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From: krieg@jupiter.uucp (Andrew Krieg)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: tetris sequels
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Date: 31 Jul 90 17:34:24 GMT
References: <1990Jul30.204750.32015@eagle.wesleyan.edu> <1990Jul31.044111.417@wam.umd.edu>
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Reply-To: krieg@jupiter.UUCP (Andrew Krieg)
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Organization: GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee,  WI
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Here is an article from ZNET #525:

 Author:  James R. Glenn        File names:  VSQUARED.LZH; VALGUS.ARC
 File type:  Game            Program names:  VALGUS SQUARED; VALGUS
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 From the docs to Valgus Squared:

 "...In VSQ, the seven familiar Valgus pieces are back, but they are
 tired of falling straight down the screen!  Instead, they will come at
 you from all four sides of the 27x27 playing area.  In the middle of
 this area is a solid 3x3 block.  When a piece hits this block or any
 other pieces that have fallen before it, it will become locked into that
 place, and a new piece will drop from a randomly chosen side.  The
 object of the game, instead of completing lines across the screen, is to
 complete squares around the center block.  The first square out is 5x5,
 the next is 7x7, and so on.  To help you keep track of which square each
 position on the screen belongs to, once a piece has fallen, each of its
 four constituent blocks will change colors.  Thus, at the beginning of
 each round, blocks in the 5x5 square will be blue, those in the 7x7 will
 be green, then yellow, orange, red, purple, and back to blue again to
 restart the cycle.  When you complete a square, all the squares on top
 of it will move in.  Once you complete a certain number of squares (5 on
 the first level, 7 on the second, and so on) the round will end and you
 will be awarded a bonus.  Your bonus is determined by the number of
 empty squares around the perimiter and how far you are into the game.
 The playfield is then cleared and a new round begins..."

 As you can see, Valgus Squared is Tetris with a good twist, a twist that
 should keep PD/shareware game players happy until the next variant comes
 along.  The program ran well...until I finished a round and let the game
 run for awhile on _my_ machine.  Then I got a "FATAL ERROR" and was
 forced to go back to the desktop.  Shucks.  But as you can also see from
 the clear docs above, VSQ has a lot of potential.

 On to Valgus.  Yo, ho-ho!  After playing it for about half an hour, I
 could tell this game has a couple of nice touches.  Valgus is much more
 faithful to its parent than its brother above.  The one major difference
 I noticed between Valgus and Tetris was a vertical wall that had been
 added to each side of the 'well' on one of the levels.

 I got an error on my machine when I ran the game from a floppy, but I
 got no such error when I ran it from the same floppy with the hard drive
 online.

--
=========================================================================
=  Andrew Krieg	 			Marvel Historian		=
=  krieg@ylum.med.ge.com		Keeper of: The LIST, 2to1 list	=
=========================================================================
= Sheriff Truman:  Do you think they spotted us?			=
= Agent Cooper:	   Gimme a doughnut.			- Twin Peaks	=
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