SOME SUGGESTED DYNAMIC TILING CHALLENGES: LEARNING GAME CONTROLS Basic Controls you'll start with: S or s = rotate clockwise X or x = rotate counterclockwise J or j = move piece left L or l = move piece right U or u = reflect piece (right/left) [ when Reflection is enabled ] Space = drop piece T or t = takeback last move (Click the "Help" Button to see all the controls) To Practice using the controls, I suggest trying "Beginner Training": [ Click the check-box of named "Beginner Training" to enable/disable ] In Beginner's Training mode, the object is to position the piece so that it exactly fills all cells shaded light green. These light green cells are still empty, they are just marked as targets. If you fill some (but not all) of the green target cells, the filled ones will turn dark green (since they now contain part of a blue piece). IF you exactly fill ALL the target cells, then they all turn GOLD (you did it!) Select Pieces such as "Small L" "T Shaped Piece" "L Shaped Piece" (you might need to enable Piece Reflection) and with each piece practice placing the piece in target location [press the "Start Game" button once you've set things up] NOTE: If you "miss" the target and another piece starts coming down, Simply use the "Takeback Key" (T or t) to restart. BASIC WIPEOUT CHALLENGES (CLEAR BOARD) [ Set "Random Fill Rows" = 2, 3, 4, or more for greater challenge ] With Piece = "Small L" 1. Board Width = 4 2. Board Width = 5 3. Board Width = 6 With Piece = "L Shaped Piece" [You can "Enable Piece Reflection" to make these easier, or try without reflection for a greater challenge ] 1. Board Width = 5 2. Board Width = 6 3. Board Width = 7 With Piece = "T Shaped Piece" 1. Board Width = 5 [Hint: try to exploit symmetry] INTERMEDIATE CHALLENGES (HARDER WIPEOUTS) [ Again, Set "Random Fill Rows" = 2, 3, 4, or more for greater challenge ] With Piece = "T Shaped Piece" 1. Board Width = 6 2. Board Width = 7 3. Board Width = 8 [ Hint: Think 2 "side-by-side" boards each of Width = 4, and Note that it's possible to dynamically fill either a 4-high or 7-high rectangle of width 4 ] 4. Board Width = 9 [ Hint: Again try to achieve and then exploit symmetry ] With Piece = "P pentomino" [ You will DEFINITELY NEED to "Enable Piece Reflection" for this piece! ] 1. Board Width = 6 2. Board Width = 7 3. Board Width = 8 ADVANCED WIPEOUT CHALLENGES [ Again try various "Random Fill Rows" values, increasing as you become more skilled ] MULTIPLE PIECE SEQUENCES 1. Piece Type(s) = "T-L Piece Sequence" Try Board Widths = 5, 6, 7 2. Piece Type(s) = "T-L-Square Piece Sequence" Try Board Widths = 5, 6, 7 3D WIPEOUT [ Use beginner training to practice the 3D controls, Try using the "L shaped piece" since it has more unique orientations: Set Board Width = 4 Board Depth = 4 Enable "Beginner's Training Click "Start Game" ] NOTE: sometimes rotations will fail (nothing happens) if the rotation would cause the piece to rotate "into one of the walls" (there are actually 4 walls, though only the back and right are visible) Try moving the piece away from the wall and then rotate. Once you are comfortable with the 3D controls, disable "Beginner's Training" and try some of these challenges: With Piece = "Small L" 1. Board Width = 4 Board Depth = 2 2. Board Width = 3 Board Depth = 3 3. Board Width = 4 Board Depth = 3 4. Board Width = 5 Board Depth = 3 With Piece = "L Shaped Piece" 1. Board Width = 4 Board Depth = 2 2. Board Width = 3 Board Depth = 3 3. Board Width = 4 Board Depth = 3 4. Board Width = 5 Board Depth = 2 5. Board Width = 5 Board Depth = 3 With Piece = "T Shaped Piece" 1. Board Width = 4 Board Depth = 2 2. Board Width = 3 Board Depth = 3 3. Board Width = 4 Board Depth = 3 4. Board Width = 5 Board Depth = 2 5. Board Width = 5 Board Depth = 3 COMBINING 3D WITH MULTIPLE PIECES With Piece Type(s) = "T-L Piece Sequence" or Piece Type(s) = "T-L-Square Piece Sequence" Try solving WipeOuts for the various 3D boards used above TARGET CHALLENGES Targets are a generalization of WipeOut. Instead of clearing the board, the object is to exactly fill ALL the target cells (initially light green) and NO OTHERS! To try solving targets, set the parameters: Target Cells (C) Target Rows (R) NOTE 1: There must be at least as many target cells as target rows (C >= R) When you click "Start Game", a Random set of C cells (chosen from the bottom R rows) will be marked light green. When you exactly construct (fill) the target pattern, the cells will all turn Gold. NOTE 2: If R > 2, it is possible that some targets will be "floating in air". It is usually still possible to solve these targets, but it requires great skill and problem solving insight [Hint: think of using "platforms"] NOTE 3: NOT ALL Target Patterns can be solved with all piece types. There are some "obvious" constraints: GCD(S,WxD) must divide C (the target cell count) where S = size of the piece. There are other "non-obvious" constraints that sometimes arise, so solutions are not always possible, even when it seems they should be. HERE IS A SAMPLE OF SPECIFIC TARGET CHALLENGES THAT ARE SOLVABLE: Board Board Piece Target Target Width Depth Type(s) Cells Rows 5 1 Small L 1,2,3,4 1 5 1 Small L 2,3,4,5 2 5 1 L 1,2,3,4 1 5 1 L 2,3,4,5 2 5 1 T 1,2,3,4 1 5 1 T 2,3,4,5 1 3 3 Small L 3,6 1 3 3 Small L 3,6,9 2 3 3 L 1-8 1 3 3 L 2-16 2 3 3 T 1-8 1 3 3 T 2-16 2 3 3 T-L Sequence 1-8 1 3 3 T-L Sequence 2-16 2 3 3 T-L-Square Seq. 1-8 1 3 3 T-L-Square Seq. 2-16 2 5 3 T-L-Square-F 1-8 1 5 3 T-L-Square-F 2-16 2 EXTREME CHALLENGES (for serious experts only!) When you've mastered the above variations of the game, you can introduce a new challenges: MULTIPLE LINE CLEARING The "Line Clearing" pull-down menu controls how many consecutive lines (layers in 3D) must be completely filled before clearing takes place. The default is set to "Single", which is the standard "Tetris rule" that any filled line gets cleared Try "Double", "Triple", and "Quadruple" options, which require you to completely fill at least 2, 3, or 4 consecutive lines in order to clear. As with the "single" option, this threshold is only a minimum - if more than the minimum specified number of lines are consecutively filled by the addition of the last piece, then ALL the consecutively filled lines will clear. HERE ARE THREE QUITE DIFFICULT CHALLENGES: 1. With Piece = "T Piece" Board Width = 5 Board Depth = 1 Line Clearing = "Quadruple" Try doing wipeouts, and then various Target patterns! (at first I thought this was impossible, then a found a way!) 2. With Piece = "T Piece" Board Width = 6 Board Depth = 1 Line Clearing = "Quadruple" Try doing wipeouts, and then various Target patterns! Wipeouts are always possible if the start pattern is generated from a "Random Fill Rows", assuming there is enough board height to work in. If you create a start pattern in the editor, it must have an even number of cells in total for wipeout to be possible. To insure solvability of Target Patterns Use only 1 or 2 Target Rows, and a Multiple of 2 Target Cells. 3. With Piece = "T Piece" Board Width = 7 Board Depth = 1 Line Clearing = "Quadruple" Try doing wipeouts, and then various Target patterns! (this is the hardest variation I've solved, typically taking many hundreds of moves, and sometimes over a thousand!) [ NOTE: My solution sometimes requires building up to 15 or 16 unfilled lines before being able to clear them, so Target Rows of more than 4 might require increasing the Board Height ] [For a REALLY INSANE CHALLENGE: Try this one in 3D (depth = 2 or 3) NOTE: for Depth = 2, the number of Start and Target Cells must each be even. ]