Why Nullpomino is the only acceptable open-source Tetris

Note: acceptable from the perspective of a Tetris fanatic who regularly uses jargon like SRS, lock delay, DAS, ARR, etc. For the casual player, these games are perfectly fine. Albeit, I would recommend Quadrapassel over KBlocks to casuals because of the better rotation.

Errata: I mention that KBlocks can only repeat in one direction. It can actually rotate in both directions, it just breaks the norm with its default keybindings and that confused me.

the heck is a “DAS”?

Why other open source implementations suck

Quadrapassel

The board is the wrong size. That's all you need to know to avoid this one.

Besides the incorrect size, Quadrapassel is barely SRS conformant (albeit the rotation handling is much better than that of KBlocks, which I'll get onto in a bit.)

Timing is also way off, with no lock delay, too much DAS, and not enough ARR.

KBlocks

The board is the correct size, but somehow the rotation handling is even worse than Quadrapassel, because pieces rotate around the center of their occupied region and not around the center of the pieces themselves.

There is only one correct rotation method:

Chart of rotations

Additionally, you can only rotate in one direction.

Like Quadrapassel, timing is off: no lock delay, too much DAS, not enough ARR.

What Nullpomino does right

Nullpomino offers one thing hardcore Tetris fans love: absurd fine-tuning. Each and every aspect can be configured, from DAS, ARR, lock delay, etc.

Additionally, there's a ton of gamemodes that exercise every skill a Tetris player can exercise. From plain single-player Tetris to all sorts of specialty training modes to multiplayer, Nullpomino has it all.

Also, Nullpomino is the fan game that you see in Tetris communities.

You can tell that it was made by Tetris fans for other Tetris fans.

Tags: #libre