Tessellate

Tessellate
Developer(s)	hi-games.net
Publisher(s)	N/A
Release Date(s)	September 23rd 2008
Platform(s)	Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS
Next pieces	1-8
Playfield dimensions	4-10w x 4-20h
Hold piece	Optional
Hard drop	Locking and non-locking options
Rotation system	Various options

Tessellate is the engine behind the tetronimo games at hi-games.net. A unique feature of the Tessellate engine is that it allows users themselves to define their own games and compete on shared leaderboards for these games. Other features include user-customisable themes and the ability to watch replays of any record.

Standard modes

hi-games.net provides 3 standard modes.

• 40 Lines
• 2 Minute Speed Run
• 20G Japanese

Creating user-defined modes

Any number of user-defined modes can be created using the Tessellate Wizard tool.

Simulation

• Tessellate Simulation Settings

Scoring

Tessellate calculates points in two stages.

1. As a tetromino locks, Tessellate records into each block of that tetromino the number of frames that have elapsed since the previous tetromino was locked. However, if a tetrimino locks during a level block (where the player cannot progress until a line clear is achieved), or blocks appear in the well due to garbage rather than a locking tetromino, then a fixed frame count of 300 is stored into each of those blocks.
2. When rows are cleared, Tessellate awards points according to the following formula:
   • points = rows * (combo + twist) * max(1, progress * columns * blocks / blockFrames)

     where:

   • rows is the number of rows cleared
   • columns is the number of columns cleared
   • blocks is the number of blocks cleared
   • blockFrames is the total number of elapsed frames stored in each of the cleared blocks
   • combo is set to 1 if no rows are cleared, otherwise combo is increased by (rows - 1)
   • twist is 1 if the locked piece cannot be moved one cell left, right or up, or otherwise is 0
   • progress is 40 + the current piece/line/level (depending on the game's unit of progress)

Most factors in this formula may be switched on or off when defining a game mode:

• If combos are disabled, then combo is always reset to 1 before the above combo formula is applied
• If multirow clears are disabled, then the combo formula is changed to increase combo by 1 rather than (rows - 1)
• If twists are disabled, then twist is always set to 0
• If progress points are disabled, then the above formula assumes a constant current piece/line/level of 80
• If speed points are disabled, then the above formula assumes a constant blockFrames of 16*blocks

External Links

• Home Page
• Forum Thread