Re: How did you make tetris...please help

[EnderWiggenRules@aol.com]

OK, the way I programmed my Tetris clone is like this:
    ARRAYS: 
    I used a 16x9 array for the Tetris "board," - this means that every 
non-moving block that is displayed is defined in this array.
    I used an ACTIVEBLOCK array of variable size. Here I put all the 
locations, orientation (how they're rotated), and speed of all the MOVING 
blocks (my program had variable speed). Non-moving blocks - ones stored in 
the board, are never changing and therefore do not need to be defined in 
ACTIVEBLOCK, as long as they are on the screen.
    
    FUNCTIONS:
    TestLine() - This function tested to see if a horizontal row of blocks 
was created. (Did the player make a complete line across the board?) If so, 
then we need to remove it, award points, and redefine the board. This 
function also tested to see if there were multiple horizontal lines in a row 
- more points!
    MoveBlocks() - This function moved all the blocks in ACTIVEBLOCK down a 
space. It also tests for blocks that can't go down anymore, therefore 
removing them from ACTIVEBLOCK and just declaring them in board.
    UserInput() - Tests user input
    RotateBlock() - This rotates a certain block in a certain direction. For 
this, I just stored all the different rotations/orientations of the blocks in 
an array and called it as necessary. It is possible to calculate rotations, 
though. (look through the gameprogrammer archives for that).
    DelayTimer() - This function was jsut a countdown until MoveBlocks() was 
called.
    ShowBlocks() - This displays all the blocks on the screen from the board 
and from ACTIVEBLOCK. 

Plus there was music, animations, sound effects, and 3D-morphing, but you 
don't need to worry about that for a simple tetris game. :) Good luck. Sorry 
I didn't explain much, it's just that I don't have the code with me, so I 
can't really give a walkthrough of how it worked. But, it isn't THAT 
complicated and you should do just fine.
-Ender Wiggin
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