🧱🎮 Stack and Clear: Recreating the Classic Game of Tetris - A Comprehensive Tutorial 🚀🌟 (Part 13 of Game Dev Series)

Recreating the Classic Game of Tetris: A Comprehensive Tutorial

Hey there, budding game developers! Ever thought about crafting your very own video game? Well, today is your lucky day because we're going to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and recreate the classic game of Tetris. Get ready to get your hands dirty with code!

1. Introduction

1.1 A Timeless Classic: Tetris

First things first, what is Tetris? This iconic video game, created by Alexey Pajitnov, has been a staple of the gaming world since its inception in 1984. The goal is simple: rotate and position falling blocks to create complete lines, which then disappear to make room for more blocks.

2. Setting up the Programming Environment

2.1 Python and Pygame

Before we start coding, make sure you have Python installed on your system. In addition to this, we will be using the Pygame library to build our game. If you haven't installed Pygame yet, you can do it easily using pip:

pip install pygame

3. The Blueprint of Our Game

3.1 The Game Grid

Tetris is played on a grid of 10 columns and 20 rows. We can represent this as a two-dimensional list in Python. To start, we'll initialize an empty grid:

grid = [[0 for _ in range(10)] for _ in range(20)]

3.2 The Tetrominoes

Tetris has seven different block types, or "Tetrominoes". Each can be represented as a 4x4 grid and can be rotated. Here's an example of how we can represent the 'I' Tetromino:

tetrominoes =  [
    # 'I' Tetromino
    [[1, 1, 1, 1],
     [0, 0, 0, 0],
     [0, 0, 0, 0],
     [0, 0, 0, 0]],
    # Other Tetrominoes...
]

3.3 Displaying the Game

To display the game, we'll create a Pygame window and draw the grid and Tetrominoes on it. Here's how to create the window:

import pygame
pygame.init()

# Window size
win_width = 800
win_height = 600

win = pygame.display.set_mode((win_width, win_height))

3.4 Game Loop

In the game loop, we'll handle events, update the game state, and redraw the game:

while True:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            pygame.quit()
            quit()
    pygame.display.update()

4. Making the Tetrominoes Move

4.1 Falling Blocks

The blocks in Tetris fall over time. We can implement this by moving the current Tetromino down every few seconds:

import time

# Time when the current Tetromino started falling
start_time = time.time()

while True:
    # ...event handling...

    # If it's time for the Tetromino to fall
    if time.time() - start_time > fall_speed:
        # Move the Tetromino down
        current_tetromino.y += 1
        start_time = time.time()

    # ...redraw the game...

4.2 Player Input

The player should be able to move the Tetromino left, right, and down, and also rotate it. We can handle this in the event loop:

for event in pygame.event.get():
    # ...other event handling...

    if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
        if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT:
            current_tetromino.x -= 1
        elif event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT:
            current_tetromino.x += 1
        elif event.key == pygame.K_DOWN:
            current_tetromino.y += 1
        elif event.key == pygame.K_UP:
            current_tetromino.rotate()

5. Collision Detection and Line Clearing

When a Tetromino hits the bottom of the grid or another block, a new one should start at the top. Also, when a line is full, it should be cleared. We won't go into the exact code here, but these operations generally involve checking and updating the grid.

6. Conclusion

There's a lot more to Tetris, but this tutorial should give you a good start. You still need to create the Tetrominoes, implement collision detection, line clearing, scoring, and perhaps even levels. Can you take it from here and create your own version of this classic game?

FAQs

1. How can I implement different levels in Tetris?

One way to implement levels is to increase the speed at which the Tetrominoes fall as the player's score increases.

2. How can I add a score system to my game?

You could increase the player's score each time they clear a line. The exact amount could depend on the number of lines cleared at once.

3. Why is my game crashing as soon as a Tetromino hits the bottom of the grid?

This could be due to a number of reasons, but a common mistake is not correctly handling the case where a new Tetromino can't be placed at the top of the grid because it's already occupied.

4. Can I create this game in another language other than Python?

Yes, you can. The logic of the game remains the same. Only the syntax will change depending on the programming language you choose to use.

5. How can I make the Tetrominoes different colors?

In Pygame, you can set the color of a surface using the fill method. You could assign a color to each Tetromino and use this color when drawing it.