Bastard Tetris Hates You

Press the Buttons has a post up about a Linux version of Tetris called Bastard Tetris. The name is well founded, as the game evaluates what shape you need the least and sends that as your next piece. From the Bastet site: "Have you ever thought Tetris(R) was evil because it wouldn't send you that straight "I" brick you needed in order to clear four rows at the same time? Well Tetris(R) probably isn't evil, but Bastet certainly is. >:-) Bastet stands for "bastard tetris", and is a simple ncurses-based Tetris(R) clone for Linux. Unlike normal Tetris(R), however, Bastet does not choose your next brick at random. Instead, Bastet uses a special algorithm designed to choose the worst brick possible. As you can imagine, playing Bastet can be a very frustrating experience!" Sounds like the sailing puzzle in Puzzle Pirates.

Comments

Hmm.

[Pikace]

Heheh. At least it doesn't give us those weird blocks with more than 4 units like so many of the tetris remakes.

'Evil'? Surely not, how about 'fatalistic humor'?

[waterbear]

Any game where the goal is to shuffle around parts desperately until you fail in the end, and where 'winning' is just a matter of how long you survived, has a whiff of evil about it.

It's not at all ironic that Tetris originates from someone who grew up under Soviet rule.

As a game of inevitable failure, tetris struck me as inspired by a rather dark fatalistic humor -- but surely 'evil' is too strong? :) Anyway this aspect of Russian humor was seemingly around long before the Soviets (think Chekhov)!

-wb-

Re:hmm

[CoffeeJedi]

That's because the arcade companies wanted you to keep slugging in quarters to get that high score. Nintendo wanted you to complete the game, so you would want to run out and buy another one.