there's blocks 2 high on the sides, and you don't clear lines, he dies (not sure about this though, but it would explain the t)
3) when he's climbing, and there's a plateu at the top (meaning a level area at the top), he doesn't walk across it the first time he climbs to the top, UNLESS there's another block going down or up, instead, he will get to the top, turn around, and walk back down, thus forcing you to wait for him to come back to the top. The easiest thing to do to prevent this, is to put a block to his left before he goes to far down.
4) Tetris skills dont really seem to matter much until level 5+

Not 100% positive on any of this, but just things I've been poking around with.. I'll keep trying to confirm and maybe do up some diagrams for the wiki...

zarvok

12-17-2008, 06:34 AM

2) *I think* (haven't fully confirmed this) if you drop 1 block on him, and there's blocks 2 high on the sides, and you don't clear lines, he dies (not sure about this though, but it would explain the t)

Most of that sounds right to me, but not this. I have definitely had the one-block part of the t work fine, even when there is no room on the other side. I'm not sure what can cause it to kill the guy.

Jauz

12-17-2008, 08:57 AM

I'm really not a fan of this mode.

What I do like about the Field Climber in the different modes that you have put your brain into. In the later levels for example, it is dig dig dig to get the climber out of the hole, then bam, switch to building steps so that he can climb. Then inevitably for me it is "crap! I didn't mean to put that piece there" and it then on to trying to clear out space again to get the access to the climber. It's pretty interesting for me actually.

Not knowing the precise conditions for squashing the climber (or how he moves) adds a to it too, since you might try out a move not knowing its exact outcome. It may result worse than expected and cause you to switch from climbing back to digging.

m:)

12-17-2008, 10:43 AM

it bugs me when the little guy gets confused. the step is right there for him and he turns around.

t-block

12-17-2008, 12:30 PM

3) when he's climbing, and there's a plateu at the top (meaning a level area at the top), he doesn't walk across it the first time he climbs to the top, UNLESS there's another block going down or up, instead, he will get to the top, turn around, and walk back down, thus forcing you to wait for him to come back to the top. The easiest thing to do to prevent this, is to put a block to his left before he goes to far down.

Yeah I noticed something like that too, but it should be mentioned that the plateau has to be completely flat. Even if it's four blocks long, and there's a step at the end, he'll go to the end and climb it. Sometimes it's more practical to place a step at the end to make sure he keeps going. Also, more often than not, you'll be able to place a block behind him immediately after he reaches the top. He tends to turn around immediately if you provide a step behind him.

Just a bit of an update with pushing him onto the falling tetromino, the only use for this that I've been able to use consistently is if he's climbing up perfect stairs (ie- one block wide steps) and you sorta slide an I-block or something to squish him against the wall of the next step, he pops up onto the block you're controlling. It can replace dropping it on top of him, like when he's climbing the last step, you can speed it up by sliding one into him and pushing him to the goal. I think the advantage of using this over dropping it on him is that, first of all, you still have a window where you can abort the move if he does something unwanted, like getting trapped on the step below. Also, it's very situational, but you could potentially slide him onto your tetromino, and then slide that block over to another staircase (or maybe even into a flag?). I haven't tested it much, so I don't even know if there's a limit to how much you can move him on the tetromino before he falls off or something.

Also, in case anyone didn't know, if you have a flag diagonal to a step (ie- not directly above or beside a block, but diagonaly adjacent to it), the climber will not grab it on the way up, but if he goes down the step, he will.

iphys

12-17-2008, 01:45 PM

Maybe this is something obvious that everyone but me realized, but the items you get when you pick up flags that appear to do nothing if you use them right away will actually wipe out your stack back to that flag if you wait and use them later. It can be useful if you accidentally box your climber in after picking up a flag.

t-block

12-17-2008, 02:36 PM

I thought they just cleared all the blocks above your climber?

iphys

12-17-2008, 04:23 PM

It's all the pieces above where your climber picked up the flag, as far as I can tell. I'd basically been ignoring them, because they didn't seem to be doing anything when I tried to use them right when I picked up a flag -- guess I'd never had any extra blocks above that level before -- but it's a pretty handy take-back if you screw up a few rows later. Makes me wish they put a flag at the start of every level just in case you box him in near the start, but then I guess it would be too easy to clear all the starting garbage if they did that.

Someone managed a 6:43:78 already. Looks like the median time is around 13 minutes. Longest time is 45 minutes -- the patience some people have! So far there's 113 scores in North America and 62 in Europe, so it's looking like Europe might not even post 1000 results this round unless people have lots of time to kill over x-mas. I'm almost bored enough to get back on wi-fi and give this another go -- wonder how long it will take me to regret it.

iphys

12-17-2008, 04:47 PM

zarvok

12-17-2008, 06:41 PM

m:)

12-17-2008, 07:00 PM

i thought the items did nothing also.
i don't know what I think of this stage racer game.

Lenna

12-18-2008, 02:14 AM

Billmaan

12-18-2008, 02:52 AM

Actually, I just double-checked, and I think you are right that it removes the blocks to wherever the climber is, because you can even knock him below where you picked up the flag and remove the blocks above him.

Thanks, this is super helpful! I assumed the flags did nothing.

actually, you can point the wiimote at the screen to remove a certain portion of the stack. is this if you don't point the wiimote at the screen?

This sounds very useful, except that once you start collecting flags you're usually home free. It's still nice for when you screw up, though.

Also, here's why I hate this mode:
I just had a game where I was on fire, shattering my records in the early stages. I hit stage 6 with 2'07"xx on the clock. I thought for sure I'd be able to break 8 minutes, at the very least. But no...as soon as I saw stage 6, I knew I was screwed. There were at least four places where I'd need to drop Is to have any chance of digging out the climber. (In my futile attempt to salvage the run, I ended up squishing him...but it would've taken me at least two minutes to clear the stage regardless.)
So much of this game -- at least when you're talking about high-level time attacks -- comes down to luck. In each of the last five levels you could either get a very friendly layout that the climber can practically walk right out of, or you could get a mess of skyscrapers that'll take five or six bags to deal with. It's all just one big coin flip. The best part is that when you inevitably get screwed by chance, it happens near the end of the game, and you have to start all over.
This kind of thing happens in shadow mode (round 3) also, but at least one round of shadow mode only takes about a minute.

m:)

12-18-2008, 03:47 AM

can you actually kill the guy? what happens?
i was trying to squash him, it seems like he just pops into a lower hole.

I could see the items being useful if you have some bad luck at the top of the level and need to recover.
like when the little man turns his back on the goal and a piece spawns on him knocking him down a bit.

iphys

12-18-2008, 04:08 AM

Wow, I never even tried pointing the Wiimote. I'll have to see how that works. So far I've found the items useful in the later stages where the pieces are falling fast enough that they can accidentally box in your guy before he's finished climbing, which is more of a problem towards the top of the well, so it's not so bad that you don't get the flags till half way up. I love how they fail to explain any of this stuff in the Field Climber instructions.

Yeah, it's pretty frustrating when you're kicking ass and then you get screwed with a bad set-up or accidentally squish the climber. When I get a lot of skyscrapers I usually just start sticking anything that will help to nibble away singles or doubles in the lowest wells, because I find it simply takes too long waiting for all the I's you'll need to get the situation under control. The top times are going to require a lot of luck, so it's too bad they didn't just always use the same starting set-ups for everyone so that people's times make a fair comparison. There's a 4:26:06 on the Europe leaderboard now.

m:), you haven't managed to kill the guy ever? When you crush him he makes a sort of splat sound, and you see his poor little soul rise up to heaven through the top of the well.

t-block

12-18-2008, 06:59 AM

I can't believe you've never killed the guy o.o Pointing the wiimote at the screen doesn't sound like it'll make that much of a difference. It's easy enough to build stairs from flat ground with very little loss in time. Since usually you use the item when he gets boxed in, most of the time you'll be pointing it at him anyways. If you just messed up your stair halfway and he's still climbing, you won't lose that much time from clearing everything above him and then rebuilding. The one way I've been using the flag consistently is if there's a path for him to a flag, but you keep building stairs for him to climb when he gets back from the flag, and instead of grabbing the flag and coming back he just turns around and starts climbing your steps. Then just block him with a ceiling or a 2-block wall so he turns back to the flag, and use the item as soon as he grabs the flag he was supposed to in the first place. Situational again, but it is a use besides just correcting a mess-up.

This is probably common sense to most people, but with the way the harder starting positions often are, it's almost always best to use a LJ if you can't find an I, then use the rest of the blocks accordingly. You really have to dig smart, but I find that things usually work out and they aren't as intimidating as they are in the beginning.

Managed a time just over 7 minutes today. Then I had a run where I was well on my way to break 7, but then I crushed him on stage 9 when he randomly decided to turn around in the middle of a stairs and head down >=( They were the nicest setups, and I had them at 6, 8, 9. I almost threw my controller through my TV.

m:)

12-19-2008, 03:21 AM

now i'v killed him a few times. punishment for him getting confused http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif

iphys

12-19-2008, 06:06 AM

Geez, 3 days in, and there's still only 173 times up for North America, so maybe we won't see 1000 times posted for North America either. Well, maybe there will be more action on the weekend.

It just occurred to me, but haven't they violated some sort of cardinal rule of video games by not giving the climber 3 lives? Usually it makes sense that you only get 1 life in Tetris because the well acts kind of like a life meter where you can see your death gradually coming, but when 1 hit kills, games almost always give you 3 lives.

antiEMOkid5

12-19-2008, 06:41 AM

I'm sorry if I offend any fans of Field Climber...BUT I HATE IT SO MUCH. I want to just skip out of this round and hope that I can get better scores for the last two rounds. I tried so many times, the farthest I can get is to level 5, then I just epic fail. I was reading through the tips, and they helped a bit, but I'm still stuck on five. It could be too that I was trying to work really fast, I thought the times were going to be really competitive.

iphys

12-19-2008, 06:51 AM

Yeah, there don't seem to be many fans of this mode. Just try to take your time to at least get through it and post a time, because just completing it may very well be good enough to make the top 1000 and pick up some tournament points. The safest method would be to make staircases back and forth across the screen for your climber to climb so that you don't have to risk crushing him by dropping pieces on top of him.

Billmaan

12-19-2008, 07:54 AM

I'd be shocked if a full 1000 people submitted scores. The mode is just too unforgiving.

On the other hand, it should be quite possible to skip a round of the tournament and still finish in the top 500. Since there's no real distinction between placing 10th and placing 500th, there's no reason to force yourself to keep playing if you really hate field climber that much.

durga2112

12-19-2008, 09:19 AM

I'm finding this mode strangely addictive. I just played it for nearly an hour, trying to better my score. I did it in under 10 minutes for the first time for 45th place on the leaderboard. I actually had the guy walking on a falling tetrimino at one point, just before it locked down - I wonder what would have happened if I'd tried to rotate it with him on it? Or put it in the hold queue? http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif I get the feeling that there could be a lot of things we don't know about this mode yet.

EDIT: okay, now I'm really curious about the falling tetrimino thing. I'm going to spend a bit more time trying to make it happen again and see what happens when I do something other than just lock it down.

EDIT 2: seems like he just follows his regular movement patterns, just with a moving block as his floor. If he needs to climb on the moving piece (say, on a T piece that's upside down), he'll appear to be climbing in mid-air while the piece continues to fall; once his climbing animation is finished, he'll drop back onto the piece. Moving it too quickly horizontally, rotating it certain ways, and using the hold queue all seem to just make him fall off the piece (nuts - I was hoping that the hold queue thing might actually make him appear on the next piece at the top of the screen for a quick win http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif).

iphys

12-19-2008, 12:47 PM

This mode isn't bothering me as much now that I have some idea of how it works, but it's still pretty annoying to play for more than half an hour at a time. I've been playing on level 10 on local play to try to get used to that (since I rarely make it that far on wi-fi when I'm trying to go as fast as possible), and I had been using the hold to swap pieces when I was about to box or crush my climber, but now I notice you can slide the piece off him and slide it back for him to climb onto, and then often you can rotate him up on the piece too as long as you rotate it the right way. For anyone having a hard time finishing the game, it's probably a good idea to practice on level 10 for a while, because the last few levels seem to play quite a bit differently than the first few.

zarvok

12-19-2008, 07:05 PM

For anyone having a hard time finishing the game, it's probably a good idea to practice on level 10 for a while, because the last few levels seem to play quite a bit differently than the first few.

Yeah, this seems like good advice - once you get about 3/4ths of the way up the screen, the last few levels become pretty tricky.

Looks like my estimate on fastest times was overly pessimistic - I see the leader has a time near 5 minutes. I managed to get my time down to around 5:30 - there is really just a ton of luck involved in what starting setups you get. There is also a lot of strategy in getting the guy out of suboptimal starting positions, though. As I practice more, it becomes pretty easy to get a sub 7 minute time - I'm very interested to see where the best scores end up when the tournament ends.

--Chris

m:)

12-19-2008, 07:10 PM

Billmaan

12-19-2008, 09:33 PM

Since there's no real distinction between placing 10th and placing 500th,

the way it works is 1st place gets 1000 points and 1000th place gets 1 point.
your place does determine the points you get for the round.

I meant in the tournament as a whole; everyone in the top 500 gets the same prize. Apologies for being unclear.

m:)

12-19-2008, 10:55 PM

ok, I see.

so it seems if you get 2004 or more total points you win a prize.

iphys

12-19-2008, 11:23 PM

Billmaan

12-20-2008, 12:53 AM

BTW, has anyone noticed the bug that it doesn't show your record time when you're playing, but it seems to just show your time from whatever your last game was? Also, on one game I restarted while playing on level 9 or 10, and it took me back to level 1 with no starting garbage, but the pieces were still falling at the same rate as on level 9 or 10 for some strange reason.Yes, the "new record" thing is bizarre. It seems like the game remembers how long it took you to reach each level in your best game. Whenever you start beating that pace, or when you reach a higher level than in your old "best" game, your current game becomes your new "best". For example, if you start up a new game, and clear level 1 in less time than it took you to clear level 1 when you set your 10-level record, then the game thinks this is your new best game ever, even if you go ahead and die on level 2. If you then start another game and play very slowly, but reach level 3, then that game's your new best, because you made it to a higher stage. It's awkward, to say the least.

And yes, I've also noticed that when you restart, the speed doesn't reset to the proper level 1 speed. If you die and start a new game, this doesn't happen.

m:)

12-20-2008, 02:46 AM

that speed thing could be an advantage, I would rather have the game go faster.

antiEMOkid5

12-20-2008, 02:50 AM

KevinDDR

12-20-2008, 03:01 AM

I'm skipping this round. I'm in England and can't play. Even if I could, Field Climber is just too difficult for me and I think my 19th place result in the first round will carry me through OK.

Lenna

12-20-2008, 04:06 AM

ok, I see.

so it seems if you get 2004 or more total points you win a prize.

... not really. But its very likely.

Say for the top 500 people they place...

1-500-1-500
2-499-2-499
..
..
..
499-2-499-2
500-1-500-1

Then each person would have 3004 points, and that would be the minimum. I'm not sure if there's any situations worse than this, but I'd say its very unlikely to happen where all top 500 people score the same amount.

che_lives

12-20-2008, 01:18 PM

lol.. i havent been able to finish.. meh.. ill start practicing more three days before the deadline.. i really dont like this game.. and to think that third tournaments going to be from lv11-20.. sht!

iphys

12-20-2008, 01:43 PM

t-block

12-20-2008, 02:26 PM

Sigh people are too good at this mode -_- (wow chris 4:xx is sick). My goal for this tournament was to place top 10 overall lol. Doesn't look like that's gonna happen, seeing as I'm terrible at Shadow mode too.

iphys

12-20-2008, 02:54 PM

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to make top 10 either, because speed is not my strong point and these last 3 rounds are all speed. At least we placed well in the one round of the tournament that was actual Tetris though.

che_lives

12-20-2008, 03:56 PM

There is no level 11-20 for Field Climber: you're joking, right? OMG, imagine trying to play this game if you had to do it with a full screen of start-up garbage and play it in 20G without crushing your climber. I think the shadow mode in the 3rd tournament is what's going to stump a lot of people, because it's one of the most advanced ones.

oh ok.. thats a relief.. i saw that in the third tournament the T race is advanced, the shadow one is like a lv20.. so i figured that they were making all the other modes hard as well.. so the climer and the marathon arent going to change? or is it marathon endless?

iphys

12-20-2008, 10:13 PM

It's still endless off for Marathon in the 3rd tourny, so the first two rounds should be identical.

m:)

12-20-2008, 10:42 PM

it's still a long way from 500 people finishing this round, 223 have finished so far.
I'm feeling safe with my 10'30" i don't like this round enough to keep at it.

Billmaan

12-24-2008, 03:49 AM

Woo! 5'07"xx! If "Ginomap" (#2 on the leaderboards) posts here, I'm coming for you. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif

I'm starting to see how sub-4 minute times are possible. Once you really get good at "popping" the climber upwards, everything seems easier. Even the garbage on the later stages doesn't seem so bad, because you realize that not all of it really has to be cleared; usually you can skip much of it through skillful popping.

che_lives

12-24-2008, 07:34 AM

�----wants to send his wii to billmaan.. so hell finish the mode for him.. =)

durga2112

12-24-2008, 08:16 AM

Once you really get good at "popping" the climber upwards, everything seems easier.

Whoa, does it ever! I just tried it myself, and while I wouldn't say that I'm "really good" at it yet, I managed to cut my time down by about 2 minutes - from somewhere in the 9:40's to 7:41. Awesome. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

t-block

12-24-2008, 01:20 PM

Haha I admire you guys for your patience in this. I played today and I think I've just about had it with this -_- I was under 5 after clearing level 8 and then ran into the most vicious lvl 9 I had ever seen, so I'm just gonna call it quits for this round I think. Good luck to the rest of you http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif

Jeff

12-25-2008, 06:57 AM

A few general tips I've found:

If you're aiming for just good times, aim roughly for 2 minutes by stage 5. If you can clear stage 5 with 2:20 or less, you should be in good position for the rest of the stages for a good time.

Lines are good for popping the climber upwards, but tricky because the guy wanders around on it.
All the other pieces are very good for having the climber 'jump' up one.
Try to burn/store/waste the cubes, they're generally very useless, haven't found a good use for them yet.

as for squishing the climber: the way it works is if you're dropping a block on him, he will move to one of the 8 adjacent squares around him...if there's no space around to move to, game over. So keep that in mind when you're dropping blocks ON the climber.

One more thing, the climber always climbs for higher points first, flags second. So if there's a hill he can climb, he'll make a beeline for it. Heck, he'll even climb up FIRST, realize there's a flag to fetch below him, then climb DOWN to get it before going back up. Big time burner there.

...I don't think I'll be beating my 4 minute time, but if one of you rustle up the leaderboards, I might give it a shot http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif I just want top 500 for prizes tho.

Kitaru

12-25-2008, 07:33 AM

Billmaan

12-25-2008, 07:54 AM

Try to burn/store/waste the cubes, they're generally very useless, haven't found a good use for them yet.
What about stuff like this (http://eunich.cochems.com/~zaphod/fumen-eng/?m105_407eFVdIzbB3SB0OBTKBAAA)? You won't necessarily get two O pieces in close proximity, but this shows their potential usage.You can do this, but it may not be your best choice. If you want to pop him upwards, you need to drop the O just before the climber starts to climb. If you drop the O after he starts to climb, then he'll finish climbing, then turn around and climb up the O. This is inefficient -- in the time it takes him to climb the first piece, you should be able to discard the O and find something else you can use to pop him upwards once he stops climbing (in fact, in the situations you've linked, any other piece will suffice). In practice, he'll usually start climbing something immediately after a pop, which means you wouldn't have a chance to pop him with an O.

edit: for example, given the pieces in that link, here's what I would have done.
- Wait for him to reach the apex of the T. While he's doing this, get rid of the O.
- Drop the S directly on top of the T. He'll pop up onto the lower end, and start climbing up.
- Once he reaches the top of the S, drop the Z on his head. As before he'll pop up, then start climbing.
- While he's climbing the Z, discard the O. etc.
He'll reach the same height as with the staircase strategy, but spends only about half as much time climbing.

t-block

12-25-2008, 02:45 PM

One more thing, the climber always climbs for higher points first, flags second. So if there's a hill he can climb, he'll make a beeline for it. Heck, he'll even climb up FIRST, realize there's a flag to fetch below him, then climb DOWN to get it before going back up. Big time burner there.

Easy way to deal with this if you're ever in this situation is to block the climber asap with a wall so that he heads back towards the flag. As soon as he hits it, use the item and keep building.

Jeff

12-27-2008, 09:14 AM

Even if you think you'll do better in the future rounds (shadow and piece racer), remember that others are thinking the same thing. Even if field climber isn't your best, at least try to get a >100 rank. As a rule: If you score better than rank 125 on each round, there is no way you can be shut out of prizes. At the rate this leaderboard is filling up, sub 6 minutes is probably good enough.

Couple more things regarding getting lines while on him: If you get a line on the climber, that line does NOT count as something crushing the climber. So if you have a J/L piece and it's going to go right ON the climber, count the # of lines you're going to get!
If you're getting 0-1 lines, he's a goner.
If you're getting 2-3 lines, he's in the clear, keep going!

Same thing applies to S/Z pieces, but with one less line:
If you're getting 0 lines and you're dropping it on him, he's toast.
If you're getting 1-2 lines and you're dropping it on him, he's still ok.

As for the last two pieces...

If you're dropping a LINE on him, follow the following:

If you're dropping a line on him and you're clearing 0-2 lines, he's toast.
If you're dropping a line on him and you're clearing 3-4 lines, he's ok.

If you're dropping a cube:
If you drop it and don't get a line, he's done.
If you get at least one line, he'll be ok.

By the WAY: The above ONLY applies to vertical dropping of the pieces, AND if the climber has ABSOLUTELY no where else to go. If the climber will have a space next to him (that means any space around him, there's 8 possible spots), he will ALWAYS be ok, and not crushed.

PPS: BILL! NICE TIME O_O Think you can best it again? http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif

Billmaan

12-27-2008, 10:54 AM

PPS: BILL! NICE TIME O_O Think you can best it again? http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gifSure, but not by much, and I'm not really sure I want to try. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_razz.gif

iphys

12-27-2008, 01:46 PM

Nice times, guys! One of you should try to go sub 4 for the bragging rights: you're so close. I might try a little more to go sub 6, but this game is kind of a drag to play, and I don't think top 500 is going to be a problem because it looks like most people have given up on even completing this round.

The thing you should add is it depends on which lines you clear. For instance if you clear rows 1&2 or 3&4 with an I on top of your climber he's dead, but if you clear 2&3 (and I think 1&3 or 2&4?), your climber can pop up through the space created during the delay for the line clears and then pop up through the last row. Same thing if you clear the middle row of 3 rows with a J/L. I find dropping an S/Z on its tail is safe if the climber is under the higher side of the piece, because then he pops diagonally through it by going one square up and one square sideways (you have to be absolutely sure he's finished climbing up when you do it though) so that way the 2 squares on top of him don't crush him.

Chuck

12-31-2008, 09:58 AM

I don't know if this is helpful to anyone but I have been keeping track of my fastest times for each level. Here they are:

Lvl1: 12.04
Lvl2: 26
Lvl3: 44
Lvl4: 1:04
Lvl5: 1:25
Lvl6: 1:50
Lvl7: 2:59
Lvl8: 3:34
Lvl9: 4:35
Lvl10: 5:19

Keep in mind those times from levels 1-9 aren't from the same game I played that I got a 5:19 on Level 10, but were the fastest times I've gotten through those levels regardless of my times on other levels.

iphys

12-31-2008, 02:52 PM

So far my best on level 1 was 11:72, but everything else I start diverging from you by a few seconds per level. Guess I'll try to give this one more shot to go under 6 minutes today . . . assuming the wi-fi is working again.

iphys

01-01-2009, 01:59 PM

Has anyone been able to submit their confirmation code for this? I've tried 4 times. The console has alternated between giving me 2 different codes when I check the news, and when I enter either of them and hit submit, it just reverts to "Status: submit code." I never had any problem submitting my code after the first round.

m:)

01-01-2009, 08:08 PM

The console has alternated between giving me 2 different codes when I check the news, and when I enter either of them and hit submit, it just reverts to "Status: submit code."

same here

durga2112

01-05-2009, 12:52 AM

Has anyone had any luck submitting their code yet? It still won't work for me.

iphys

01-05-2009, 05:03 AM

People are still complaining about the problem elsewhere, and as far as I know, no one has been able to get their points to register. Some people have tried e-mailing support@tetrisparty.com (http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/mailto:support?tetrisparty.com), but there hasn't been any response yet.

Kind of sucks for the few people that managed to complete Field Climber to lose out on all those points, but at least if it's everyone we shouldn't face a huge disadvantage in making the top 500 if they don't eventually rectify this.

m:)

01-05-2009, 07:02 AM

being as all this went down on a holiday weekend it is expectable that one one has heard back from support yet.
i bet it will be sorted out this week.

Jeff

01-06-2009, 03:36 AM

while it wouldn't be critical to 'lose' the points per se, it'd be a great advantage....this is coming from a guy who ranked 91st on marathon =_=

I didn't know prizes were on the line :{
I really hope they fix this up soon, i got a changed code, i've been putting the newer one in, but still no dice yet.

on another offtopic note: 12-15, all Canadian! who's gonna be the first to break the mold? (for the record, I haven't checked times today yet)