Lumpy's Tetris by Paul Egan (DOS, 1995)

What is it?: A Tetris clone in CGA, 1995.
What computer or emulator will it run on?: Something very slow or DOSBox.
Tags: Source code included.

This is just plain old Tetris, no frills…unless you call 2 player mode a frill! There's no support for anything higher than CGA or a soundcard.

The program was written totally by myself. The reason that its only supports such low spec hardware is because I havn't got anything else! For the moment I'm stuck with an IBM XT…yes people still use them!

Lumpy's Tetris (Paul Egan did not actually give his game this name, but he called the library he used for it Lumpy's procedure library, and I had to call the game something) was an entry to the X2 Support Group 1995 Programming Contest. He didn't win anything, which in a way is a pity, because he made good use of the limited and ugly CGA palette, but the game does have two severe flaws:

It relies on CPU clock for a timer, and therefore is practically unplayable on anything significantly faster than the machine it was coded on.
There are several problems with the controls:
- The default keymapping is confusing bordering on the unplayable.
- Setting the keys is annoying, for you have to set them all, including for the two players of a two player game.
- When you drop a piece, it just increases its speed, it does not actually drop. This may entice you to keep the finger on the key, but then the command will carry over to the next piece, making it unmaneuverable.

But it's interesting to see that that late games were still developed for the Color Graphics Adapter, and not out a deliberate retro feel (as I first thought) but simply because the hardware was still in use. BTW the design of the pieces was taken from the Gameboy version of Tetris that has been one of the most popular of them all.

Download Lumpy's Tetris (40kB)