NES and Tetris + Dr. Mario

[Kitaru]

As some of you already know, I've been researching some of the Nintendo family Tetris games a bit. NES Tetris and its remake on Tetris + Dr. Mario have some very peculiar features with regards to DAS:
1)The DAS counter does not reset to zero when input is neutral. (I call it "neutral stored DAS.")
2)DAS charging is completely dead during ARE/Clear.
3)DAS charge is immediately filled on blocked shifts. (I call it "wall charge.")

Demonstration of the DAS mechanics (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aew60kovOgw)

From #1 and #2, you may notice that the only other time DAS would be able to reset is if you press left or right during active time. The DAS timings in both games are 16 frames initial delay with 6 frames between shifts after that. With the majority of play being at 1/2 G, you really don't want to have to deal with that 16 frame start-up. As a DASer, your ideal placements would be at the wall, neutral, or -- if you feel comfortable doing so -- tap placements achieved through DAS skill stops.

The neat thing about wall charge -- and what I presume to be its originally intended use -- is that it guarantees pre-loading of slides. I have a feeling the programmers recognized that DAS should behave consistently in this case. It is no replacement 60hz rate, but I'm grateful for it nonetheless. The other wonderful thing about it -- as you may have guessed -- is that you can use it to pick up charge if you had to compromise with a tap.

Bear in mind that a pre-loaded slide will leave you with 10 frames on the counter if you're playing at level 19 speeds. If 6 frames will make or break your next placement... well, I'd just hope it doesn't come to that, haha.

Also note that the pieces spawn one column further to the right than usual. Couple this with strictly right-handed rotation tables for S/Z/I and you'll find that placements on the right tend to be easier to reach. Use this information as you will. Sometimes I'll attempt to use a placement on the right to charge DAS for an upcoming placement on the left. I'm not sure if this is advisable, but it seems to work sometimes, haha.

Another one of my "scrub optimizations" I sometimes implement is to DAS as much as possible to the walls to fill out each side of the stack and work in the middle afterward.

One of the things to note about Tetris + Dr. Mario is that every piece has a post-ARE 12 frames of active time where gravity has no effect. This means you can resist the 1G speeds much more effectively as a DAS user than you would be able to in the NES version. However, it is still quite a tall order to fill, haha.

The full list of timings, for reference:
NES:
ARE: 10 frames
Line Clear animation: 20 frames
No gravity: 100 frames, first piece only

SNES (T+Dr.M):
ARE: 25 frames
Line Clear animation: 26 frames
No gravity: 12 frames, every piece

Both games:
DAS: 16 frame initial, 6 frames between shifts

[Amnesia]

I am not sure if I am mad or not, but I would have bet, when I was intensively playing T&DR M, that the DAS charging had a random behaviour, it is really hard to explain, it is something we can notice after a lot of failed attempt at the level 29+, sometime my piece was well charged and had no problem to get the wall, and other time where I was sure to had planned well above my move, I could see that my piece had no chance to get the wall.
Maybe a detail to analyse or I am mad.

[Kitaru]

It could be attributed to a variety of the behaviors described above. Accidental wall charging leads to some pieces being unexpectedly well charged to reach their destination.

Also, I wanted to point out something I read in a YouTube comment by Jonas, one of the few players to max out NES Tetris. If a DAS'd piece is going to fall short of its destination, wait until the last second and give it one last tap. What you're effectively doing is sacrificing your DAS charge to push it slightly over a 10hz repeat rate rather than wait for the next iteration. Luckily, you'll probably have an opportunity to get wall charge and have things ready for the next piece if you're throwing a piece over that far.

[Zaphod77]

Wow. a tetris game predating Kiwamemichi has the feature of delayed gravity.

[tepples]

I seem to remember that a phenomenon similar to "neutral stored DAS" exists in some TGM games. I learned about it from the same reference that explained "DAS bald spots" at various points in ARE.

It appears The New Tetris for N64 also has wall charge to an extent, apparently to make up for the pieces' larger-than-usual hitboxes associated with the way TNT64 implements smooth gravity animation. Carbon Engine (used in freepuzzlearena and TOD) had wall charge, but I never got around to putting it in Lockjaw Engine before Flag-gate (http://tetrisconcept.net/forum/showthread.html?t=702) put Lockjaw and LJ65 on hiatus because 1. I figured that most players would be using 60 Hz DAS anyway, and 2. the only mode that requires a lot of precision sliding is square gluing mode.

"One of the things to note about Tetris + Dr. Mario is that every piece has a post-ARE 12 frames of active time where gravity has no effect."
Lumines has spawn-float too, to a much greater extent. In my clone (http://pineight.com/lu/), I set the spawn-float time equal to the time needed to fall 6 rows. At the end of ARE it does this, where state_time is in frames and y_speed is in rows per 65536 frames:
u.state_time = 0x60000 / g.y_speed;
u.state = LU_FALLING_PIECE;
Then it ignores g.y_speed until u.state_time has expired.

[farter]

something about Dr.Mario
http://you.video.sina.com.cn/api/sinawebApi/outplayrefer.php/vid=27824718_1554009584/s.swf

[cyberguile]

nice video but... the topic is about tetris in the tetris and dr mario compilation ;)