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From: deichman@cod.NOSC.MIL (Shane D. Deichman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: Tetris Scoring
Keywords: Tetris
Message-ID: <2937@cod.NOSC.MIL>
Date: 19 Mar 91 16:58:35 GMT
References: <1991Mar18.211054.438@nic.csu.net>
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 25

> I have been playing Tetris for some time now and for the life of me
> I do not know how the score is calculated. Does anyone know?

Quite simply, you get points for how far a piece falls -- the further
it falls, the LESS points you get.  As your stack builds up, you get
more and more points (since you have less time to react).  I believe
this total is multiplied by your level (or there's some additive factor
which is dependent on your level).  The well is 25 layers deep; you get
a base 1 point at level 0 for a piece which drops all the way to the
bottom, 9 points at level 9 for the same piece.  Note that the baseline
score is derived from the approximate center of the piece -- if you
have the four-straight piece falling vertically, you'd get the points
for the second or third box instead of the bottom-most box.

If you hit the space bar and drop the piece, you get one point (times
level number) for each layer the piece drops.  This cancels the low score
accumulation rate mentioned above for low puzzles.  If you drop a piece
automatically upon it's entry onto the screen, you get 25 points for the
fall plus a base score for the piece.  Now that I think about it, I believe
the score is determined by number of layers dropped PLUS the level number,
not times the level....

Hope this doesn't appear seven times.... :-)

-shane