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November 18, 2018 10:40 AM Subscribe
Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris? [kottke.org] “As John Green explains in this video, a few people are actually getting much better at the NES version of Tetris than anyone was back in the 90s. One of the reasons for this is that a smaller dedicated group working together can be more effective than a massive group of people working alone on a problem. Today’s top players can not only compare scores (as people did in the pages of Nintendo Power), but they get together for competitions, share techniques, and post videos of their gameplay to Twitch and YouTube for others to mine for tricks. The two approaches boil down to ants solving problems vs. deliberate practice. The hundreds of millions of players were able to map out seemingly all corners of the game, but only up to a point. It took a smaller group engaging in a collective deliberate practice to push beyond the mass effort.” [YouTube]
• 16-Year-Old Dethrones Tetris World Champion With Difficult Hyper-Tap Technique [Kotaku] [YouTube][2018 Tetris World Championship Final Round Match ]
• 16-Year-Old Dethrones Tetris World Champion With Difficult Hyper-Tap Technique [Kotaku] [YouTube][2018 Tetris World Championship Final Round Match ]
“Over the weekend, seven-time winner Jonas Neubauer showed up at the Classic Tetris World Championship in Portland, Oregon like he has every year since it moved there in 2011. Instead of adding another championship to his name, he finished in second place this time, bested by 16-year-old Joseph Saelee who went on an amazing three-game tear. “The kid played with pure heart, the most clutch Tetris that we’ve seen from anyone,” Neubauer said after the dust had settled. “He just really had the ability, had the natural ability, and let it shine as bright as he could in his first tournament. [It’s] truly an honor to pass the torch to the new generation of Tetris players.” The veteran stood on stage holding a silver trophy, his first since losing to Harry Hong in 2014, and the unlikely Saelee, tears still in his eyes, hoisted the gold to applause from the crowd at Sunday’s Retro Game Expo crowd.”• How the Classic Tetris World Championships became a top esports tournament [Redbull]
“Just like that, it's all over. A new champion is crowned, and for only the second time in nine years, Jonas Neubauer has failed to claim the title of greatest classic Tetris player in the world. It was a heated finale between Neubauer and Joseph Saelee, but in the end, the better player won. This was the upset that capped off this year's iteration of the Classic Tetris World Championships. Having run for just under a decade, 2018's CTWC was the biggest and most competitive yet, not only attracting the highest standard of play the tournament had yet seen, but the most eyes, too – over 20,000 people watched the finals live on Twitch, that number ballooning to over 100,000 in the days after, viewership that dwarfs previous numbers. It's been a big year for the competition and a scene whose growth has surprised nobody more than its organisers.”• Tetris Effect is perfect for people overwhelmed by modern video games [Polygon]
“I’m only about halfway through about a half-dozen different video games at the moment, but I cannot stop playing Tetris Effect, a reimagining of the classic puzzle game for the PS4 from Rez Infinite and Lumines creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. So much so that, after some long sessions with the game this past weekend, I found myself experiencing the titular hypnagogic phenomenon: when I closed my eyes on Sunday evening, I was seeing the game’s signature tetrominos falling into place. The game is incredible, sure, but I think something else is at work here, too. More than any other game this year, Tetris Effect feels like an escape, in the purest and most enjoyable sense of the word.”• Tetris is a great distraction for easing an anxious mind [Ars Technica]
“The best distracting activities are those that can induce a sense of "flow," colloquially known as being "in the zone." Athletes, musicians, writers, artists, race car drivers, and so on have all reported achieving such a state. People in a state of flow lose their sense of space and time and are completely absorbed in the activity at hand. It was first defined in 1975 by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who became fascinated by artists who got so wrapped up in their work they simply forgot to eat or sleep. He dubbed it "flow" because when he interviewed subjects, they invariably described feeling as though they were being carried along by a water current. "It's something that fully captures your attention and engages you," says Sweeny. "I often describe it as the kind of thing you can't start doing if you only have ten minutes, because you know you'll lose track of time."”
A nice piece, but it would have been nice to learn more details on what strategies exactly are allowing these higher scores today -- for example, what is 'hyper-tapping,' and why does it help?
posted by crazy with stars at 11:16 AM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by crazy with stars at 11:16 AM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Tetris Effect is very good, it is basically Lumines except you're playing Tetris instead of a different falling-block game.
When I was a kid I had a Gameboy Advance and lots of incredible classic games from one of Nintendo's best periods, but I had an equal amount of fun with a $10 LCD Tetris game from the drugstore. It is an extremely good game that our many-lobed descendants will probably be playing in their spaceships.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:54 AM on November 18, 2018
When I was a kid I had a Gameboy Advance and lots of incredible classic games from one of Nintendo's best periods, but I had an equal amount of fun with a $10 LCD Tetris game from the drugstore. It is an extremely good game that our many-lobed descendants will probably be playing in their spaceships.
posted by vogon_poet at 11:54 AM on November 18, 2018
I still have my GBA SP with the original Tetris cartridge around. I'm good for a day after reaching about 300k points.
Tetris Effect looks amazing, although I wouldn't expect anything else from Mizuguchi.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:00 PM on November 18, 2018
Tetris Effect looks amazing, although I wouldn't expect anything else from Mizuguchi.
posted by lmfsilva at 12:00 PM on November 18, 2018
Lumines Remastered just hit the Switch and for anyone wanting a Tetris-like game that scratches that need for falling blocks, clean lines that disappear, and beep-boops. It satisfies immensely.
posted by Fizz at 12:15 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 12:15 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
I love the 2007 story about the woman who occasionally liked to play Game Boy Tetris. Her husband was doing research for a book, and casually mentioned to a guy who runs video game tournaments that his wife is really good at Tetris and can get 500 to 600 lines without any effort. The guy freaked out because the record at the time was 327 lines.
So they entered her in a contest, where she blew away the record with 841 lines.
posted by eye of newt at 12:37 PM on November 18, 2018 [55 favorites]
So they entered her in a contest, where she blew away the record with 841 lines.
posted by eye of newt at 12:37 PM on November 18, 2018 [55 favorites]
@crazy with stars:
Normal movement in Tetris relies on something called Delayed Auto Shift: http://tetris.wikia.com/wiki/DAS. The game runs at 60 frames per second, so ignoring startup time, a Tetris piece moved without tapping will shift at most 10 positions per second. At higher speeds, that startup time can be crucial, but there are ways to mitigate it.
If you can tap the move button faster than 10 times per second (aka hyper-tapping) you can move your pieces faster than this normal 10 position per second cap. At high speeds, this can be very useful to allow you to get your pieces into the positions you want, especially if there is a high stack in the center of the playfield (due to where your piece spawns and the increasing gravity).
See https://tetris.wiki/User:Kitaru#Effective_rate_of_DAS_vs._tapping for some analysis of DAS vs tapping move rates.
posted by isauteikisa at 12:40 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
Normal movement in Tetris relies on something called Delayed Auto Shift: http://tetris.wikia.com/wiki/DAS. The game runs at 60 frames per second, so ignoring startup time, a Tetris piece moved without tapping will shift at most 10 positions per second. At higher speeds, that startup time can be crucial, but there are ways to mitigate it.
If you can tap the move button faster than 10 times per second (aka hyper-tapping) you can move your pieces faster than this normal 10 position per second cap. At high speeds, this can be very useful to allow you to get your pieces into the positions you want, especially if there is a high stack in the center of the playfield (due to where your piece spawns and the increasing gravity).
See https://tetris.wiki/User:Kitaru#Effective_rate_of_DAS_vs._tapping for some analysis of DAS vs tapping move rates.
posted by isauteikisa at 12:40 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
You young 'uns and your newfangled Game Boy versions of older games.
posted by eviemath at 1:03 PM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 1:03 PM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
Her husband was doing research for a book, and casually mentioned to a guy who runs video game tournaments that his wife is really good at Tetris and can get 500 to 600 lines without any effort. The guy freaked out because the record at the time was 327 lines.
Huh. I was hitting 400-600 line games on the original Gameboy Classic Tetris release, but I played that game so much it probably permanently damaged my brain. I had acute Tetris Effect so bad I practically spent 1989-1991 hallucinating falling blocks. I was also probably "hyper-tapping" because I rememeber finding that bug/feature at higher levels when hitting the 10-position wall.
Granted I would have gone to pieces in a contest with people watching.
posted by loquacious at 1:04 PM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
Huh. I was hitting 400-600 line games on the original Gameboy Classic Tetris release, but I played that game so much it probably permanently damaged my brain. I had acute Tetris Effect so bad I practically spent 1989-1991 hallucinating falling blocks. I was also probably "hyper-tapping" because I rememeber finding that bug/feature at higher levels when hitting the 10-position wall.
Granted I would have gone to pieces in a contest with people watching.
posted by loquacious at 1:04 PM on November 18, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I am extremely excited for Tetris Effect. The Lumines treatment, but for a game design that is actually good? Sign me up!
(I do not think Lumines is a very interesting game but I played it for hours because of the presentation alone)
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:14 PM on November 18, 2018
(I do not think Lumines is a very interesting game but I played it for hours because of the presentation alone)
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:14 PM on November 18, 2018
I hope Tetris Effect stops being a PS4 exclusive a few months down the road...
The gameplay videos I've watched been nothing short of amazing (especially the use of music in the game).
posted by bigendian at 2:30 PM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
The gameplay videos I've watched been nothing short of amazing (especially the use of music in the game).
posted by bigendian at 2:30 PM on November 18, 2018 [3 favorites]
eye of newt: "So they entered her in a contest, where she blew away the record with 841 lines."
Great story, though one that only goes to show how Tetris skills have improved in the last decade: the current record in that same category is now 5,164.
posted by crazy with stars at 2:44 PM on November 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
Great story, though one that only goes to show how Tetris skills have improved in the last decade: the current record in that same category is now 5,164.
posted by crazy with stars at 2:44 PM on November 18, 2018 [8 favorites]
Another part of the explanation:
As the number of people who have ever played Tetris increases, the odds increase that someone with the potential to be one of the very best Tetris players will take it up as a hobby. And presumably someone who is in the top tier of Tetris players is more likely to keep playing than someone who has fallen out of the top tier, so over time, you would expect the current group to perform better than any previous group. At least until some of the best ever Tetris players die or get too old to keep playing.
And that's not even considering the presumption that people who keep playing Tetris will keep getting better, also raising the average talent among the best players.
And even though the total number of Tetris players is probably growing more slowly than when Tetris was one of the most popular video games, I would guess that someone with the potential to be the best Tetris player would be more likely to give it a try, because they like that sort of thing. So the pool of "potentially best Tetris players" would keep improving until the growth in the number of people who have had the opportunity to try Tetris slows down, and I don't know if that's happened yet. I would guess not. There are probably still billions who have never had an opportunity to try Tetris.
posted by straight at 4:42 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
As the number of people who have ever played Tetris increases, the odds increase that someone with the potential to be one of the very best Tetris players will take it up as a hobby. And presumably someone who is in the top tier of Tetris players is more likely to keep playing than someone who has fallen out of the top tier, so over time, you would expect the current group to perform better than any previous group. At least until some of the best ever Tetris players die or get too old to keep playing.
And that's not even considering the presumption that people who keep playing Tetris will keep getting better, also raising the average talent among the best players.
And even though the total number of Tetris players is probably growing more slowly than when Tetris was one of the most popular video games, I would guess that someone with the potential to be the best Tetris player would be more likely to give it a try, because they like that sort of thing. So the pool of "potentially best Tetris players" would keep improving until the growth in the number of people who have had the opportunity to try Tetris slows down, and I don't know if that's happened yet. I would guess not. There are probably still billions who have never had an opportunity to try Tetris.
posted by straight at 4:42 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
"There are probably still billions who have never had an opportunity to try Tetris" makes me very sad. Such an unalloyed pleasure.
posted by MattD at 4:55 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by MattD at 4:55 PM on November 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
I played Tetris Effect the other week. On the one hand, it is a better play for people like me who cut their teeth (maybe literally!) on classic Tetris because it can be more about thoughtful block placement than speed. On the other hand, I played it for a few hours and my eyes hurt for days after. I don't think I blinked for like, 45 minutes in there. The eye strain is real.
posted by Mizu at 5:16 PM on November 18, 2018
posted by Mizu at 5:16 PM on November 18, 2018
Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris?
I have a deep need to hear an evo-psych explanation of this. Not because I believe Tetris ability is a heritable trait, but because their explanations for how various obviously social phenomena are connected to reproductive fitness and pressured by natural selection are hilarious.
posted by jackbishop at 5:42 PM on November 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
I have a deep need to hear an evo-psych explanation of this. Not because I believe Tetris ability is a heritable trait, but because their explanations for how various obviously social phenomena are connected to reproductive fitness and pressured by natural selection are hilarious.
posted by jackbishop at 5:42 PM on November 18, 2018 [6 favorites]
Oh God. Tetris Effect. My roommate was playing the trial version of that a lot when it was available, and I curiously read the articles about it. Then one time I walked into the room and actually saw it - I knew there were new-ages graphics and music around it, but I hadn't seen any - and saw all these red-silhouetted figures kowtowing around a Tetris board on the screen. "Yes," my roommate confirmed when he saw me gaping. "You are indeed seeing fire worshippers on the Tetris screen."
"Ah. So...." I asked, "....so, do we know there isn't some weird subliminal thing going on?"
"Oh, I've accepted I'm going to be the next Winter Soldier."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:04 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
"Ah. So...." I asked, "....so, do we know there isn't some weird subliminal thing going on?"
"Oh, I've accepted I'm going to be the next Winter Soldier."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:04 PM on November 18, 2018 [5 favorites]
I love this game so much it's pretty much the only game I will install across my phones over the years... even tho these days the official one is just full of distracting ads
posted by cendawanita at 7:25 PM on November 18, 2018
posted by cendawanita at 7:25 PM on November 18, 2018
I hope Tetris Effect stops being a PS4 exclusive a few months down the road...
I think this is pretty likely, although it might be more than a few months. Mizuguchi's Rez Infinite released as a PS4 exclusive in late 2016 but was ported to Windows in August 2017, and I'd expect to see a similar pattern here.
posted by IAmUnaware at 7:51 PM on November 18, 2018
I think this is pretty likely, although it might be more than a few months. Mizuguchi's Rez Infinite released as a PS4 exclusive in late 2016 but was ported to Windows in August 2017, and I'd expect to see a similar pattern here.
posted by IAmUnaware at 7:51 PM on November 18, 2018
Do they ever suggest that part of the generational improvement might be due to having folks who were raised since birth playing video games?
I was another of those old school Tetris geeks regularly getting extremely high scores, complete with the after effects. But that was back in the 90s, when I was already in my mid-20s. To put it in perspective, Pong came out for the TV when I was 6 (not in my house, though). The first time I had regular access to a computer or other gaming system I could spend unlimited time playing wasn’t until I was 19.
I was pretty fast-twitch even in my 20s, generally, though I didn’t enjoy competitive mode gaming. When playing Privateer, I could regularly afterburner accelerate through asteroid fields to evade enemies. A gaming friend scoffed at this when I told him, so I showed him how I did it, dodging asteroids to his amazement. My reaction time was easily sub-150 milliseconds. I benchmark around 240 milliseconds now, in my 50s, but I’m not sure how much of that is my screen latency.
Anyway, in addition to the group-mind elements described above, I strongly suspect that for people who have been training their brains to interact with computers since birth, they might be expected to do better, too. The same way my students can text in a flurry of thumb movement, while I’m still poking out letters like a sloth.
posted by darkstar at 1:27 AM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was another of those old school Tetris geeks regularly getting extremely high scores, complete with the after effects. But that was back in the 90s, when I was already in my mid-20s. To put it in perspective, Pong came out for the TV when I was 6 (not in my house, though). The first time I had regular access to a computer or other gaming system I could spend unlimited time playing wasn’t until I was 19.
I was pretty fast-twitch even in my 20s, generally, though I didn’t enjoy competitive mode gaming. When playing Privateer, I could regularly afterburner accelerate through asteroid fields to evade enemies. A gaming friend scoffed at this when I told him, so I showed him how I did it, dodging asteroids to his amazement. My reaction time was easily sub-150 milliseconds. I benchmark around 240 milliseconds now, in my 50s, but I’m not sure how much of that is my screen latency.
Anyway, in addition to the group-mind elements described above, I strongly suspect that for people who have been training their brains to interact with computers since birth, they might be expected to do better, too. The same way my students can text in a flurry of thumb movement, while I’m still poking out letters like a sloth.
posted by darkstar at 1:27 AM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
I bet Rupert Sheldrake would have something to say about this.
posted by sneebler at 4:20 AM on November 19, 2018
posted by sneebler at 4:20 AM on November 19, 2018
Interesting article with a trash conclusion about elitist education. We can educate everyone AND provide specialized training to a small group of highly motivated individuals in specific subject areas.
posted by latkes at 8:19 AM on November 19, 2018
posted by latkes at 8:19 AM on November 19, 2018
This might be heresy, but Dr. Mario is my jam. To the point where I've had to remove it from my 3DS and I'm pondering removing it from my Switch, because I will just play it forever and waste away and die.
While I play, I like to ponder the impossibility of releasing a game like that today: "Yeah, Mario's gonna just throw pills at you, ha ha, it's fun, for kids! So many pills!" Then I start thinking about antibiotic resistance and opioid overdoses. And then I play some more.
Now I want a Dr. Mario with more colors...
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:46 AM on November 19, 2018
While I play, I like to ponder the impossibility of releasing a game like that today: "Yeah, Mario's gonna just throw pills at you, ha ha, it's fun, for kids! So many pills!" Then I start thinking about antibiotic resistance and opioid overdoses. And then I play some more.
Now I want a Dr. Mario with more colors...
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:46 AM on November 19, 2018
Now I want a Dr. Mario with more colors...
Have you given Lumines a chance? I'm relatively new to it but it has this kind of a vibe and I'm loving the hell out of it. It's super addictive and I still haven't figured out that "clicks" moments where you just start to flow through and stop thinking, but I can tell that it's already getting easier.
posted by Fizz at 8:53 AM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
Have you given Lumines a chance? I'm relatively new to it but it has this kind of a vibe and I'm loving the hell out of it. It's super addictive and I still haven't figured out that "clicks" moments where you just start to flow through and stop thinking, but I can tell that it's already getting easier.
posted by Fizz at 8:53 AM on November 19, 2018 [2 favorites]
So they entered her in a contest, where she blew away the record with 841 lines.
Yeah, and from what I heard later was that once some guys heard that a woman had broken the record, they immediately went about breaking it again, because we can't have that. Apparently it was a "lame platform" that nobody paid attention to, until the woman came along.
posted by Melismata at 11:12 AM on November 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, and from what I heard later was that once some guys heard that a woman had broken the record, they immediately went about breaking it again, because we can't have that. Apparently it was a "lame platform" that nobody paid attention to, until the woman came along.
posted by Melismata at 11:12 AM on November 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
One of my university housemates gave up Tetris cold turkey when he started playing it in his dreams.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:42 AM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:42 AM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
One of my university housemates gave up Tetris cold turkey when he started playing it in his dreams.
This is no joke and I've experienced it before, but it just made me play more Tetris.
The first time I had the "Tetris effect" of hallucinating/imagining falling blocks everywhere was the same day I first bought a Game Boy classic. I remember saving up to buy it, going to the Toys R Us, buying it and opening it right outside the doors of the store in the weird cart corral and vestibule almost every Toys R Us seemed to have.
It was early afternoon, and I killed that first set of included batteries in an hour or two. Then walked back inside to buy more batteries. Then I killed that set of batteries and went inside for more. I went through three or four sets of batteries until it was long past dark and the cashier said "Hey kid, you're cut off. We're closed. Go home."
On the walk home I started immediately seeing tetrominoes falling to fill in the gaps between houses and buildings.
I don't play much Tetris any more but I'm really good at filling a truck, car or box with oddly shaped objects. Sometimes I wonder if this is why I like camping so much, because packing effectively is basically an extended physical version of Tetris.
posted by loquacious at 11:48 AM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is no joke and I've experienced it before, but it just made me play more Tetris.
The first time I had the "Tetris effect" of hallucinating/imagining falling blocks everywhere was the same day I first bought a Game Boy classic. I remember saving up to buy it, going to the Toys R Us, buying it and opening it right outside the doors of the store in the weird cart corral and vestibule almost every Toys R Us seemed to have.
It was early afternoon, and I killed that first set of included batteries in an hour or two. Then walked back inside to buy more batteries. Then I killed that set of batteries and went inside for more. I went through three or four sets of batteries until it was long past dark and the cashier said "Hey kid, you're cut off. We're closed. Go home."
On the walk home I started immediately seeing tetrominoes falling to fill in the gaps between houses and buildings.
I don't play much Tetris any more but I'm really good at filling a truck, car or box with oddly shaped objects. Sometimes I wonder if this is why I like camping so much, because packing effectively is basically an extended physical version of Tetris.
posted by loquacious at 11:48 AM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
I hope Tetris Effect comes to PC at some point, it looks really cool but not something worth playing on a console about.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:10 AM on November 21, 2018
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:10 AM on November 21, 2018
Back in the early 90's, I participated in a psychology experiment in university which involved a lot of mental rotating of images of blocky objects -- you had to say which of several examples was the same object, only rotated. I can't remember the details. Something to do with levels of hormones in your bloodstream and ability to mentally map images. At one point, one of the other subjects said they found it really easy because they played a lot of tetris. The researchers blanched and asked everyone to put up their hand if they also played a lot of tetris, and half the people in the room put up their hand. Not sure what happened with the trial but that certainly was a confounding factor they hadn't planned on.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:27 AM on November 21, 2018
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:27 AM on November 21, 2018
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