I had a conversation tonight about other possible game modes for Go Tetris!, and so I thought I’d document these modes (and some others I’ve thought of previously) here.

Practice Mode — This would be a way to play Go Tetris! without any of the pressure of the pieces falling at all. Basically, the pieces would just hang at the top of the screen (you could still rotate them and move them left and right) until you pressed the down arrow, at which point the piece would begin to fall as normal. When the next piece comes up, it too would stick at the top of the screen until you press down. You could play this way as long as you want.

Time Trials — Play for a limited period of time (1, 3, 5 minutes) and see how high a score you can get in that time.

Arcade Mode — Basically, this mode would introduce “bonus” stones when certain conditions are met, or when large groups of stones are captured. The bonus stones would have differing effects. The most basic kind might be simple multiplier stones that increase the score when captured. The most grandiose idea I have for a bonus stone would be one that rotates the entire board, causing all the pieces to fall back down to the new bottom of the board and maybe even filling in gaps as they fall. (This idea was actually not mine. It came up as part of a Go Tetris! discussion I had at work, where a co-worker has been quite adamant about how cool he thinks it would be to rotate the board. I agree that it would be a fun visual effect, and could add a nice reprieve when things are getting too cluttered.)

Puzzle Mode — I imagine this as a mode where you pick a level you haven’t solved, and there are pre-set stones already on the board. You get one piece to place and “solve” the game for Black or White, clearing all the stones of that color. At first I was thinking you should always have to solve for Black, but it might make things a little more interesting if you didn’t know what color you were trying to ultimately capture.

Finally, here are a couple of feature ideas that are not strictly “Game Modes” that I’m thinking about adding:

Tutorial — This would basically just run you through the process of capturing a stone, then a group of stones, etc. I’m sure I could brainstorm other things to run you through while I’m at it.

Game Speeds — This might only apply to the game’s “Normal Mode”, but I think it would be fairly easy to impliment a “Beginner”, “Intermediate”, or “Advanced” game speed selector to the screen just before you actually start playing Go Tetris!. Of course Intermedia and Advanced modes would score you more points per capture, and start you out with a faster drop speed.

I think that’s it for now. I can also picture how some multiplayer modes might work, but those seem even farther off than these.