just wanted to make you people here aware of this nice blockout 3d tetris clone written in flash: http://www.3dtris.de it has a nice online highscore list, too!
hey - anyone here tested it? after 3dtris.de got on the http://www.fazed.net news and got image of the day on http://www.gamedev.net, there is a huge competition on the online highscore list. any blockout expert here? try to break some highscores the flash program evolved, too:
hi, it is not bad, you are the developper ? the ad on the bottom is really irritating cause it make lags... a real shockwave 3D game shouldn't be more appropriate ? with cam movement ?
sure, real 3d graphics with shockwave or - better - a real application using opengl and nice shading effects would be much better, but the fact is that the flash player is much more widely distributed than shockwave plugin or any other plugin. so for now i will stick with flash, so that many more people can play this blockout clone. the diehards will play the original classic blockout anyway because its still better ( better handling of rotations, more pit dimensions etc..) anyway - eventually with flash 10 we will have real 3d graphics in flash! then i will revamp 3dtris.de . about the ad: ok - maybe i should disable it.. its hogging way to much resources. in my distant dreams i would like to implement blockout in opengl like i did for my 2d tetris with gravity: http://www.gravytris.de please, check it out.. it has this chain reaction effect and it combines columns ( deleting color rows ) with tetris. also, it has a quite functional mouse control. thats - as far as i know - the only tetris thats playable only with the mouse.
i know, blockout is rather off-topic here, but who knows - maybe some of you are watching with a half eye about 3d tetris.(uh poor english) new release candidate of 3dtris! http://www.3dtris.de/sneakpeak.php 3dtris release candidate 1 new features: * nicer shaded pit * 3 game modes (no more choosable levels, because that makes it hard to compare scores) * 5 minutes game duration limit (we can discuss that timespan - but it hink a short flash game should not be longer than 10 minutes.. must be short enough for a coffe break) * easier scoring scheme: 1 cube = 10 points --> 1 flat = 250 points. 2 flats = 2*500 = 1000 points 3 flats = 3*750 = 2250 points blockout= 4*1000=4000 points * finally, fps independent game speed!! in the previous versions i am quite sure that the top high scores in the online lists are done with slow computers. because with a slow comp the drop speed was also slow - one unit per frame... now, regardless, if you have a slow computer or a cutting edge pc, the game drops and runs equally fast. though, if your framerate is constantly below 10fps, gameplay will get choppy. in that case, please try to upgrade your flashplayer or browser or your pc (sorry for that - flash, especially actionscript 2 is still quite slow. this will change with flash 9, but i will need some time to recode everything for actionscript3 and flash 9...) new statistics screen: new game modes: new depth shaded pit:
yeah. i would die for to try out a virtual boy with virtual tetris. there is a nice screenshot of a display-version of that virtual boy that looks absolutely terrific - well ahead of its time
http://www.blockout.net - the Blockout Community is launched. everyone interested in 3D Pentomino dropping is invited to participate. also there is a fresh new blockout clone, that is the closest to perfect (the original dos-blockout is still unbeaten - a timeless piece of programming art) http://zelda38.free.fr/BlockOut
Good News ! Blockout II release 2.2 is out! download here: http://www.blockout.net/blockout2 You can now store your Highscores and Replays in the online highscore list! You can also download other highscores+replays and watch them. (there is currently a small bug - you must have subdirectory "replay". this is created with your first own game. if you just want to watch replays, first make that directory manually) (if you do not like blockout, than at least check the program - the replay and online score mechanism is very well done)
Blockout II rev. 2.3 was released by JeanLucPons. directly from the readme: Code: Version history =============== 2.3: -Added player/rank name when replaying -New punctuation characters added -Little effect when rotation is blocked -Fixed "Cannot open blX.bl2replay for writting" -New style (Marble/Arcade) -Fixed crash when pressing [Esc] -Pit animation when the game is over -Jump to Score Details page after end of game -Added DOS blockout sound preset -New randomizer (See notes) About the Randomizer: ===================== The Blockout II random generator generates a sequence of all possible pieces (depending on the pit dimension and block set) permuted randomly, as if they were drawn from a bag. Then it deals all pieces of the sequence before generating another bag. It is not possible to get 3 times the same piece. The random permuation is generated by a classic linear congruential generator. download: http://www.blockout.net
Aw, I'm actually disappointed that it's using a bag randomizer. Generalized Arika-style forever. (Note that checking the history zero times or having a zero memory size gives the memoryless randomizer, so the term does include that case.)
@air gear: ok, but at least, it is much better than the pure uniform random generator. and it is very easy to implement. anyway, i will let JeanLuc know that you would like to see a arika style randomizer. are you playing a bit blockout lately ?
A little bit. Let me say, though, that my thoughts on Blockout probably aren't ones that big fans of the original would want to work with; I'd be the one to change the view over to the side and add lock delay, as a start. After that, I'd continue to screw with things. For the record, one of my reasons for not really liking the generator as is (or bag generators in general) is since, as I see it, you're NOT supposed to get three bravos (ok, "flushes") in one game, let alone your first in a long time. Those are supposed to be novelties that you really never expect to get.
i understand. that is a very good argument with the bravos. but its easily changeable: either use tgm randomizer, or use a bigger bag of lets say the double size. if you may have noticed some highscores in the score database with lots of bravos in the release 2.2, then this was due to a bug. in the mode "flat fun" there were always the same piece sequence. but thats gone with release 2.3 and now it seems to be much harder to make bravos. regarding your changes to blockout: i also would like to see lock delay and all this fine stuff from tgm, and also i would like to experiment with the perspective. one idea would be a side view as in normal tetris, but with transparent pieces, such that one can see the 3d stacking.
I have thoughts on how the rotation system in Blockout would have to work to incorporate high-speed TGM ideas, but that's not the point of this one post...I'm going to focus on the things which have kept Blockout out of the mainstream and how we can fix them with fan versions, if possible. The first: perspective. I personally think one of the reasons Blockout hasn't taken off is since the perspective doesn't make the game easy to play. The method that the original game used to fake 3d really doesn't make for something intuitive; you know that'd be easy to fix given all our 3d rendering tools today. Experimenting with perspective could do great things. The second thing is unfortunate since I don't think that it could be fixed within JeanLuc's program; it's as big a problem for Blockout as the difficult perspective. I find the controls unwieldy and I'm sure others do, too: six rotation buttons is hard to work with. I think about that and the logical way to fix that is something like...Blockout Absolute on Wii Arcade (by some group and Kadon Enterprises). I honestly think that controls help to make Blockout inaccessible, though that could be fixed with using a wiimote to control the game. Consider: hold A and push the controller forward or back to rotate as if you're pushing the top of the block away from or toward you. Left or right and up or down with A (one rotation per press of the A button) would be the other four rotation directions; combine that with the other buttons in the wiimote as drops and the nunchuk for moving in the plane and you have a great control scheme. Short of something like that, it's like Blockout is destined to not be as good as it could be since we don't have the mechanisms to control it well...
if i manage to use the wiimote via bluetooth and a c(++) library, i may be able to make a prototype!! i currently started coding on gravytris again, and i now have a nearly working 3d implementation. i only need to get wiimote via bluetooth working. perspective is alreay possible, i can rotate the camera around the blockout and thus change perspective. but one problem: as nice wiimote will be for beginners to rotate pieces, it will - i am afraid - be really really slow. i cannot imagine how to implement fast rotations with the wiimote. because nothing is faster than small keypresses. rotation needs moving the whole arm or wrist - this can never be as fast as a keyboard / joypad. but - if we make blockout more puzzle like without speed pressure, it could work. stay tuned, i will upload a demo of my blockout prototype soon
I have to disagree with you on the "really really slow". Sure, it'd be slower, but Blockout doesn't strike me as the sort of game which should go as far as TA Death or Shirase. I'd think that it'd be possible to go to most accessible speeds with a wiimote; if you want me to put it in terms of the modes in the TGM series, it'd definitely be possible to make an equivalent of Master Mode for Blockout.
yeah, you might be right. your control scheme for wiimote is very interesting! here are my control ideas for wiimote: ==== by acceleration ===== hold Wiimote as if pointing to the tv. now: twisting the wrist makes z-rotation ( "roll" ) shortly whipping wimote up makes x-clockwise ( "pitch up" ) short whip down makes x-counterclockwise ( "pitch down" ) the same for y-rotation: whip left/right for "yaw" and of course, nunchuck for piece movements. and i agree: while probably not death speeds, a master mode should be possible. ==== pointing only ==== divide the tv screen in 4 border sections, a bit as in Elebits if pointing to the upper part of the screen and pressing A, rotate x-axis clockwise; lower part of screen counter clockwise if pointing to the left / right border zone of the tv screen, rotate y-axis and now the grat thing thats possible only with wiimote, not ordinary mouse: pointing to the center section of the screen and tilting the wiimote clock/counterclockwise and pressing A makes z-rotation ==== buttons only ==== a more "classic" control scheme could be: 1. rotation with nunchuck: joystick rotates x and y axes, "C" and "Z" - z-axis; wiimote moves either by pointing or with d-pad or 2. wiimote only: dpad for rotations and pointing for movement or any combination. the fastest might be pointing method (ok the fastest will be buttons only, but thats way tooo complex and unintuitive, as with classic blockout)
name ideas: "Blockout Absolute" (Air Gear) "Blockout Reloaded" (herc) "Blockout Revolutions" "Wii3D" ( domains already in use ) "Wiitris" (domaingrabbers already took wiitris.com) i have another domain name in mind, but i wont post it here publicly. fucking domaingrabbers are lurking everywhere... consider blockout.com - its blocked by some stupid domaingrabber...
