pumpyheart's Qualifier
Player:
Event:
Tournament:
Status:
Approved
Score 1:
330,560
Score 2:
308,880
Total score:
319,720
Details:
Classic Tetris for the Nintendo Entertainment System: Additive Rhythms from 1989 to Today
In late 1989, Nintendo licensed, produced, and released a version of Tetris for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Beginning in 2010, the annual Classic Tetris World Championship revitalized competitive Tetris play. Different controller schemes emerged as the largest Esport scene of the third generation of consoles continues to grow to this day.
Within the game, auditory icons trigger each time a tetramino is shifted left or right one space. As competitors play without the default music, they use these sounds as a guide while moving the pieces at speeds of up to thirty inputs a second. Likewise, a certain additive rhythmic flow of the piece movements confirms each shift while a growing stack collapses the time between pieces. Hardware limitations require players to perform frame perfect inputs where the additive rhythm of the piece movements as well as visual cues confirm through audio whether an attempted piece placement was successful.
In my proposed presentation, I will discuss these skills within Tetris and connect the additive rhythm of piece movement to the state of play associated with high-level NES Tetris. I will demonstrate that although competitors compete without the game’s music, additional earcons prepare competitors for precise frame perfect movement from one spawned piece to the next. As these sounds are the only audio present within a modern competitive setting, the presentation serves as a case study demonstrating how audio within games can shift the state of play over time.