Revision as of 15:30, 22 November 2018

https://twitter.com/EmojiTetra/with_replies

Some analysis

• Cool graphs: http://pub.thorx.net/emojitetra/

Some plans for future analysis

Board health

Ideas to measure board health

• simple board fill - Count of positions on the board that are used. This is extremely simple and is already in the analysis
• modified board fill - count columns that have holes in them, and use that as modifying factor to the simple board fill. The height of those columns (or of highest?) should be a factor too
  • discussion in this thread: https://twitter.com/HeptaSean/status/1063093435719213056
• board age - for each used position, track how long (age in pieces spawned) it has been on the board. Health is then the sum of ages. Lower = healthier
  • A low board will have a higher turnover of pieces and better health. A high board will have low rows that are stuck for a long time - as they age the health will decrease, indicating we are high and possibly stuck there...
  • however, it's still not an objective absolute, as two identical boards may register different health
  • discussion in this thread: https://twitter.com/Caber_nl/status/1065174652060909570
• weighted board fill - count occupied positions in columns. The unhealth of a piece is valued according to how difficult it is to get to. Basically, the more buried a piece is, the higher it scores. Buried holes need to be handled in some form (they are bad), and deep open wells need to be handled (they are good)
  • possible implementation: every occupied position is a point. Those that are on an equal row or higher than the lowest accessible open spot have no further weighting, however each occupied position below that row gets an additional +1 for each row further down. Each unoccupied position (hole!) gets an additional +1.
  • Should it handle horizontal holes (ie don't count quite as strongly because once uncovered, they'll be easier to fill and move on?)

Sociopolitical analysis

The game can be examined as a microcosm of human democratic/communication behaviour!

I wrote some notes about this at one point. There have been many tweets too.

• For instance, this thread: https://twitter.com/alexjc/status/1063861229536665601

Rhyming game tips

• "less than four? build up more"
• "make a column only if it's to the bottom"
  • on the side build a column, but only if it's to the bottom
  • note: uses non-standard use of "column". Should find a tip to call it a well
• "more than five? clear some lines to stay alive"
  • I like it, except the meter in the first and second clauses is mismatched. “If you’re stuck with more than five, clear some lines to stay alive.”
    • https://twitter.com/JoeSondow/status/1031215485596004352

• I thought of "1+1<2" which is great for sentiment and brevity, but they only people it would be clear to are the power players who know it anyway

Game Table

Note: my timezone is UTC+10 and my dates reflect that. I hope to direct link to tweets sufficient that they can be used for exact time lookups if needed

Board styles

1. From poll #1 (16 April 2018): score in blocks, then unicode SOON, then linedrawing to illustrate NEXT piece
2. From poll #211 (19 April): unicode SOON replaced with unicode F-FWD
3. From poll #2663 (22 May): Literal "Next", then braille indicator of next piece. Then literal "Score" in and score in plain text
4. From poll 3718 (5 June): "Next" and score moved to right of board. Next illustrated with emoji same as board

My Terminology

(note: this is what I endeavour to use, and while I encourage others to use, it is in no way formal or endorsed. Most of it is what is commonly used already)

• board: play area (7x11 squares)
• column: a vertical sequence on the board from top to bottom (11 spots)
• line/row: a horizontal sequence on the board from left to right (7 spots)
• clear - to clear some rows
• single/double/triple: to clear 1/2/3 line(s)
• tetra/quad/tetris: to clear 4 lines
• collective/hive/electorate/crowd: everyone who votes
• hole (1): an unfilled space that is surrounded
• overhang/half-hole: an unfilled spare that is covered at top, but open to the side
  • some overhangs can be underfilled by a side slide. But not all
• clean - board without holes. as in "the board is clean" and "this is a clean drop"
  • question: is a half-hole a clean board?
• dirty - opposite of clean: a board with a hole. "the board is dirty". "this is a dirty drop"
• well/hole (2): a space perfectly suited for a single piece. Usually I-hole, sometimes J or L-hole.
• silhouette/skyline: the shape of the top surface
• empty board: nothing on the board. a perfectly flat skyline, as per the start of a game.
  • I prefer 'empty' to avoid possible ambiguity with clear or clean, however this is where my usage diverges most from the electorate

Credits

• Game created by https://twitter.com/JoeSondow
  • Tweet with links to his other accounts too: https://twitter.com/JoeSondow/status/971561164994895872
• EmojiTetra game code on gitlab: https://gitlab.com/JoeSondow/emojitetra