Tetris: The Grand Master - A Guide

The Nitty Gritty

Welcome to the Nitty Gritty, the deep knowledge only die-hard TGM fanatics – and me – know.

First, how the speed changes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the curve is untraditional from most Tetris games. You’d assume the curve would look like a line or curve going up; a nice, neat graph.

Well, no. That only happens from level 000 to level 199. At level 200, the speed drops to the same as it was at level 000 and stays there for only 20 levels before beginning to sharply increase at level 200. From there, the speed waffles around a bit. Here’s a handy graph of TGM's gravity changes over time from a guide over on the HardDrop wiki:

What does G stand for? Well, G is the unit of gravity in rows per frame. For example, if a piece's gravity is 1G, it's falling 1 row every frame. Internally, the game uses fractions of this unit to track how fast pieces fall.

As such, 20G means that a piece falls 20 rows in a single frame, which if you don't know, is the height of the ENTIRE PLAYFIELD. So, at 20G, pieces instantly fall to the stack or the bottom of the playfield, starting the locking delay countdown. The piece will start to blacken, and after the countdown is up, the piece locks in place, whether it's in a reasonable spot or not. This process is very quick, so you'll have to be FAST. Also, since the pieces fall every frame, getting them over gaps must be done with extreme care and attention, lest they get stuck in a hole. Fun!

Next, IRS. When a piece locks to the board with that satisfying click, there is a delay before the next piece spawns in. If, during this time, you hold down one of the rotation buttons, the piece will spawn rotated in the direction corresponding to the button you held with a neat sound effect. This is a mechanic called the Initial Rotation System (IRS for short) and it will save your life during higher-speed sections when pieces are being slammed against your stack with the force of the Sun.

Another mechanic you’ll need to get the hang of is the rotation system. Now, how fast you’ll learn this depends on whether you’ve learned other rotation systems first (different version of Tetris can have different rotation systems, which complicates transitioning between versions).

Finally, the scoring system. To break it down, here’s a list of important points:

Other things to be aware of:

Now that you have absorbed the Nitty Gritty, get out there and clear some lines! Though, if you’re ever bored with the base game, there’s some Extras…