[Typomino & TypingTetromino]

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Typomino


You can use either Typomino (http://www.sendspace.com/file/abx5n5) or UTypomino (http://www.sendspace.com/file/tgs408) to participate.

40 Lines
Ranked by shortest time, then most recent
=====================================
Name Seconds YYYY-MM-DD
=====================================
jujube ----------- 44 ---- 2008-10-02
DDRKirby(ISQ) ---- 49 ---- 2009-11-23
kotetsu213 ------- 84 ---- 2008-09-24



TypingTetromino


You can find the program over here (http://www.sendspace.com/file/j9idfr). Credit goes to Edo for providing the link.

40 Lines
Ranked by shortest time, then most recent
=====================================
Name Seconds YYYY-MM-DD
=====================================
DDRKirby(ISQ) -- 176.50 -- 2009-11-15

[jujube]

40 lines -- 83 seconds

[jujube]

40 lines -- 76 seconds

this game takes a lot of patience. you want to rush and place pieces quickly, but then you end up misdropping everywhere. then you slow down and say to yourself "ok, i'll take it easy and stack just like i want to." then you misdrop anyway. when this happens you may experience the typomino effect (http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?image=typominoeffectsz7.jpg), and you know it's time to take a break.

[jujube]

40 lines -- 69 seconds

[jujube]

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6452/typomino58srg0.jpg
woohoo!

[muf]

I thought this game allowed you to play faster than regular Tetris. Where's those sub-40sec scores?

[caffeine]

Have you ever tried it? It's got a huge learning curve. Good work, Jujube.

[jujube]

thanks caffeine. yeah, it's tough starting out. but then again it's easier than actually learning to type. you only have to use 12-17 keys versus 50-60. it's also a more intuitive key layout. i think the toughest thing to get over is the severe drop in speed that you have when you first start playing. it's like if you learned to type your own way and reached 150 wpm with high accuracy, then took a typing class and found yourself back at 50 wpm with lots of typos. not that there's anything wrong with standard tetris controls, which is where the analogy doesn't quite work.

I thought this game allowed you to play faster than regular Tetris. Where's those sub-40sec scores?
coming i hope. there's no point in quitting once you've spent a certain amount of time on something and you're seeing improvement.

[muf]

Don't worry jujube, I was just pulling your leg http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif Keep up the good work!

[jujube]

thanks muf.

[jujube]

40 lines -- 53 seconds

edit: i'm starting to realize how much of a hypocrite i am http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_redface.gif
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=455 (http://www.tetrisconcept.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=455)
i'm not even gonna try to defend that http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif

[Ai]

It looks like one needs a lot of time to get totally used to the controls. And seeing as I already have trouble getting used to other things I'll pass for now. Need to get better first.

Keep up the great progress jujube! ^^

[jujube]

It looks like one needs a lot of time to get totally used to the controls. And seeing as I already have trouble getting used to other things I'll pass for now.
it wouldn't be a bad idea to play other games for a while, then come back to this one. learning the controls alone is hard enough. i think i was already sub-50s in lockjaw before i tried typomino. and even then i wasn't motivated enough to stick with this game. you're doing well in lockjaw, so if i were you i would focus on that and see how low you can go. then when your stacking strategy is more instinctive you'll be ready to make the controls more complicated if you want.

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/1148/typomino48sun6.jpg

i'm still trying to catch up with my lockjaw time, but it's coming pretty quickly.

How fast you can figure out where to put things is what determines most of your speed.

[kotetsu213]

40 lines - 198 seconds

edit:
40 lines - 176 seconds

edit:
40 lines - 155 seconds

edit:
40 lines - 147 seconds

edit:
40 lines - 134 seconds
(keep in mind I just picked this game up an hour ago)

edit again:
40 lines - 127 seconds

[jujube]

already shaved off more than a minute kotetsu? nice. don't stop there!

[kotetsu213]

40 lines - 106 seconds

9/24 edit: 84 seconds

[jujube]

40 lines -- 46 seconds

edit: 45 seconds

[jujube]

40 lines -- 44 seconds

still making steady progress despite feeling like i'm playing too slow. i feel like sub-40 could come at any time, but so far i haven't been able to make a consistent effort for 100 pieces. i'll have spurts of 155-160 TPM (estimated) but then i'll pause and have no idea what to do with a piece.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

40 lines: 168 seconds.

i can do much better http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif, I haven't hit any walls yet, just have to get used to it a little.

edit: 150 seconds

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

40 lines: 145 seconds

(i really haven't been playing this at all ^^)

[lgb]

So I suppose this is part of Heboris UE?

[colour_thief]

No it's its own game. What makes it noteworthy is that there's no "left" and "right" etc. Instead you type at a keyboard to directly place the pieces, hence the name.

[Zaphod77]

yeah.

also to make up for lack of sliding, deep drop is allowed.

It also has a rather long preview.

You have to read the preview, and see "words" that correspond to good piece placements and look ahead insanely far and fast, but if you can do that, in theory you can get insane times reaching TAS speeds. In practice, since i'm not a touch typist, i suck badly. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

40 lines: 120 seconds

(i tried a little more seriously this time)

[lgb]

No it's its own game. What makes it noteworthy is that there's no "left" and "right" etc. Instead you type at a keyboard to directly place the pieces, hence the name.
Now I can tell. Neat concept, any sauce? (Because this was also apparently on the heboris index)

[colour_thief]

There used to be a "hebo uploader" where this game was hosted. I never downloaded it, and the hebo uploader is now dead. Perhaps another kind person will upload it for you though.

[Ai]

Here you go:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/rouea9

^^

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

40 lines: 119 seconds

OMG ONE SECOND IMPROVEMENT


edit: 113 seconds

edit: 108 seconds

edit: 101 seconds

[jujube]

that's great improvement Kirby, keep it up.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

105 seconds

(not a new record)

just making sure I haven't gotten too bad at it. I haven't played for the past 3 weeks, as my RSI-related wrist pains have been a lot worse (I'm recovering though...)

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

93 seconds.

edit: 91 seconds.

edit: 90 seconds.

[colour_thief]

Any volunteers to maintain this thread in jujube's absence?

[Ai]

I would like to maintain it in the meantime if it's okay with everyone else. ^^

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

89 seconds.

...yay.

EDIT: 80 seconds.

EDIT: 77 seconds.

EDIT: 74 seconds.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Things that have helped me:

-planning out the first few pieces before starting =P
-as with other tetris games, having plans for I, L, and J pieces.
-making "easy" placements in favor of good stacking.
-trying to focus on one area at a time, as it's a lot easier to stack in one place rather than jump from side to side.
-taking advantage of "piece combos", like if I get an S and have an S held i'll immediately place both. if there's a T followed by a Z after that those will go down without hesitation as well.

-doing practice sessions that are
--extra slow, ensuring i'm doing everything in the most efficient way possible (no double rotates instead of 180 rotates)
--paced according to a rhythm, to force myself to think ahead

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

72 seconds.

edit: 70 seconds.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

68 seconds!

I find that i'm not using double-rotate like i should be.

edit: 66 seconds.

edit: 65 seconds.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

60 seconds.

on a somewhat related note, I learned colemak this summer.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

57 seconds.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Wait, the version of the game that's in the first post right now is different than the one I've been using ("UTypomino", a java app) When was this version released? Are there translations for the various options? And more importantly, how do I close the darn thing xD

most notable difference I've found so far: pressing ; to drop a piece doesn't always work, for example it'll never work for an O piece. This is different than the behavior in UTypomino...

Also the ceiling extends slightly above the visible field in UTypomino.

here's the version i've been using (http://www.filefront.com/14327999/UTypomino.zip).

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/4546/tsra.jpg

okay, i've gone and fiddled around and now I know what all the options do.
(accessed from settings.exe)

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/3382/arst.jpg

Starting on the left column and going down:

* speed at which to run the game. Default is 10. Higher values will make the refresh rate slower. I'm probably just going to use 1.
* game mode (lines, time, endless)
* time limit in time mode
* number of lines to clear in line mode

The next six are the rotation keys, as far as I can tell. I don't think it's possible to remap the drop keys, though I can't see why you'd want to anyways, unless you're using a different keyboard layout like i am (colemak) =P. I play my other games in qwerty too anyways, so it doesn't matter.

The next three have to do with the randomizer. I'm not 100% sure how it works, but i think it's basically a bag randomizer plus a weird twist. Here's how I think it works:
The first entry is the bag. 0123456 correspond to the 7 possible pieces. The twist is that you can put 'R' in there. If you do that, then every so often (not sure how frequent it is...less than one every 7 pieces though, probably), it'll pick something out of the SECOND line.
The third entry is the number of random pieces it generates at the start of the game. For each game, the random generator ONLY generates this many pieces, so you want to set it high enough that you don't run out, otherwise you'll just get an endless stream of Is. But set it too high and it'll stall for a long time when you start a game because it has to generate too many pieces. 1000 seems to be a good number here, unless you're going to be playing endless for an hour or something, in which case you may want to increase it.

I think to get just a regular bag randomizer, you just put "0123456" into the first line here. The default is "0123456R", which does NOT behave exactly like bag. Instead it's bag, but every so often you get a random piece. I'm not sure whether the piece is independent of the bag or not.

Moving onto the second column, which is all UI stuff:

* turns the background image on/off.
* path to the background image. if this is invalid and you set the above to on, it'll crash. should be a jpg image. it will just get blasted onto there in the upper right hand corner, there's no scaling or tiling. The window is 640x480, so size your background accordingly.
* color of the "type 1" columns
* color of the "type 2" columns
* opacity of the playfield. ranges from 0 (fully transparent) to 255 (opaque). I only have this above 255 because i was testing things.
* pattern of columns. this should be a sequence of 1s and 2s that is 10 in length. the default is 2211221122. Basically you're allowed to have two different colors for your background columns (defined above) and here's where you set the pattern for those two columns. So to emulate UTypomino you'd do something like 1212121212.
* color of the playfield border
* color of the border around the next pieces
* color of the text that says lines/time
* gridlines on or off
* color of gridlines

the two buttons at the bottom: left one is to SAVE your options, right one closes the settings dialog.

=======

In addition to the behavior where trying to drop in a column that is too far to the right will result in nothing happening (UTypomino would automatically drop it as far right as possible), there is another difference--if you rotate a piece, then put it in hold, it will STAY ROTATED.

Also there is no "place but don't lock" feature like in UTypomino (not that I ever used it anyways)

I still haven't figured out how to close the darn thing without resorting to task manager.

=======

I'm going to probably start playing on this now, it feels more fully featured (most importantly it's got a higher resolution timer). no tpm display though. And the differences in behavior might throw me off a little.
Maybe I should make custom block graphics too. The current ones are really nifty in that they've got mini versions of the full block inside them if you look closely, but they're also kinda bright...

[colour_thief]

"0123456R"

This sounds like "8-bag", bags that include 1 of every piece plus a random extra piece. TOJ had this randomizer for a while but then they changed it to standard 7-bag.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

hmmm you're right, that does seem to be what it's doing.

Okay, I've fiddled around with it for abit, but i think i'm going back to UTypomino. For some reason I perform wayyyy better on it. Partly because of the different behavior, mostly because i'm more used to the look and feel, but also probably because the window is smaller! For some reason playing in a tiny 400x300ish window seems to help, maybe because it's easier to see piece previews or something.

[Ai]

I have both versions. I downloaded both from the hebo website when it was still up. The file I uploaded is hebo0007 and the one you posted is hebo0036. The version you're using seems to be the most recent one if it hasn't been updated since then.

This is how the settings screen looks like with Japanese characters:

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/1355/35209859.png (http://img196.imageshack.us/i/35209859.png/)

In my case the application runs in a window and I can just close it like any window. There may be a setting to change this in the Config file. I think you better keep using your current version as it's the most recent one. I'll post links to both versions in the OP. And nice progress! ^^

EDIT:

8 consecutive posts by DDRKirby(ISQ) before colour_thief intervened. I was going to ask about colemak a few days ago, but then I suddenly decided to just google it. ^^

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

here's the new blocks.gif I made for typomino, in case anyone wants it. Pretty simple.

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2168/blockso.gif

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

55 seconds

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WfBiLuyN5M

some video of me playing. 0:59 second run starts at around 1:40

[Edo]

Thanks for sharing DDRKirby, that was really fascinating to watch! Also, I'm not sure if you're aware, but there's another simililar typing tetromino game, in fact, it's actually called "Typing Tetromino"...

I think it was either Caithness or lee_n who linked me to it, but I can't remember where I downloaded it from, and I'm not sure if the version I have is still the most recent. Anyway, I've stuck it up on sendspace for anyone that's interested. Note that it requires the .NET Framework 2.0.50727:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/j9idfr

The major difference from Typomino is that each and every placement requires only 1 keystroke. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll just show you the included key.gif:

http://pici.se/pictures/yklnpgjwH.gif

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Thanks for sharing DDRKirby, that was really fascinating to watch! Also, I'm not sure if you're aware, but there's another simililar typing tetromino game, in fact, it's actually called "Typing Tetromino"...

I think it was either Caithness or lee_n who linked me to it, but I can't remember where I downloaded it from, and I'm not sure if the version I have is still the most recent. Anyway, I've stuck it up on sendspace for anyone that's interested. Note that it requires the .NET Framework 2.0.50727:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/j9idfr

The major difference from Typomino is that each and every placement requires only 1 keystroke. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll just show you the included key.gif:

http://pici.se/pictures/yklnpgjwH.gif

wow, that's insane. I don't think I'll learn it though, or even think about it, at least not for awhile. It'll probably screw up my typomino skills anyways.

The other main difference from Typomino is that tetrominos don't always have their "pivot point" on the left. For example, in typomino pressing F will always drops the piece with its leftmost blocks on the 4th column, but in typing tetrominos the leftmost block will usually be on 3rd column. It makes somewhat more intuitive sense, in a way.

Hmm...actually, I might give this a shot. I'll let you know how it goes.

Also, the other painful difference is that pressing a key that's "too far" to the left makes the tetromino drop as far left as it can, but pressing one that's "too far" to the right will cause nothing to happen. =( I really rely on that behavior in typomino sometimes...

Also there's no deep drop. xD And, most importantly, there's no handy reference chart at the bottom, and the columns aren't color-coded =(

Seems interesting, but I think there could be a better implementation. I've been meaning to create a typomino clone for a loooong time now (don't know if it'll ever happen) so this could be a potential idea.
====
still figuring out how the rotation system works. Seems like for S and Z pieces, pressing R is different than pressing V, a la SRS...this is REALLY interesting...

also, is there any way to reset the board, besides killing yourself?

also, I really don't understand the point of the ghost piece.

======

made 35 lines and then died

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/6022/arstneio.jpg

sub 6-minutes!

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6022/arstneio.jpg


whooooooooooo!!!!~~~

better watch out jujube ;)

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

new record:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2159/arstarst.jpg

[Ai]

Somehow missed the last Typomino record you submitted 2 weeks ago so I don't have the exact date. ^^' Should I create a leaderboard for Typing Tetromino?

Very good progress and also congrats with your S9 in Special. The time is especially good! ^^

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

The latest typomino record was on 10/29/09.

Yes, create a typing tetromino board please! (same topic)

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2159/arstarst.jpg

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/2159/arstarst.jpg

this implementation sucks. i really should make my own clone.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/2159/arstarst.jpg

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2159/arstarst.jpg

If you think regular tetlag is bad, try switching back and forth between typomino and typing tetromino.

[Ai]

Let me break your chain of posts before it gets any longer. Just kidding. ^^ Nice progress. I created a leaderboard for TypingTetromino. Let me know if I should add something.

Are you interested in becoming owner of this thread? I could make it happen. I'd gladly keep maintaining it just like before. This is just if you want to. ^^

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

sure--i'm the only one posting records here anyways ^^;

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2159/arstarst.jpg

Sub-50!!!!!