Bloxed

Bloxed is a single and multi-player Tetris variant for Acorn’s range of RiscOS computers. A full description follows lower down this page.

Availability

Version 1.11 has now been released (1st May 1996). It’s available on the WWW here.

Feel free to copy this onto other anonymous FTP sites (in fact you are encouraged to do so). If you do, mail me and I’ll add a link here.

Changes to these pages and other news

17th August 1998

Reliable sources indicate that John Kitson has beaten his own previous best high score. His new record is a score 6558 on level 110.

23rd April 1998

Reliable sources indicate that John Kitson has once again overtaken Becky in the high score stakes. His new record is a score of 6268 on level 105.

3rd April 1998

Corrected error in release date of Bloxed 1.11 on this page.
Made the source code for the Java logo available - maybe someone can fix the bugs.

24th October 1997

Reliable sources indicate that Becky has beaten John Kitson’s score by scoring 6016, level 101. I’m glad I extended the level scheme past level 99 in version 1.10 - it may be time to extend it again.

19th August 1997

Reliable sources indicate that Becky’s high score of 5180, level 87 has been beaten by John Kitson with a score of 5432, level 91.

2nd May 1997

~~http://www.finesse.demon.co.uk/steven/Bloxed/~~ is now the main site.
Added Java animated logo (first attempt and still a bit unreliable).
Reliable sources indicate that LES..’s high score of 5061, level 85 has been beaten by someone named Becky with a score of 5180, level 87.

Introduction

Bloxed is a one or more player Tetris variant I wrote for Acorn’s range of RiscOS computers. It will not run on natively a PC or a Mac. It’s inspired by an arcade game called Bloxeed by Sega which is in turn inspired by Tetris. It has many extra features over plain Tetris.

I’ve heard rumours that the ARM emulators Virtual Acorn, Red Squirrel and Archie can run Bloxed, though I haven’t tried it myself.

Power blocks

The first feature is power blocks. Some pieces that fall contain a power block. When a line containing this block is activated one of a variety of special effect occurs as follows :

4 (Four Lines): Removes up to four incomplete lines from your playfield.
F (Filler): Produces a little alien which can be persuaded to drop blocks to complete partially finished lines.
S (Shooter): Produces a gun which can be used to shoot away blocks.
B (Bomb): A bomb appears which can be used to blow up a section of your playfield.
16 (16 ton weight): When dropped on the playfield, the weight removes 3 columns of blocks.

Multi-player mode

The other major feature is a multi-player competitive mode, where, two or three players can compete against each other. If one player completes more than one line with a piece the lines are passed to the next player.

More info

For more info read this copy of the !Help file, or this (fairly old) review of it.

Other versions

Versions for the Psion Organiser and the X windowing system, did get started, but both projects have stalled.

Screen shots

To keep you entertained, here are some screen shots. The first is of a bomb exploding, and the second is of some lines being passed in 2 player mode.

Change history

So you know whether it’s worth downloading the latest version.

Version 1.11 (released 1 May 1996)

Fixed bug in screen memory allocation (got broken in RPC mode upgrade).
Major overhaul to allow >2 player games (blame Graham Robinson for this).
Fixed bug that caused the modules not to be RmKilled on exit and config files not to be loaded.
Key and configuration saving fixed and added version number.
Redraw code sped up so 3 player games should run on ARM 2 machines.
Reconverted all backdrop images.
Added LES..’s best high score to table.
RiscPC mode definitions tweaked.

The rest of the change history is on a separate page.

Known Bugs and Future Developments

There are no known bugs, and no immediate developments planned. I’d like at some point to allow networked games, but I just don’t have that sort of time. I’d also like to update the graphics to provide higher resolutions, but I want to avoid having multiple copies of the backdrops at different resolutions and colour depths. Also high-resolution graphics will eat up lots of memory which I want to avoid.

Please mail me if you have any bug reports or suggestions.

Up to Steven Singer’s programs page.

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