The New Tetris is a highly addictive game for the Nintendo 64. On the surface, The New Tetris isn’t much different from it’s classic ancestor. One minor change, the introduction of Silver and Gold Blocks (alternatively: Multi and Mono-Squares), radically changes the game strategy for advanced players.
A “Silver Block” (also known as “Multi-Square”) is a 4×4 square formed by different shapes. When you create a Silver Block, its pieces glue together and turn silver. You receive five bonus lines for each line of a Silver Block you clear.
A “Golden Block” (a.k.a. “Mono-Square”) is a 4×4 square formed with four pieces of the same shape. This Golden Block gives you ten bonus lines for each of its lines you clear.
With the significant bonuses given by Silver and Gold blocks, an advanced player’s strategy shifts from creating a Tetris (clearning four lines at once) to creating Gold and Silver blocks.
One problem that novices have when trying to create blocks is a failure to realize that there are many different ways to create blocks. I created the Block Maker as a cheat sheet for novices, who are trying to learn how to construct blocks.
The Block Maker is easy to use, simply choose which four blocks you’re dealing with and you’ll see all the blocks you can create using those four pieces. Why Four? The game let’s you “look ahead” and see what the next three pieces are, combined with the current piece, makes four.
The Block Maker requires a browser which supports Frames and JavaScript. Most versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer should work fine (Disclaimer: I’ve only tested it on Internet Explorer 5 and Netscape 4 for Windows).
