Free software games: Tetris clones

Free software need not be boring

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Free software has populated almost every sector of the computer software arena: from office suites to encyclopedias to full operating systems. One genre of computer software that most people overlook when thinking of free software is gaming. The fact is, sites such as Freshmeat have literally thousands of free software and freeware games for a huge variety of operating systems.

Free software has populated almost every sector of the computer software arena

One of the original puzzle games is Tetris. It can be found coded in practically any computer language for any operating system. KDE and Gnome even have Tetris clones as part of their game packages. So what better place to explore the possibilities of free software than with the highly addictive Tetris?

One of the original puzzle games is Tetris. It can be found coded in practically any computer language for any operating system

I found various Tetris clones, for Windows and Linux, and put them through their paces. Several hours later, here are the results.

Alizarin Tetris (Atris)

Atris in action
Atris in action

Atris is Tetris, with a unique spin. The various sized blocks come with multiple colors in each block; these colors can then separate, “splitting” the block when it lands, allowing you to make more combinations than you could with normal Tetris. Also, to complete a level you just need to remove all the gray bricks at the bottom.

The catch? The clock. You need to complete each puzzle within what seems to be a randomly generated time, which sometimes seems to be impossible.

The game also has networking abilities to allow for multi-player competition. The only real downside is the menu system, which at first can be difficult to master. The game is released under the GPL, and the source is available on the author’s website.

Stability 10
Sounds/Music Not Reviewed
Graphics 7
Controls 10
Documentation 7
Overall Design 6
Total Rating 8

Alizarin Tetris Rating

Binaries Available Windows 32-bit, BeOS, Debian
License GNU General Public License (GPL)
Programming Language C

In Brief

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This article is made available under the "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs" Creative Commons License 3.0 available from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Biography

Robin Monks: Robin Monks is a volunteer contributor to Mozilla, Drupal, GMKing and Free Software Magazine and has been helping free software development for over three years. He currently works as an independent contractor for CivicSpace LLC

micksmixxx's picture

Alizarin Tetris (Atris)

Submitted by micksmixxx on Tue, 2006-08-01 23:46.

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A great Tetris clone. Not only are there different levels of difficulty, but the sounds are brilliant.

Try it, I think you'll like it!

Anonymous visitor's picture

i'll take it

Submitted by Anonymous visitor on Thu, 2007-03-15 16:55.

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i'll take it

prism's picture

A word of explanation needed

Submitted by prism on Mon, 2006-08-07 12:25.

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Personally, I think you slightly missed the point here. SDLBlock is a clone of an old (1989) Tetris clone - Blockout. The latter was a great game, at least at the time it was written and released. I ensure you that it was pretty addictive ;-) More information about it on Abandonia.

What's interesting, the original version still has a bunch of very devoted fans. They even have a webpage for submitting high-scores at http://www.blockout.de/. So, obviously there are people who find the interface, and the whole idea of a 3d-Tetris, amusing and enjoyable.
It's hard to expect that a clone will be different from the original - they wanted to reflect an old game, so the old game (and graphics & interface) you get.

Just to make things clear.

cagret's picture

JsTetris - pause issue

Submitted by cagret on Tue, 2006-08-15 05:39.

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The pause would make it to easy to play ;) On high levels after 10-15 minutes of playing, it is an endurance test of your fingers O_^ Or test of psychic powers.. you got so far.. , and now for example a phone, or your parents, or some other accident disturbs your playing, and you have to make a choice ;) no no! Pause would make it all to easy! O_O. Have fun!

Anonymous visitor's picture

You forgot the best one ....

Submitted by Anonymous visitor on Wed, 2006-08-16 08:21.

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You should have mentioned Briquolo - it is the best tetris game on Linux.

Its in 3D (openGL) and one of the power-ups's changes the screen viewpoint to 1st person for 30 secs (i.e - the view from the bat)

http://freshmeat.net/projects/briquolo/

Anonymous visitor's picture

Good review

Submitted by Anonymous visitor on Wed, 2006-08-16 09:32.

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Thanks for the review Robin, they look good. I'm gonna be busy tonight I can see that.

Anonymous visitor's picture

Additions and Corrections

Submitted by Anonymous visitor on Wed, 2006-08-16 12:40.

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Additions:
tint - linux console tetris
bastet - linux console tetris that hates you - play only if you want to end up headbutting your monitor (ie. only play it at work)
Corrections:
Briquolo isn't tetris; it's breakout.
Anonymous visitor's picture

Additions 2

Submitted by Anonymous visitor on Thu, 2006-09-07 21:41.

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Netris - http://sourceforge.net/projects/netris
Still under development but the upcoming version should be a big improvement.