The saga of the Joeltris series

All of these games are some kind of tetris clones. They have been written in chronological order.

Author: Joel Yliluoma

• Current version: 1.3.5
• Writing started in April 1999.
• Written in C. It has been tested in Linux, Solaris and HP-UX, but may work also in other unix systems as well.
• Free software and under General Public License (GPL).
• Implements the great and userfriendly NES-like interface.
• Great sounds and symphonies ;-)
• Year 2000 compatible and stable.
• Very easy to use.
• Computer opponents, especially Dip, are quite intelligent and still human-like players.

Screenshots of the terminal version (vt100):

Screenshots of the GUI version (SDL):

• Linux system, perhaps 2.0.36 or newer, or some other unix system.
• Keyboard or other input device, preferably vt100-compatible.
• Monitor, screen or other output device, preferably also vt100-compatible.
• Sound card is highly recommended. At least 200W basso boost mininum and as big diameter of the loudspeakers as possible. However, if your system has only a tiny speaker that's not bigger than a handwatch bell, it's ok.
• libggi supported - can use svgalib, X and Linux framebuffer devices at least.
• SDL supported now too.
• Tested in Linux console, Solaris X terminal and KDE window.

• In 1991, Vadim Gerasimov, Ed Logg, Kris Moser and Brad Fuller made a very simple and very good tetris game for NES.
  They called it "1991 NEW VERSION". In some multiple games archive it was titled as "Tetris 2".
• In 1991-1999, I have played it.
• In April 1999 I decided to port the game to Linux, although I had no source codes.
• In May 1999 - Joeltris 10 was born.
• In June 1999 - added Linux framebuffer driver to the game. Had cool transparency and antialias effects, great graphics etc...
• In June 1999 - catastroph happened: Framebuffer driver sourcecode was accidentally destroyed forever: I tried hacking ext2fs, I tried to find backups from Warp (beta tester), I tried everything. Gave up.
• In July-October 1999, slowly did some improvements to the game.
• In October 1999 I published the game.
• Laterly in Octover 1999 I added libggi support. It's great :)
• In February 2000 the configure was updated...
• In January 2008, added SDL support...

• Evil blocks and cheat blocks. (The game would give the player either the worst or the best possible blocks in varying cases. Currently all these games (except Joeltris 9) give all the blocks randomly.)
• TCP/IP support. Maybe two, maybe more simultaneous players either cooperatively or as opponents.
• High score lists.
  Isn't so hard to do that, but the file sharing issue delays me.

• All written between Aug 30 1993 - Mar 4 1994.
• Written in QBasic.
• Joeltris 4 was written in Dec 17 1993 (I was 15 years old) with Tandy 1000 (cga-compatible and equipped with 8088 processor).
• Joeltrises 1-3 have been written using a 286 computer.
  • Thanks to Jorma Jääskeläinen, his parents, his little brother Vesa and the friends of his little brother.
  • Thanks also to Jouni Karppinen.
• Joeltris 3 and 6 require a VGA display with 16 colours support.
• Joeltris 3 should be pentis or something: It uses only blocks with 5 pieces. Difficult.
• The graphics of Joeltris 3 were inspired by Fire and Ice, aka. Solomon's Key 2.
• Joeltris 5 was never finished. It requires a missing blockset.1 file and its control is unfinished anyway.
• Joeltris 6 uses imaginary blocks with a lot different sizes. Very brain shocking.
• Joeltrises 4-5 have been written somewhere. I don't have much memories of writing them. Possible I wrote them with Topi Maurola's computer.
• Joeltrises 1, 2 and 4 are the only games from the whole set having high score lists.
• Joeltris 4 is the only game from the whole set having block with a special meaning. In Joeltris 4 the brown blocks negate everything below when pressed enter.
• Joeltris 6 was the first of the games to generate its blocks itself instead of having lots of data defining the blocks and the ways of rotating them.

• A pc computer with MS-DOS and QBasic.
• Speed requirements vary.
• Keyboard and monitor are helpful.

• My friend had a modem. He had also a BBS.
• Then I was making a tetris game for the bbs.
• This is the result. It may work, and it may not work.
• Supporting simultaneous chat and game.
• Written in 1995-1996.

• A pc computer with MS-DOS.
• Compiles with Turbo Pascal. Requires useful.pas and usemotu.pas.
• I am not sure which of a modem and a keyboard and a monitor are required.

• Definetely the most bugless of Joeltrises 1-9.
• Supports one or two simultaneous players (keyboard).
• Graphics. Requires a VGA display with 256 colours support.
• Tiny and compact source code.
• Written in school. (Keravan Ammattikoulu)
• Theoretical computer player support. Not implemented.
• Supports not only normal 4 piece blocks, but any sizes between 1..25. Get an outstanding experience of Tetris by playing with blocks with just one piece :-)

• A pc computer with MS-DOS and a VGA compatible display card.
• Compiles with Turbo Pascal. Requires mtask.pas and svga.pas.
• A monitor and a keyboard.

• The most complicated DOS tetris project I have had. Would be my most complicated DOS text mode game project also, if I didn't count DUD. More about DUD later in time.
• Implements a scripting language
  • Different arrow keys translations done with the script
  • Score calculations done with the script
  • No block markers in the language (begin/end or { and }).
    Logical blocks are detected by indentation levels. Great :)
  • ELSE is not supported.
  • Uses and implements various programmer-definable timers.
• Configurable block removal names. Defaulting to SINGLE, DOUBLE, TRIPLE, TETRIS, PENTA and MIRACLE.
• Supporting different sized blocks. 4 are 5 are quite playable, but at least 6 is supported too.
• Evilblocks/cheatblocks support.
  • Setting it 255 makes your game as easy as possible.
  • Setting it -255 gives you always the block you don't want.
  • If the game decides to give you some special block and you don't put it to the position it wants it to be in, it will give you the same block as many times as needed until you understand what it wants :)
  • Negative settings work fine, I have tested.
  • I am not so sure about the positive settings.
  • For a fair game, set it to zero - for both players.
• Supports modem (fossil driver), meant primarily as a plugin to PC Board (PCB).
• Supporting real time colour Julia fractal animation on background in text mode (in vt100)
• With different back ground images (screenshots of development)
• More incomplete than I thought: It does not yet support gameover.
• This was the first Joeltris where I used my own computer in writing it! All the previous ones were written in the residences of my friends or in the school computer class. I just did not have a computer before.

• A pc computer with MS-DOS.
• Compiles with Turbo Pascal. Requires timer.pas, x00fossi.pas and ansiemu.pas.
• A monitor and a keyboard are optional.

• Never released, never even played.
• Supports tilting the blocks with not just 90, but any angle.

• Not really a tetris game.
• Based on the idea of the Wario's World game on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

The contents of these archives have been written by Joel Yliluoma, a.k.a. Bisqwit.

Joeltris 10 is free software, distributed under the terms of the General Public License (GPL).

The rest are considered as learnware. Free to use, free to modify etc. However, don't spoil my "imago" with them :) I have written them a long time ago.
If you want to help me in the Joeltris 10 project, contact me.

The official home page of jt10 is at http://iki.fi/bisqwit/source/jt10.html.
Check there for new versions.