Joe Zbiciak's 4-Tris

 Joe Zbiciak's 4-Tris

A "Falling Tetrominoes" Game for Intellivision

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 Emulator Notes

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The Numeric Keypad is reversed.  Intellivision keypads put [1], [2], and [3] in

the top row of the keypad, much like a telephone. The emulator retains this

spatial relationship, despite the fact that  PC's put [7], [8] and [9] in the top

row.  So, you will need to remember this little tidbit when starting the game or

using the sound-test screen.

On INTVPC, the [0] key on the keypad is mapped to the Intellivision's [0] and the

[.] key is mapped to the Intellivision's [C]. On jzIntv, it's the other way

around.

The "Action Buttons" are mapped to Ctrl, Shift, and Alt.

The "Disc" is mapped to the arrow keys (the Inverted-T, NOT the ones on the

number-pad)!

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 Game Instructions

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At the title screen, press a number from [1]-[9] or [C] on the keypad to select a

starting level.  (Buttons [1] through [9] start you at levels 1 through 9, and [C]

starts you at Level 10.)  If you press [0] at the title screen, you will be taken

to a "Sound Test" screen. (See "Sound Test" below for more details.)  Any other

input on the controller starts you at Level 4.  (Level 4 seemed like a good mid-

way default level.)

In the game, the controllers are set up like so:

  DISC:              Moves piece left, right or down

  Action Buttons:    Rotates piece.  Top button rotates counter-clockwise,

                     bottom buttons rotate clockwise.

  [4], [6], or [C]   Toggles "Next Piece" display

  [7] or [9]         Mutes/un-mutes background music.

Pieces fall until they hit an obstruction which keeps them from falling. When a

piece can't fall any further, it is "placed", and a score is assessed for that

piece's placement.

First, the player is awarded a small number of points for each downward move that

the player made with the piece.  The player is awarded 5 pts/move if the next

piece was displayed at while this piece was falling, 10 pts/move otherwise.  This

rewards fast play.  Next, any completed lines are cleared away, and a cleared-line

bonus is awarded.  The table below illustrates the line clear bonuses. Notice that

it's worth your while to clear more lines at a time.

Line Clear Bonuses:

+-----------------+--------------------------------------------------------+

|  Number of      |  Level Number......                                    |

|  Lines Cleared  |    1   |   2   |   3   |   4   | ... |        n        |

|-----------------+--------+-------+-------+-------+-----+-----------------+

|        1        |   1000 |  1500 |  2000 |  2500 | ... |  500 * (n + 1)  |

|        2        |   3000 |  4500 |  6000 |  7500 | ... | 1500 * (n + 1)  |

|        3        |   6000 |  9000 | 12000 | 15000 | ... | 3000 * (n + 1)  |

|        4        |  12000 | 18000 | 24000 | 30000 | ... | 6000 * (n + 1)  |

+-----------------+--------+-------+-------+-------+-----+-----------------+

As lines are cleared, the player is moved up in level.  Each level has a maximum

number of lines associated with it, which is "10 * level". When that maximum is

reached, the player is moved to the next level. For example, when a player reaches

40 lines, the player moves from Level 4 to Level 5 (if the player didn't start at

a higher level number).

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 Sound Test

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The Sound Test screen allows the player to just play around with the sound effects

that are embedded in the 4-Tris ROM image.  Press buttons on the keypad to trigger

sound effects and music.  Use the action buttons to toggle the music playback

speed.  Press Disc to exit.

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 Source Code

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See the file "SOURCE.txt" for information on 4-Tris' source code.

Copyright 2000, Joe Zbiciak, im14u2c AT primenet DOT com