What on earth could be interesting about another version of Tetris?
Well, how about if it was made by the same person, Tetsuya Mizuguchi that did Rez Infinite - a game so affecting to me that truly nothing could be the same again [link][1] . That was always going to pique my interest and it was further piqued by PSVR support. I wondered what would even be the point of VR for Tetris.
Tetris, itself, is a stone-cold classic and left the ”games” world to enter into the real world with the incredible success of the Gameboy version. I’m a huge fan and it is arguably the game that I have played most of all. It was my “T” in my “A-Z” rundown and that is probably a better guide to the basics of Tetris although I would be surprised if many required a primer on this particular puzzler. Tetris is about creating space to be ready for the future and filling an absence. What we are doing, when playing Tetris, is making gaps to fill later - it is the making gaps that is the game, filling them later is almost an incidental part of the process. Filling those gaps is satisfying, no doubt, but it is only satisfying in the sense that you have prepared for it. And that preparation is all about managing risk using the probability of pieces - what are we going to get and how can we use it? As you get better and better, you can have a plan for each eventuality which is pure risk management. Because you are working in this way, this is actually management of negative space[2] which is quite counter-intuitive. I think this is what appeals about Tetris - the anticipation is so enjoyable.
In many ways, it might be easier to list how Tetris Effect differs from the versions we have all played before and the biggest gameplay alteration is the use of variable speed throughout the game. I say, “throughout the game” but actually, once you start, there are two major sections to choose between - “Journey Mode” and “Effect Mode”. Journey Mode acts as a type of campaign mode and see you start off a series of 27 levels (or skins, as they are often referred to) grouped into bundles. The Effect Mode has a number of different variations on classic Tetris gameplay with different scoring mechanics with similar gameplay. As you unlock skins for Effect Mode by reaching them in the Journey mode, it probably makes sense to go through the Journey first to unlock as much as you can to use in the Effect Mode. There are some nice modes included with a number of variations on the theme with combo modes, speed runs and a weird infection mode too. The meat of the game, in my opinion, is the Journey mode however.
Variable speed is an interesting gameplay choice and one that was taken in Lumines - the musical puzzle game Mizuguchi released in 2004 to coincide with the launch of the PlayStation Portable. The effect of this variable speed is to lengthen a given “run” so rather than being a spurt of gaming with growing intensity, it has the ebb and flow of an album - a Journey in fact. This had quite a weird effect on the way that you played it in that it could last for a very long time within one run and had the effect of transporting you through the game and you felt that you were playing with it rather than trying to beat it[3]. It also lends the game an experiential air rather than the score chasing mechanic that you come to expect from a puzzle game. I think that this is also true of Tetris Effect which, although it does have an explicit scoring system with grading, feels like a trip or a journey into and through the game. There are periods of intense pressure - and Tetris has a suffocating pressure as you tip so easily from manageable to "impossible to salvage" - but there is always a chance that the game will give you a chance if you can get to the next segment of a level that has lower speeds.
The start of the Journey mode is indeed slow and it does not speed up significantly for a while, it guides you in with a very calm hand and music that is both welcoming and sparse. Those first few sections are a great introduction to what Tetris Effect does and with such a relaxed pace, you can rack up the points with Tetris after Tetris.
The key differentiator with Tetris Effect is the connection and that connection is built through the sonic and visual flourishes that accompany your actions. Each time you move or rotate a block, that is accompanied by a sound effect which changes depending on skin. This is pretty standard in games - jumping in Mario will play the jump sound effect. And, as in Mario, that sound effect latches you into the game. Each line you clear will also generate a sound and a visual trick of some kind - a colourful particle explosion[4] that is in some way related to the skin you are currently playing. This hardly sounds groundbreaking - this is just videogame mechanics. But, The Beatles (see Yesterday (2019)) were just guitar, bass, drums and vocals. The choices made by the development team to create that connection is on another plane with all those sounds making sense of what is around you in a way that seems barely human. And what a selection of sounds and visuals that have been created here, truly taking on the journey aspect of the game. Starting off in the deep, deep sea with whale sounds and effects to link you in, it is striking from the first minute. The initial minimalist soundscapes are layered on as you get more lines and progress through the stage with whale sounds accompanying the line clears. The next stage mixes that approach up straight away with an "in your face" set of sounds and music resetting your feelings and preparing you for an eclectic and always interesting selection of music through the journey.
With classic Tetris being so well known, there is a school of thought that Tetris Effect is just Tetris but prettier and with nice music. I can’t disagree but “just” is doing a hell of a lot of work here, and elevates a game that is already at the pinnacle of the genre to a geostationary orbit above it. It is worth thinking about what the purpose of those pretty graphics and nice music is and what they are doing to the player. That isn't a side effect of the game - that is gaming in a nutshell. The enjoyment of doing interactions is surely all that gaming is. Is that side-effect, what art is, in a nutshell? Invoking or evoking emotion into the "observer" is surely one of the defining traits of art. This isn't a debate worth having - Mizuguchi is an artist and so much more layered on top of that.
Tetris Effect is an absolutely stellar addition to the world of gaming with top tier graphics, an exceptional soundtrack and gameplay that fuses Tetris, a game that many would argue has claims to be a perfect game, to that visual and audio tour de force. And then layers a coherent and beautiful virtual reality implementation on top of it.
I can't really recommend this highly enough. It might not hit you in the same way, but it is so, so simple to at least try.
Honestly, I was really looking forward to this and many have said that it can be a transcendental experience and the pinnacle of what VR can do, and I do sort of agree with that but for me, this does not quite match that moment when it is all connected in Rez. But to be the second most transcendental experience (I have had) in all of the time I have been playing games is not a bad recommendation. Please do play.
Come follow me
I'll show you the side of yourself
The person that you've always been
But never dreamed
-------------------------------------
1. This was pretty hyperbolic in 2016 but I do still stand by it - “Rez Infinite is an incredible experience and game and I am not honestly sure that anything will be the same again.”↩
2. At school, many years ago, I used to do a subject called design and communication. I rather enjoyed it as it was about presentation of ideas. At the time, the teacher used to walk around and offer comments on our work and one time, he mentioned that one of my drawings was very good use of negative space. This brought a lot of laughter and mocking of my work by some friends as he seemed to basically be saying that the bits I didn't do (the white space) were very good. We all understood what was meant but it was still brought up even decades later!↩
3. Although it was very much trying to beat you!↩
4. These particles are used in a similar way to the particle effects in Rez Infinite's Area X which lends an impressionistic air to the explosions. ↩
Well, how about if it was made by the same person, Tetsuya Mizuguchi that did Rez Infinite - a game so affecting to me that truly nothing could be the same again [link][1] . That was always going to pique my interest and it was further piqued by PSVR support. I wondered what would even be the point of VR for Tetris.
Tetris, itself, is a stone-cold classic and left the ”games” world to enter into the real world with the incredible success of the Gameboy version. I’m a huge fan and it is arguably the game that I have played most of all. It was my “T” in my “A-Z” rundown and that is probably a better guide to the basics of Tetris although I would be surprised if many required a primer on this particular puzzler. Tetris is about creating space to be ready for the future and filling an absence. What we are doing, when playing Tetris, is making gaps to fill later - it is the making gaps that is the game, filling them later is almost an incidental part of the process. Filling those gaps is satisfying, no doubt, but it is only satisfying in the sense that you have prepared for it. And that preparation is all about managing risk using the probability of pieces - what are we going to get and how can we use it? As you get better and better, you can have a plan for each eventuality which is pure risk management. Because you are working in this way, this is actually management of negative space[2] which is quite counter-intuitive. I think this is what appeals about Tetris - the anticipation is so enjoyable.
In many ways, it might be easier to list how Tetris Effect differs from the versions we have all played before and the biggest gameplay alteration is the use of variable speed throughout the game. I say, “throughout the game” but actually, once you start, there are two major sections to choose between - “Journey Mode” and “Effect Mode”. Journey Mode acts as a type of campaign mode and see you start off a series of 27 levels (or skins, as they are often referred to) grouped into bundles. The Effect Mode has a number of different variations on classic Tetris gameplay with different scoring mechanics with similar gameplay. As you unlock skins for Effect Mode by reaching them in the Journey mode, it probably makes sense to go through the Journey first to unlock as much as you can to use in the Effect Mode. There are some nice modes included with a number of variations on the theme with combo modes, speed runs and a weird infection mode too. The meat of the game, in my opinion, is the Journey mode however.
Variable speed is an interesting gameplay choice and one that was taken in Lumines - the musical puzzle game Mizuguchi released in 2004 to coincide with the launch of the PlayStation Portable. The effect of this variable speed is to lengthen a given “run” so rather than being a spurt of gaming with growing intensity, it has the ebb and flow of an album - a Journey in fact. This had quite a weird effect on the way that you played it in that it could last for a very long time within one run and had the effect of transporting you through the game and you felt that you were playing with it rather than trying to beat it[3]. It also lends the game an experiential air rather than the score chasing mechanic that you come to expect from a puzzle game. I think that this is also true of Tetris Effect which, although it does have an explicit scoring system with grading, feels like a trip or a journey into and through the game. There are periods of intense pressure - and Tetris has a suffocating pressure as you tip so easily from manageable to "impossible to salvage" - but there is always a chance that the game will give you a chance if you can get to the next segment of a level that has lower speeds.
The start of the Journey mode is indeed slow and it does not speed up significantly for a while, it guides you in with a very calm hand and music that is both welcoming and sparse. Those first few sections are a great introduction to what Tetris Effect does and with such a relaxed pace, you can rack up the points with Tetris after Tetris.
The key differentiator with Tetris Effect is the connection and that connection is built through the sonic and visual flourishes that accompany your actions. Each time you move or rotate a block, that is accompanied by a sound effect which changes depending on skin. This is pretty standard in games - jumping in Mario will play the jump sound effect. And, as in Mario, that sound effect latches you into the game. Each line you clear will also generate a sound and a visual trick of some kind - a colourful particle explosion[4] that is in some way related to the skin you are currently playing. This hardly sounds groundbreaking - this is just videogame mechanics. But, The Beatles (see Yesterday (2019)) were just guitar, bass, drums and vocals. The choices made by the development team to create that connection is on another plane with all those sounds making sense of what is around you in a way that seems barely human. And what a selection of sounds and visuals that have been created here, truly taking on the journey aspect of the game. Starting off in the deep, deep sea with whale sounds and effects to link you in, it is striking from the first minute. The initial minimalist soundscapes are layered on as you get more lines and progress through the stage with whale sounds accompanying the line clears. The next stage mixes that approach up straight away with an "in your face" set of sounds and music resetting your feelings and preparing you for an eclectic and always interesting selection of music through the journey.
With classic Tetris being so well known, there is a school of thought that Tetris Effect is just Tetris but prettier and with nice music. I can’t disagree but “just” is doing a hell of a lot of work here, and elevates a game that is already at the pinnacle of the genre to a geostationary orbit above it. It is worth thinking about what the purpose of those pretty graphics and nice music is and what they are doing to the player. That isn't a side effect of the game - that is gaming in a nutshell. The enjoyment of doing interactions is surely all that gaming is. Is that side-effect, what art is, in a nutshell? Invoking or evoking emotion into the "observer" is surely one of the defining traits of art. This isn't a debate worth having - Mizuguchi is an artist and so much more layered on top of that.
Tetris Effect is an absolutely stellar addition to the world of gaming with top tier graphics, an exceptional soundtrack and gameplay that fuses Tetris, a game that many would argue has claims to be a perfect game, to that visual and audio tour de force. And then layers a coherent and beautiful virtual reality implementation on top of it.
I can't really recommend this highly enough. It might not hit you in the same way, but it is so, so simple to at least try.
Honestly, I was really looking forward to this and many have said that it can be a transcendental experience and the pinnacle of what VR can do, and I do sort of agree with that but for me, this does not quite match that moment when it is all connected in Rez. But to be the second most transcendental experience (I have had) in all of the time I have been playing games is not a bad recommendation. Please do play.
Come follow me
I'll show you the side of yourself
The person that you've always been
But never dreamed
-------------------------------------
1. This was pretty hyperbolic in 2016 but I do still stand by it - “Rez Infinite is an incredible experience and game and I am not honestly sure that anything will be the same again.”↩
2. At school, many years ago, I used to do a subject called design and communication. I rather enjoyed it as it was about presentation of ideas. At the time, the teacher used to walk around and offer comments on our work and one time, he mentioned that one of my drawings was very good use of negative space. This brought a lot of laughter and mocking of my work by some friends as he seemed to basically be saying that the bits I didn't do (the white space) were very good. We all understood what was meant but it was still brought up even decades later!↩
3. Although it was very much trying to beat you!↩
4. These particles are used in a similar way to the particle effects in Rez Infinite's Area X which lends an impressionistic air to the explosions. ↩
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