The Actual News:
Yay! Years of Tetris training have FINALLY paid off, because I won big on the Tetris mobile game. Sweet! So how much big money did I cash out?
FIVE DOLLARS (US)
Yep, I’m the proud owner of five whole dollars. Huzzah! Good times had by all!
Here’s the proof for all you jealous doubters who doubt that I EARNED that five dollars with my Tetris prowess:
If I keep this up, I may end up earning ANOTHER five dollars. Big money hustlah comin’ your way!
Lol, all joking aside, I guess the Tetris mobile app got replaced by a new version recently, one that tries to make itself into just another HQ Trivia clone… which, I guess the world needs after HQ Trivia shut down this last February…
Anyways, the way the app works is that every day at 7:30pm (whenever 7:30pm happens to be in your part of the world), you play something like five to seven rounds of Tetris, albeit with varying gimics, and you simply play for points. If you fail to reach a certain amount of points at the end of the round, garbage blocks are added at the bottom of the play area, which you need to try to clear in the next round (except for last night’s game, which had permanent garbage blocks). The way to win money is to simply cross certain thresholds…. but of course the catch here is that not EVERYONE who achieves those milestones will automatically win those prizes. Who gets what is as follows:
- Survive round 1: 100 win $5
- Survive round 3: 150 win $5
- Survive round 5: 200 win $5
- Survive all rounds: 50 win $25
- Be in the top 100: 10 win $100
- Be in the top 3: 1 win $500
Anyways, since I beat the Sunday match, that put me in the running to win three $5 prizes and/or one $25. I ended up winning the “survive Round 5” $5 prize. Yay!
Now for some perspective on your chances of winning, this was actually the fourth Tetris game I played, but I was also in the running to win twelve of some kind of cash prize. Therefore, so far it seems like there is a 1/12—or 8.33%—chance to win something, while each play day earns you three of those chances…. so maybe a 1/4—or 25%—chance to win something, and likely more if you’re better than me? Mmmm… eh, sure why not…? I mean, I play Tetris for free all the time, so to get $5 once in a while for something I do all the time… it couldn’t hurt to mix this version into my Tetris cycle, alongside Tetris 99 (Switch), Tetris DX (GBC) and Tetris (NES, Nintendo R&D1 version).
That said, this version of Tetris is—on the one hand—a real pain in the ass to play, but—on the other hand—is kinda forgiving. That is to say, I HATE HATE HAAAAAATE the touchscreen controls… they’re too small and have a very narrow window of detection, and that’s when it’s working as expected! But at least the drop speed is reasonable (ie no 20G mode or anything) and pieces don’t lockdown instantaneously… but still, I’d rather be using a controller. I guess then maybe I should look into alternative methods for playing then…
Anyways, I managed to record my winning playthrough and uploaded it to YouTube. You can see me struggling with trying to play with thr cursed touchscreen controls… I was lucky to at least not lose! That said, if YOU haven’t won Tetris Mobile before, you can at least tap your screen and pretend you’re playing so you can get a taste of what it’s like to be an awesome winner like me!
Now to get an idea of what my actual quality of play level is like when I’m able to use a controller, watch this:
In any case, despite its crappy touchscreen controls, I was at least able to reach the 95% percentile of American Tetris players…
Well, I mean, technically the 95.32566548 percentile, but who’s counting?
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… i am…
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Ok, that’s all I have to share right now. Enjoy the rest of your day, because I can’t do that for you.