Skip to main content
Engineering LibreTexts

8.37: Summary

  • Page ID
    14616
    \( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

    The Tetromino game (which is a clone of the more popular game, "Tetris") is pretty easy to explain to someone in English: "Blocks fall from the top of a board, and the player moves and rotates them so that they form complete lines. The complete lines disappear (giving the player points) and the lines above them move down. The game keeps going until the blocks fill up the entire board and the player loses."

    Explaining it in plain English is one thing, but when we have to tell a computer exactly what to do there are many details we have to fill in. The original Tetris game was designed and programmed one person, Alex Pajitnov, in the Soviet Union in 1984. The game is simple, fun, and addictive. It is one of the most popular video games ever made, and has sold 100 million copies with many people creating their own clones and variations of it.

    And it was all created by one person who knew how to program.

    With the right idea and some programming knowledge you can create incredibly fun games. And with some practice, you will be able to turn your game ideas into real programs that might become as popular as Tetris!

    For additional programming practice, you can download buggy versions of Tetromino from http://invpy.com/buggy/tetromino and try to figure out how to fix the bugs.

    There are also variations of the Tetromino game on the book’s website. "Pentomino" is a version of this game with pieces made up of five boxes. There is also "Tetromino for Idiots", where all of the pieces are made up of just one box.

    Figure 41

    These variations can be downloaded from:


    This page titled 8.37: Summary is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Al Sweigart via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

    • Was this article helpful?