Show HN: Lazy Tetris
350 admtal 139 5/27/2025, 3:58:07 AM lazytetris.com ↗
I made a tetris variant
Aims to remove all stress, and focus the game on what I like the best - stacking.
No timer, no score, no gravity. Move to the next piece when you are ready, and clear lines when you are ready.
Separate mobile + desktop controls
I will likely add many of these suggestions over the weekend.
- Multi bag instead of fully random
- No auto clear on game end
- Clear hold on game reset
- Rename to LAZY PUBLIC DOMAIN BLOCK GAME
also, I need better UX or something, because some of the suggestions are already implemented but it’s prob not initiative/ hard to find.
Clicking on the ghost enables the ghost piece. I personally hate ghost pieces, and I always disable them, so because it’s my game, I have it off by default.
Tapping left side and right side rotate left and right.
Keyboard Up and Shift rotate left and right.
Delete key does UNDO
Enter does HOLD
You can touch drag or click drag to move your piece, even dragging up.
Oh, also you can drag from anywhere, you don’t have to actually click the piece.
You can two-finger tap to DROP (that’s how I play, it’s so satisfying)
Three-finger-tap is HOLD
You can save to home screen on iOS and it should play as a full screen app.
If you get a “Tetris” (four line clear at once) a secret gift button appears, but it’s just a link to my book, because everything I do is soulless cash grab.
I’m lazy, and built this game sitting on the couch on my phone using a mix of rosebud.ai and ChatGPT. I also had to get in my laptop to do performance optimizations manually, that part sucked, it was like real work. But otherwise, vibe-coding is fun.
This game is made specifically for me and how I like to play, and I’m glad others enjoyed it!
I love this. You made a game for you, if others like it, great!
> Enter does HOLD
When I got to my first hold I had to go back to the Home Screen to see this, because I'd forgotten. And clicking "hold" with the mouse didn't do anything. Maybe have a list of the keys on the side? Or under where it says "hold"?
> If you get a “Tetris” (four line clear at once) a secret gift button appears, but it’s just a link to my book, because everything I do is soulless cash grab.
I might actually get the book! Looking at the sample it looks fun. Could be a card game too.
> This game is made specifically for me and how I like to play, and I’m glad others enjoyed it!
I did! It's great for people with kids, because you can just stop in the middle.
Also, this reminds me of The Password Game: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36493715
If you wanted to further reduce the stress then you could use the single bag system (same link as below, bottom of the page).
[1] https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Tetris/Pieces#L_piece
Even with the constraints of time and gravity removed and with undo, it's still quite easy to make choices that keep the structure up but leave gaps which are hard to fill in. These end up leading to cruft that's hard to get rid of.
With some degree of ability to look ahead, it's hard to break away from the human psychology of aligning the structure to your expectations for a certain piece, that may or may not be coming in the near future. somewhat analogous to building for an audience that may not be there or may never come.
Despite having all advantages, it's still quite possible to paint yourself into a corner and fail.
One can learn a lot from this game if they take the time to observe it.
https://github.com/mlang/betris
Big thanks to @jart, cosmo is a godsent for cross-platform TUI stuff.
I love that idea, sometimes you just need a little time to figure out where you want to move/rotate it to.
Last but not least: Fun and relaxing.
i'd like to see a few improvements for that though:
don't end the game just because a piece touches the top row. allow to continue playing as long as there is room for more pieces to be placed. (i just noticed that doesn't happen all the time. maybe only when the next piece doesn't fit into the spot to be placed)
but even if there is no more room, don't end the game when there are rows that still can be cleared. the game should only end when no other action is possible. and ideally, don't automatically clear the field when the game ends. let me admire the result, and add a reset button to clear manually instead.
other features that could be nice: when starting over the hold should probably be cleared. a bigger hold would also be nice. and how about a score? relaxing doesn't mean it can't be competitive. i mean we all experience stress differently. i find being pressured for time to be stressful, but i don't mind a hard puzzle as long as i have time to solve it and am not losing progress when i make a mistake.
i managed to fill 17 rows without clearing any before the game ended. can anyone beat that? you'd have to be very lucky with the pieces you get at the end :-)
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/adcac3eddac2e5555d87942d...
Going after "clones" that have similar gameplay is wrong and they should (and likely do) know better. This has been resolved with Hasbro in the past as they were very litigious and went after clones of their games like Scrabble claiming their patent (and other parts) extended to the gameplay elements etc. IIRC the court rejected that argument and said that they can copyright or trademark the color combinations, names of points, etc. but they cannot patent the fundamental scrabble gameplay etc.
TTC is the gaming version of Oracle in that one meme[1], 90% of their raison d'etre is just to scare people away from making Tetris clones or variants without their permission so they can keep collecting rent on it forever.
[1] https://www.globalnerdy.com/2011/07/03/org-charts-of-the-big...
Here's the description of the only Tetris gameplay mechanics the judge in this case conceded cannot be protected:
> Tetris is a puzzle game where a user manipulates pieces composed of square blocks, each made into a different geometric shape, that fall from the top of the game board to the bottom where the pieces accumulate. The user is given a new piece after the current one reaches the bottom of the available game space. While a piece is falling, the user rotates it in order to fit it in with the accumulated pieces. The object of the puzzle is to fill all spaces along a horizontal line. If that is accomplished, the line is erased, points are earned, and more of the game board is available for play. But if the pieces accumulate and reach the top of the screen, then the game is over. These then are the general, abstract ideas underlying Tetris and cannot be protected by copyright nor can expressive elements that are inseparable from them.
[1] Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc. (2012) https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=180648822600252...
In theory the Tetris Company is incorrect on the merits (the features they claim as "trade dress" are clear aspects of the game rules, not ornamentation, and in Xio's game had quite notable gameplay differences, especially in its multiplayer variants, and significant graphical style differences) and a discerning judge should see through the argument and find against them.
In practice judges often make a snap judgment based on personal prejudices (in this case, that the appearance amounted to "wholesale copying" that "pilfer[s] another's creativity" "without offering any originality or ingenuity of its own" and that such features as the way the pieces move falling from the top of the screen and the dimensions of the game board are "expression" rather than gameplay, and "Xio was also free to design a puzzle game using pieces of different shapes instead of using the same seven pieces used in Tetris." etc.) and ignore the letter and spirit of the law, filling in the decision starting from the conclusion. It has to date been too bothersome for someone with deep pockets to contest this to the appellate level.
What surprised me most from the ruling was how it took the legal doctrine of idea-expression dichotomy and twisted it into absurdity, hinging on an implicit argument that a game design essentially serves no utilitarian 'function' or 'purpose'. Core mechanics or essential gameplay rules like the tetrominoes or the 10-block width of the playfield are thus marked 'expression' or 'arbitrary flourishes', leaving a vague, unidentifiable abstraction of a falling-blocks puzzle game as the only unprotectible set of game rules that form its 'idea'.
Xio was free to design a puzzle game without tetrominoes, or downward+lateral+rotating movements, or a 10x20 playfield, and it would still 'function' just as well (that is: not at all, it's just a game). A chess game developer is equally free to design a strategy game without an 8x8 board or the knight's distinctive L-shaped movement, but it would no longer be chess, it would be rules for a completely different game.
Link to the original artist instead of blogspam: <https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts>
TETR.IO and Jstris are insanely popular games that have been up for years with no action against them since they aren't hosted on another platform/marketplace.
This is also why Apotris got 2 DMCA takedowns on both Github and itch.io 3 months apart from each other, but after hosting the game on my own site, they haven't taken any further action in the past 2 years while it has continued to grow in popularity.
Would they go after the shapes? Possibly. See "Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc.".
They can go after you for anything. Whether or not that would hold in court is a separate question, but they count on the fact that you would be probably unwilling to test it.
I’m going to move the first piece down sometime soon.
But what I am really looking for in Tetris is the game to train me. After observing me play for a few minutes it tells me: _"Hey, I notice you always deal with L pieces horizontally. Proffesional players usually prefer to X so they can achieve Y"_
FWIW, you can also do this on TETR.IO in Zen mode - just set the Gravity to 0 and turn Leveling off.
But it's indeed a nice and relaxed take on tetris.
But main reason is so he can monetize. Would gladly pay a few dollars for this.
The drag gesture is slightly broken though. If the piece collides with the wall, it sticks instead of sliding.
Thanks for making and sharing!
Playing on desktop with a keyboard, I cannot move pieces up when they reached the floor, though. I moved one piece down too much thinking it was possible to move it up again and that caused me to stress a bit ;)
it's black screen for me
I also think some of your comments here are also AI-generated, e.g. this one where you both posted a submission and asked yourself to "stop posting AI generated garbage":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36841921
I swear I can code for real, I was just having fun
> "Adam, congrats on your book, but please stop spamming this message board with your AI Generated garbage"
Note if the above sounds aggressive, I didn't write it. You did... in reply to yourself! To be honest it seems as if you're writing comments using an LLM, and the LLM got confused.
I was in a bad way and really wanted attention online
I’m trying to think of why I wrote that, in my own way I guess I thought it was humorous
And you can click the “ghost” icon to get the shadow piece.
You’re absolutely right, not intuitive
Me after 1.5 hours and wondered why hadn't stopped: I know nothing about game design.