Show HN: Lazy Tetris
243 admtal 101 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.
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
https://github.com/mlang/betris
Big thanks to @jart, cosmo is a godsent for cross-platform TUI stuff.
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...
Link to the original artist instead of blogspam: <https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts>
Would they go after the shapes? Possibly. See "Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc.".
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.
The drag gesture is slightly broken though. If the piece collides with the wall, it sticks instead of sliding.
But main reason is so he can monetize. Would gladly pay a few dollars for this.
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 ;)
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.
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.