Image source: https://tetris.wiki/File:Tetr.io_logo.png.

We all know Tetris. It’s a game where you place funny-looking pieces known as tetrominoes, clear lines and gain points. 7 pieces, known as the I-piece, O-piece, T-piece, S-piece, Z-piece, J-piece and L-piece, because they each look just like the letter they represent. As you play the game, it gets harder as pieces start to fall faster, giving you less time to plan your layout.

That’s what we call Classic Tetris.

At some point, The Tetris Company (TTC, not to be confused with Toronto Transit Commission if you’re a Canadian), introduced an official guideline for Tetris games to standardize Tetris play. Within the guideline is the Super Rotation System (SRS), a system that defines how pieces are rotated. You might have heard about the (in)famous T-Spin Double, the beginner lesson to piece rotation. Also within the guideline is the multiplayer system that defines how attack and defense work in a PvP situation.

That’s what we call Tetris Guideline.

We know what a Tetris game should look like. We also know what a multiplayer Tetris game should look like.

Do we have any good multiplayer Tetris games out there?

Technically speaking, we do.

On a small scale, we have web-based multiplayer Tetris games like https://jstris.jezevec10.com/ and https://nestris.org. They’re pretty good actually, but not exactly well-known.

On a bigger scale, we have Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, developed by Sega. Within the game, you can choose one of two types of game. Puyo Puyo, a tile-matching game that is definitively not easy to get good at, and Tetris Guideline, which I have already yapped about. In PvP mode, the match alternates you and your opponent between Puyo Puyo and Tetris Guideline. And regardless of who you talk to, they will tell you that PvP is broken af. There isn’t a good sense of balance between Puyo Puyo and Tetris Guideline.

We also have Tetris 99, developed by Arika and published by Nintendo, for the Nintendo Switch (of course why not). It’s battle royale, you play against 99 other players. And it’s Tetris Guideline as you might expect. But again, it’s exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. I don’t have a Switch (goddamnit).

We also have Tetris Effect: Connected, initially released exclusively for Playstation 4, but it’s now available on Windows. The game introduces a rather novel gameplay that may confuse many players at first, but nonetheless it’s fun in its own way. The game also has massive investment in graphics, so uh make sure your GPU could handle it.

And then comes TETR.IO.

It started out as web game developed by a small group of developers, but it’s also available as desktop apps now (they even support MacOS and Linux, crazy I know).

Despite having an indie budget, TETR.IO is just as popular as Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 or Tetris 99 within the Tetris community. Heck, we even have the TETR.IO World Championship, an annual championship comprised of 2 stages, the open-circuit stage from January to August, and the main stage in September.

The game itself is also very interesting. There are a bunch of solo modes, there’s an open lobby known as Quick Play, there’s a ranked mode known as Tetra League, and you can just set up your own custom room and invite your friends over. The customization actually goes wild, you can tweak just about any settings. Heck, you can even play Classic Tetris if you wanna.

There’s a modding tool you can use with TETR.IO, called TETR.IO+ (creative I know). You can customize the BGM, the SFX, the background image, the appearance of the pieces, so on and so forth. It’s not developed by the developers of TETR.IO, but it’s well acknowledged by the dev team.

On special occassions, such as Valentine’s Day, April Fools, Christmas, anniversary, milestone, etc., the developers give you some special gimmicks in Quick Play. Sometimes it’s goated, sometimes it’s horrendous, but it’s fun nonetheless, getting these unique gameplays for limited time.

The game has seasons (crazy I know). With every new season, players are introduced to a brand new gameplay in Quick Play and major updates in Tetra League. It helps keep the game refreshing and encourage new players.

We also have a lot of Tetris tournaments that uses TETR.IO as the game. Mostly because TETR.IO is free-to-play and has undergone a lot of testing to ensure the gameplay, especially multiplayer, is perfectly balanced as all things should be. The game makes money from ads and supporter which gives you some extra perks (free ads is one of ‘em). But you can just enjoy the full game without paying anything.

So, if you wanna play some Tetris, come play TETR.IO at https://tetr.io/. You don’t even need an account to play the game! It’s just that you wouldn’t be able to play ranked games (obviously).