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Puzzle Games (Games) Software Linux

Bastard Tetris Hates You 104

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.
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Bastard Tetris Hates You

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  • and tries repackaging this as something legit? What a great prank that would be!
  • by a whoabot ( 706122 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:03AM (#12328373)
    Everyday is like a new type of hell.
  • by Shadow_139 ( 707786 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:09AM (#12328395)

    Ahh 2D Tetris sucks........
    Only real Geeks play 1D Tetris [tetris1d.org] ......

  • Isn't this already part of the "official" Tetris releases? ... No? ... hmmm....I've really gotta work on that...
  • hmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:18AM (#12328425) Homepage
    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.

    In othe words it's just like regular tetris.
    • Re:hmm (Score:5, Funny)

      by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:38AM (#12328511) Homepage Journal
      it's just like regular tetris.

      The difference is that regular Tetris is evil by nature, whereas this one uses an algorithm to simulate evil.

      • Re:hmm (Score:5, Funny)

        by SA Stevens ( 862201 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:11AM (#12328992)
        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.

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

          In Soviet Russia, Tetris plays YOU!

          I feel better now.
        • Re:hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

          by nunchux ( 869574 )
          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.

          Aren't you describing just about every arcade and console game from 1970 to 1985?

          I know it wasn't technically the first game to have an ending, but one thing that made Super Mario Brothers (and Nintendo games in general) so revolutionary was that there was an actual goal. Before that, most games just fed you the same set of
        • I think it should be "umop apisdn".
        • by waterbear ( 190559 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @05:30PM (#12332161)
          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 (Score:2, Funny)

        by Jakeypants ( 860350 )
        I've discovered the algorithm. First it gives you this one:
        []
        [][]
        []
        Then it gives you the opposite one and it just keeps alternating.
    • oh no you aint seen nothing yet. That fucking piece of arse gave me pink z blocks as my first ten blocks.

      It's made by the devil.

      btw: apt-get install bastet
  • Me too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:28AM (#12328463) Homepage
    I think a lot of people have thought of this, since Tetris seems to evil. I actually started implementing this, but gave up as soon as I asked myself who was going to alpha-test it. If the author in this article actually tested this enough to work most of the bugs out, then apparently he's more of a masochist than I am...
  • What is this "sailing puzzle"?

    --
    Evan

    • Re:Sailing Puzzle? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, the sailing puzzle in Puzzle Pirates [puzzlepirates.com] is based off of Dr. Mario, not Tetris.
    • Re:Sailing Puzzle? (Score:5, Informative)

      by patio11 ( 857072 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:04PM (#12333016)
      The sailing puzzle, which is not at all evil (well, OK, I used to be the resident Dr. Mario champ and they play exactly the same) is described in detail here. [puzzlepirates.com]

      You get progressively better ranks in the puzzle for faster completition times per board (you'd typically complete several boards over the course of a battle or a trip between two navigation points), and better ranks for your many sailors increases the speed at which the ship sails, to a predetermined maximum based on hull type (in battle, its slightly different -- I think you get four moves max regardless but if your sailors are cruddy you won't get all of them -- that could be disastrous because it allows the other ship to get somewhere it shouldn't be, like directly behind you to pound you with unanswerable cannonfire).

      Puzzle Pirates, by the way, is the best free trial you'll ever play in your life. Even if you uninstall it and never get into the MMORPG part the puzzles are just breathtakingly fun to play. Its a puzzle game, except the puzzle MATTERS (imagine playing Gem Fighter to settle crew-to-crew combat and being able to brag to people that you swordfought seven guys at a time, including a Cleaver (high rank of AI), and killed them all).

      • Re:Sailing Puzzle? (Score:3, Informative)

        by JabberWokky ( 19442 )
        Even if you uninstall it and never get into the MMORPG part the puzzles are just breathtakingly fun to play.

        Sounds nifty, but I run Linux. (Googles) Oh, *sweet*!. There's a Linux client!

        I spent hours going through archives of Games Magazine and I love Cheapass Games (it's a company if you're not familiar with them, that sells 50 to $5 really inexpensive, well designed games, usually a bunch of printed sheets in an envelope). Good game and puzzle design is an art. I'll give this a shot... later... wh

  • Seems like someone get 19 lines playing this game : http://happypenguin.org/show?bastet.

    Can anyone beat that?
  • I could imagine playing something like this on a graphing calculator in class, and trying to keep from yelling... it might make a good tool for anger management classes..?
  • Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pikace ( 878395 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @09:28AM (#12328756)
    Heheh. At least it doesn't give us those weird blocks with more than 4 units like so many of the tetris remakes.
  • Ltris has this too (Score:2, Informative)

    by rjk191 ( 88397 )
    Ltris [sf.net] has this feature(?) too. It's called "Expert Mode" there. I haven't compared them to see which is more evil (how's that for a fun activity?)
    • by cowens ( 30752 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:17AM (#12329024)
      Well, I just downloaded both of them. My best game out of 6 was 8 lines in bastet. I got 35 lines in my first game of Ltris with "Expert Mode" turned on (and I made a lot of silly errors). I would say Bastet has a significantly more evil algorhythm. In particular it seemed as if Ltris wasn't choosing a hard block for the next block; it looks like it chooses a hard block for the block after the next one. So the pattern goes: random block, hard block, random block, hard block, ad infinitum. This is much easier than Bastet, but still much harder than normal tetris-style games.
  • Spinning Tetris (Score:4, Informative)

    by Washizu ( 220337 ) <bengarvey@[ ]cast.net ['com' in gap]> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @09:39AM (#12328819) Homepage
    Shameless plug for my version of Tetris: Spew [bengarvey.com]. The board spins around and zooms in and out. Written in Perk/Tk, but there's a compiled version for windows.

    Screenshots here [bengarvey.com]
    • Re:Spinning Tetris (Score:4, Informative)

      by Solder Fumes ( 797270 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @12:07PM (#12329793)
      There's also Tetanus on Drugs [pineight.com], for PC and Game Boy Advance, written by former classmate of mine...he was already crazy when he wrote it, but it'll send any sane person over the edge.
      • There's also Tetanus on Drugs, for PC and Game Boy Advance, written by former classmate of mine

        I am the author of TOD, a GPL'd tetramino game that simulates the effects of hallucinogens. Unlike Spew, which has two effects (roto and zoom), TOD has eight effects (roto, zoom, fuzz, roto3d, constant, linear, quadratic, and cubic) to throw off your perception of the tetramino field, all powered by Mode 7 [wikipedia.org] (or in the PC version's case, a high-level emulation thereof).

        If you missed the link to the GBA versio

    • you sir, have issue's.
      what insprired you to make such a game and does it come in pill form?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @09:39AM (#12328823)
    How about a Windows version so I can have TWO programs that hate me?
  • Pufftris (Score:4, Interesting)

    by funny-jack ( 741994 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @09:40AM (#12328829) Homepage
    Does anyone else here remember Pufftris? It was a Tetris clone where the playing field swung back and forth. At first it was just really slight, but as time (or it may have been # of rows) went on, it swung more and more wildly, in all three dimensions. I think that was my favorite Tetris clone. The sad thing is that the only versions I can find won't run on anything other than straight old-school DOS. Nobody here happens to know of a more modern OS-updated version, per chance, do you?
  • Next block? (Score:3, Informative)

    by General Wesc ( 59919 ) <slashdot@wescnet.cjb.net> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @09:48AM (#12328877) Homepage Journal

    I notice it still shows the next block. But does it ever lie about what the next block will be?

    And maybe I shouldn't assist in the Slashdotting, but here's the offical page [altervista.org].

    • Re:Next block? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      from the README
      " -the brick preview now is a "would you like it, wouldn't you?" box. It displays the "most useful" brick (according to bastet's engine). Needless to say, you will *never* get that brick! "
      • by XyborX ( 632875 )
        Not quite true. I managed to get that block at least once, but only because I had given up on the gap that it would match, and filled it with something else. That only added to the frustration, though. The game isn't just evil, it also lies :/
  • Birdris [ifrance.com] is a free DOS game by Andrew Bird (who does not seem to have a web site) from 1996 that does the same thing. According to the readme, the author's score was 24 lines at the time of release.
    • 2 lines. There is a strategy to it, basically making certain moves to shift the algorithim.
      But if you KNOW the algorithim and only get 24 lines, wow.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:03PM (#12331145)
      Not bad but I can top that by a year.
      Unfortunately I demoed the thing to a few folks at assembly 95 and it didn't take took long until one of them managed to defeat the algorithm:) He built a tall tower on one edge and a "roof" that extended to almost the other edge and then added the following pieces under it. (the "AI" simply tested each piece by "dropping" them from the top at each position)
    • And Attitude Problem Tetris, an old MacOS port. Not only would it give you bad pieces, but the program would swear at you.
  • I remember back in the early 90's there was a version of Tetris for the MAC that would basically berrate you and taunt you and drop the occasional obscenity while you were playing. I remember because of the constant struggle to get to play it in my high school computer lab without the teacher running it hearing what was going on. Just wondering if I'm crazy of if anyone else remembers that...
    • I remember that! It would say things like, "You meant to do that, right?", "[sarcasm]Oh my god, that's the best move I've ever seen![/sarcasm]" I tried looking for it, but could never find anything on the web. I wish I could get a copy of it, it was so fun.
    • I remember back in the early 90's there was a version of Tetris for the MAC that would basically berrate you and taunt you and drop the occasional obscenity while you were playing.

      Ugh, I remember that. It would say things like: You suck. and I hope your friends are watching....

      I was in college then. good times.
  • Easy port to OSX (Score:1, Redundant)

    by LincolnQ ( 648660 )
    In bast.c, change #include to #include and compile and run.

    Loads of fun! I didn't get a single line before I died!
  • by Pinkoir ( 666130 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @12:22PM (#12329900)
    It sure sounds evil but only in the "Kill as many babies as you can before the cops get you" kind of way. True evil is more subtle. I think the best test for evilness in tetris clones is to see how cruel the clone can be while still making the player think it is not really that bad. After all, people will quit in frustration if the game is too obvious about its malevolence. You want to string them along, slowly ramping up their frustration, giving them the hint of success every once and a while only to tear their souls slowly from their block-addled minds with a perfectly times sequence of S-bricks.

    You would test true tetris evilness in an online competition between the various clones. The evilest would be the one which generated the best aggregate of low average scores and high number of games played. That would signify the tetris which was best able to trick players into thinking it wasn't evil.

    Please note that I don't advocate actually undtertaking such a foul endevour. The world has enough evil in it already.

    -Pinkoir
    • You want to string them along, slowly ramping up their frustration, giving them the hint of success every once and a while only to tear their souls slowly from their block-addled minds with a perfectly times sequence of S-bricks.

      Call it Wifetris. It starts out all hot and eager, giving you amazing I brick opportunities. As the rounds go on, it grows uncaring and eventually spiteful. At the end of the game, it drops your score in half.

      And, no, I haven't been married, but I do have a few divorced fr

    • True evil is more subtle.

      Joel: "For example, how do you feel about Adoph Hitler?"

      Crow: "Well, he was bad, yeah."

      Joel: "Okay, now how do you feel about the band Styx?"

      Crow: "Oh I don't know, they had a couple of good songs, but... oh my god Joel, you're right!"
    • They have a game for the PSP that's just like you describe. It is called Archer Maclean's Mercury.

      Absolute evil, but just fun enough to keep you playing while the anurism simmers.

  • by bcmm ( 768152 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @12:33PM (#12329998)
    I've been playing this for a while, and I couldn't work out why I preferred netris until I read this. Gentoo's portage description for Bastet could have mentioned it was evil.
    • From portage:

      [ I] games-puzzle/bastet (0.41): a simple, evil, ncurses-based Tetris(R) clone
      • OK, my mistake. I couldn't check it because I am my Windows partition being forced to code in Visual Basic (which sucks). Now you mention it, I did wonder how a tetris clone could be "evil"...
  • I considered writing such a Tetris myself once, but I never got the time.

    Its great. I never get frustrated with my computer, but this game really made me say bad words ;)

    8 lines, thats my record. You'll probably beat it (just make ; ./bastet , no configurations)

    The question is, is it making me a worse or a better tetris player?
  • I've just invented the most evil version of Tetris ever: it only gives you the block and one (randomly picked at the start but stays the same throughout) of the zig-zag pieces. Now try making lines with that!
  • Monkey Island 2 had something similar. There was this one puzzle where you had to go searching for some sunken treasure. You had a boat and no clue where to seach, so you just had to pick randomly or come up with some algorithmic way of searching. It allways ended up in the last possible place to search. Those bastards! Otherwise a great game.
    • Re:Monkey Island 2 (Score:2, Informative)

      by cafard ( 666342 )
      Erm... The location of the wreck is indicated in a book called "Great shipwrecks of our century" or something like that. One dive, one sunken treasure (which happen to be the front ornament of the wrecked ship hull).

      The library is more useful that just getting the lens in the model lighthouse. :D
  • I got like 4 lines in my first game, and I am fairly good at regular tetris. It taunts you, as well. Right when I gave up on a big combo with the line, covering the whole to try again, it sent me a long one. Grr.
    • Heh, for me the "Won't give you this:" in the corner, where it shows you what it thinks you most need, and therefore is NOT going to give you, is the taunting. I actually missed that it was "WON'T give you this" at first, and was thinking it was the more traditional "next block." Messed me up.
  • by MikeyNg ( 88437 ) <mikeyng@NOspam.gmail.com> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:22PM (#12330856) Homepage
    Wow. When I read the headline, I instantly had flashbacks to Wesleyan Tetris. Did anyone else play this game back in the day on the Mac?


    (Actually, it looks like there was a topic at some point in time about it in 2002 [slashdot.org]!) Oh, and a quick search reveals that there is no more Wesleyan Tetris, merely a virus out there.

    • Wow. When I read the headline, I instantly had flashbacks to Wesleyan Tetris. Did anyone else play this game back in the day on the Mac?

      Yes, I played it, but even by 1993 it was nowhere to be found. That was when I got my first mac (color classic!) and man did I want that game. Even friends who'd had it couldn't find it. a MacHack entry, perhaps?
  • by RM6f9 ( 825298 )
    For a moment, I thought this was talking about WellTris, which received extensive verbal abuse way back when...
  • I got *3* lines before I lost. THREE. Normally when I play tetris.. I can get to level 9 w/o losing. What a bastard... :)
  • The problem may have something to do with the way people play. I suspect most people play by attempting to fit the current block in with the ones already on the field without leaving gaps.

    But there's another way to play, which is to try to make lines one line above the current "surface" of the bin, while being careful not to leave blocks above that line that would leave gaps after the line clears.

    It seems to me like if you do that, and also abandon the urge to make setups for Tetrises (which would be clo
  • I've often suspected the AI cheats when you play against it and to have it confirmed. Vindication at last. I'm not paranoid after all.
  • true 3-D tetris...
  • A tetris clone named Abandoned Bricks has an implementation of the bastet algo here. http://abrick.sourceforge.net/

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