Tetris And Motorola W230

I was watching Earthquake's - "One Night Stand", his 2005 HBO special [Stand up Comedy]. This dude, though not hilarious, has own honest material which is pretty funny at times. Anyway, he wasn't moving around a lot or using props, so I started playing Tetris on my mobile, as I was watching the show.

Now … I rarely play Tetris on my mobile. But it’s the only solution in places where music is taboo like in seriously boring lectures, non- fiction libraries, or situations like the one above - watching videos full screen while there is not much moving on the screen.

I had never before finished an entire game on my mobile though. I started playing the game when I was almost 60% through the show, and almost by the end I realized that I was playing pretty decently. I was in level 8 and the screen was empty.

So, with the prospect of making a high score, looming large, I continued. Now, anybody who has any idea about Tetris, knows that the bricks start falling faster as the level increases. And particularly in my mobile – Motorola W230, as you reach the 10^th level it gets real hard to play.

So invoking all the experience I had gained while playing Tetris – [follow Logik’s detailed account here], nicknamed Sh00t, in my final year in NITK, I concentrated hard. I started planning the placement of next two bricks, so that I could press the minimum number of keys to rotate them to the required shape and get them to the required spot.

I played for well over 35 minutes - because the screen saver came on, and that doesn’t happen on my computer, until half an hour has passed with no hardware interrupts.

I reached 14^th level at last. A level change occurs only after completing a particular number of lines. And that’s 35+ as the level reaches 12 or so. In 14^th level, at the beginning I was well off, with only three unfinished lines at the bottom. But in this particular level the bricks come down like rain. I barely had time to recognize the shapes falling. So before long I was totally sunk under a ton of bricks and the game ended.

I was happy though. It was a high score. It could be stored in the phone’s memory forever. :D

The screen read:

Game Over:

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Score: 57753

Power: 54

Level: 14

Lines: 239

Efficiency: 38

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Press any Key.

And so I did.

And it gave me three options:

Tetris

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Start

Help

About

DAMN!!!

There is no way to score high scores. Bah!!

The only thing I got to show right now is a dull numbing pain in my left hand for holding the mobile and pressing all those damn buttons to complete 239 lines without a damn pause.

This post is to do justice to my aching hand.

So, this is a heads up for other Motorola W230 users. There’s no point playing Tetris on the mobile if you don’t have your own blog to post your high scores.