For a while, I've had multiple policy documents kinda randomly thrown around my websites. For example, branding information on a subdomain, the promotional kit policy on the blog... And, even though I use Matomo on all my sites, there wasn't really a formal privacy policy or ToS on them, it was simply implied the same as the TETR.IO one would be followed. (This is true, albeit slimmed down, since there's no ads etc. on them.)

For this reason, there is now a proper knowledge base over at txt.osk.sh! It hosts the branding information (unchanged), the promotional kit policy (changed due to abuse, see below), and a new overarching Terms of Service and Privacy Policy pair.

The osk General Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

From today on, all osk services will be governed by the General Terms of Service. The ToS is very simple, and is very similar to what you're used to on TETR.IO (no liability, no guarantee of fitness for any purpose, reservation of right of removal and cessation).

In addition, all osk services will follow the General Privacy Policy. It, too, is very simple — I use Matomo to get analytics, and that's it. I don't sell that data.

These documents act as a fallback for if no other document is specified. For example, on TETR.IO, its own terms of service take precedence. As such, on TETR.IO, you agree to both the osk GToS and the TETR.IO-specific ToS. If any TETR.IO-specific clause were to clash with the GToS, the TETR.IO-specific clause takes precedence. Pretty simple, right?

The Promotional Kit Policy

From today on, the distribution of native advertisements on TETR.IO (the "promotional kit") is governed by the new TETR.IO promotional kit policy. The previous blogpost is now deprecated. In addition, a new page helps shed light on the nature of the promotional kit for players.

The most important and notable changes to the kit include:

• All sponsors and advertisements related to your event/advertisement must be declared. This means, if you plan to run a tournament, and there's any sponsors, you must declare who your sponsors are, the associated deals, and how this impacts any of your content (will you be doing sponsored segments? giveaways? etc.). Failure to declare a sponsor or advertisement is deemed fraud.
• In the case of events where smurfing could pose a threat, sign-ups must close at least 24 hours before tournament start. This to ensure you have the time to go through user lists and weed out bad actors before they're stuck in your bracket. TETR.IO staff can help you with this.
• From now on, there are no exceptions to the "all information must be handed in 14 days prior to flight date" rule for events on the free tier. If you are too late, you will be required to pay a premium or be rejected, period.
  • As a reminder, flight date is when the campaign starts, NOT when the tournament starts. If you want a banner to go up on the 18th, THAT is the flight date, no matter when the event date is. If you make this mistake and submit information 14 days prior to event date (and not flight date), you WILL be rejected!
• More attention is brought to the fact this kit is a gift. A community leader is never "entitled" to (free) usage of the kit.

Tetralympic S3

The new policy is rather strict, in particular toward sponsorships. While this may seem rather untoward to tournament organizers and the like, it's important to remember that the promotional kit, in particular the free tier, is a very large gift. Advertising is not cheap, and the price of a banner lies in multiple thousands of dollars a day. I care very much for the community, and wish to promote its events. Not only does this in turn help promote the game, it also allows me to give back to the community. Nothing forces me to give out 5 digits worth of advertising to the community, or to stay awake to 4am just to develop a specially-made banner. It's a free gift to the community, from the developer of a game that in turn is also entirely free-to-win.

It is for that reason that it hurts me a lot when some show a lack of respect toward it (just seeing it as a service that's part of the game that they, as community leaders, are entitled to), or worse, abuse it. Throughout the later half of June, I gave out access to the promotional kit (consisting of a banner and 15 badges) to the tournaments Tetralympic S3 SG and Tetralympic S3 Worlds, both led by Skyllabtw (with support from MMC, but they did not handle sponsorships). Throughout the application for the kit (which was already beyond the deadline), there was near to no indication or declaration that the event was sponsored, so I approved it for the kit.

However, the streams were completely different. There were three sponsors (two multi-million dollar corporations, and a supplement company), all of which with large constant on-stream advertisements, sponsored segments, giveaways, chat commands, 10+ mentions per stream, etc. The tournament's website was also changed after I reviewed it to include large, multi-page sponsored segments. This obviously does not consitute fair use of a community resource, and would never ever have been approved for the free kit. I immediately took action by removing the banner, and defacing all the awarded badges for any Tetralympic tournament.

Skyllabtw, the organizer (and sole person in charge of the event's sponsorships), has apologized and states it was a misunderstanding, and that she did not mean to pull in large sponsors behind my back, or leave out any information about them to me until it's too late. She further stated that she did not receive any monetary compensation for the sponsorships (???). In understanding that I am partially at fault for not vetting and verifying applications harshly enough (the previous policy was vague on the subject of sponsorships), I have decided to not let this impact the players who played in the tournaments, and have restored the badges for all 26 total involved players. My gift to the community being abused, be it through fraud or negligence as Skyllabtw states, should not cause these players' achievements to be wiped, considering the event itself was fair and transparent.

To prevent anything like this from happening again in the future, I will be thoroughly vetting any applications for the promotional kit in the future, using these stricter policies. If you are interested in advertising on TETR.IO, be it on the free tier or not, please ensure you have read and understand the new TETR.IO promotional kit policy in its entirety. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me!

NOTE: This policy has been deprecated. You may find the current policy here.

This message is primarily for tournament organizers. It is public for transparency purposes.

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First off, a heartfelt thanks to everyone who sees TETR.IO as the home for their tournaments, and regards the game as the place to be for competitive stacking! I'm very glad the competitive community has accepted TETR.IO as major game within the community, and of course I will continue to support tournaments that take place on the platform.

2021 has been an amazing year for competitive stacking, and I hope to collaborate with tournament organizers again in 2022 to bring amazing tournaments to the platform and help them thrive. To keep this sustainable and fair, I do want to lay out a few basic rules regarding the promotional kits I make available to tournament organizers, though.

What "promotional kits"?

The TETR.IO promotional kits generally consist of a few elements:

• The homebanner — a customized ad slot deeply integrated into the game, right at the top of the home menu.
  • You can either use a simple creative in IAB Leaderboard or similar sizes, or let me hand-craft a banner that intertwines your tournament's branding with TETR.IO's.
  • Over 250,000 impressions daily
  • Click-through rate between 10‰ and 20‰ (that's 2,5K to 5K clicks)
  • Not blocked by any adblocker (but adblock users aren't tracked, so you get their impressions&clicks for free!)
• Ingame call-to-action notifications — a customized notification that engages anyone online (e.g. to watch the tournament on your Twitch).
• Profile badges — customized, permanent icons on the profiles of tournament champions.

You've most likely seen all of these in action at some point — don't worry too much about the details.

Policy

To make more obvious who is eligible for what kits, and the procedures for requesting one, here is a quick explanation of my policy. This policy goes in effect Jan 1st, 2022.

PRICING

Let's start with the elephant in the room. This advertising kit is incredibly powerful. Anyone would call me an utter fool for giving it away for free. I'm doing it anyway. The competitive TETR.IO community is very important to me, and I absolutely want to keep supporting it where possible. However, to keep this fair, I cannot give out free or discounted kits to everyone. There are requirements to getting these kits for free.

The main dividing line is the nature of the use of the kit. That is, whether the kit is used to inform about particularly notable community events, or as promotional/marketing tool. If the notability of your tournament hinges on being able to advertise with TETR.IO's toolkit, it's generally a no-go. To be clear, exceptions are always possible (most notably, Underdogs Cup was such an exception; it has since grown to be a major, trend-setting community event of insane proportions).

Secondly, please keep in mind the promotional/sponsored nature of a tournament. Having sponsors isn't immediately a problem, but if your tournament is a vehicle for their promotion, I cannot accept it. For example, mentioning your sponsors or showing their logo onscreen is OK (especially if they have ties with the community), but actively advertising for them significantly is not. This rule is somewhat vague on purpose, as it is difficult to draw a concrete line in this space. Please understand that this is handled on a case-by-case basis.

Finally, there should be a clear connection between you and the stacker community as a whole.

If you are eligible:

In general, if you are eligible, the kit is entirely free. I do request that any amount of your choosing (be it €1 or 50%) of tournament proceeds are remitted to TETR.IO. This can be through PayPal/bank wire/Bitcoin invoice, but it could be far more fun to give out Supporter gifts to players or spectators. Events with proceeds below €100 do not need to even consider doing this. In cases where a lot of work is requested (high-fidelity banners, banners with complex popups, work outside of my office hours, etc.), or your given flight times clash with other events, I may request a minimum amount for my time. If this is the case, I will let you know in time, at which point you can change plans to something simpler, or accept and go with the complex request.

If you are not eligible:

The price for the kit is generally dynamic based on amount of sponsorship, promotional nature of the advertised event, amount of audience overlap, etc. Additionally, advertising prices change with the seasons. In general, advertising increases in price as the year progresses, with Q4 being the most expensive. Advertising around events like Black Friday will bump up prices considerably. The same goes for TETR.IO events. Having a lot of banners at once, or very large banners causes the third-party ad slots to be pushed below the fold for a greater amount of users, lowering revenue from these ads significantly.

Due to the ever-changing nature of these things, I cannot give any price estimates on a non-changing blogpost like this one. For any estimate or offer, please contact me. However, please expect to pay quite a bit into the four digits on a daily basis. In certain extreme cases, this may even tip into five digits. If this sounds insane, please be reminded that digital advertising is incredibly expensive. The usual price for a single Google Search ad click ranges between $1 and $2, and can even go into double digits for particularly expensive keywords. TETR.IO's advertising kit gives you thousands of such clicks daily, from a highly engaged, specialized audience who will be very interested in your content, as well as the positive effect of linking your brand and TETR.IO's brand together.

Many payment models are available (per click, CPM, per day...). Please get in contact if you are interested in directly reaching over 600,000 monthly active players of one of the largest stacker games (if not the largest!) in the industry.

FURTHER REQUIREMENTS

This is probably the most important part of this post, as especially the first point here seems to be troublesome.

• ALL INFORMATION (ASSETS, FLIGHT DATES, ETC.) MUST BE HANDED IN TWO WEEKS (14 DAYS) BEFORE THE FLIGHT DATE.
  • This means, if you want the banner for the tournament to appear Jan 18th (the starting "flight date"), I must have received everything I need by Jan 5th, regardless of the tournament's actual start date.
  • Any major changes after this period are prohibited. Small edits are OK (or corrections to mistakes on my side).
  • Please also let me know of any scheduled changes (e.g. if you want the banner to link to a Twitch when the tournament starts).
  • If you are too late, you may be rejected or requested to pay a premium to have the changes made, for my time.
  • For non-eligible paying advertisers, this does not apply, but please be cautious as I am not always available (I will try my best to have any changes made within 24 hours).
• Any advertisements of sexual or suggestive nature, any advertisements involving gambling (including social gambling), any advertisements of offensive nature, and any advertisements connected to any of the foregoing (or anything of that nature) will be rejected.
• Any advertisements for, organized by, or connected to users, corporations, events or other instances banned from the community, silenced/restricted ingame, in a bad standing with their account, or otherwise problematic within the community may be rejected.
• Any advertisements for, organized by, or connected to users, corporations, events or other instances who are breaking any TETR.IO TOS or other osk service TOS, or any advertisements promoting, condoning, or in any other way connected to any of the foregoing will be rejected.
• Please do not paint TETR.IO in an unnecessarily bad light in any of your connected materials, or by any of your connected users throughout the event and its surrounding media, releases, etc.
• Advertisements that do not follow the osk branding guidelines will be rejected. In particular, please ensure to write TETR.IO as such, not as "Tetrio", "Tetr.IO" or any other mess.
• Please ensure the presentability of the TETR.IO visual design. While using extensions to change the background, add additional effects, etc. or using overlays to create a rich experience is commended, please request permission before changing the core TETR.IO design (e.g. the blockskin, the fonts used, etc.). Additionally, please take care to use a presentable graphics setting. Avoid the minimal and low graphics options.

Finally, please understand that I may reject or remove any element of the promotional kit at any time, for any or no reason. Similarly, please understand that eligibility for free promotional kits is at my sole discretion.

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I hope this lengthy post sheds some light on the procedure and policy regarding TETR.IO's advertising kits, and the changes made to them. If you have any more questions, feel free to comment below this post.

Just now, TETR.IO has hit one million total players. Can you believe it? Because I can't. It's been an insane journey here, one I never expected.

Back when I first started developing TETR.IO, just under 2 years ago, I thought it would be incredibly cool if I could make a game that had some sort of meaning to the stacker community. Yet here we are, at what is probably the most meaningful milestone — for example, for a lot of YouTubers, hitting 1 million subscribers is the peak, the validation, the apex — and while of course, most of these players are anons who simply played for a little bit, it's this reach that feels insane to me. In the last year, TETR.IO has had a reach far beyond what I could've ever imagined, being at GDQ Hotfix, being on 10K-viewer streams, seeing 400+ player lobbies, and massive tournaments multiple times a month. Being able to reach so many people, and potentially give them an experience they could think of fondly years from now, is a really, really nice feeling.

And it's all thanks to you — the players, the Supporters, the streamers, the tournament organizers, the YouTubers, the INFDEV testers, the contributors — the believers.

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for playing my game, for believing in me. It's been an amazing journey up to here, but there's no end in sight! A lot of very exciting things are coming up (most obviously the Character System update), and I hope you'll stick around for another million!!!

♥ ♥ ♥

On January 31st 2021, TETR.IO will close its Patreon and partner with Xsolla for swift and secure ingame payments. This means that Patrons will no longer be billed, and the Patreon page will no longer be accessible.
In its place, TETR.IO Supporter will now become directly accessable and purchasable from within the game. The key points:

• TETR.IO Supporter will be a non-renewing subscription. This means you buy any amount of months in bulk whenever you see fit, and if you don't renew, your Supporter status will expire on its own.
• TETR.IO Supporter will be a single tier, and contain all the rewards of what used to be the Deca tier.
• TETR.IO Supporter will cost €5 before taxes. Gifts and any month after the third bought in bulk are €4. So, buying 4 months at once is €19, or €16 as a gift.
• You will be able to gift Supporter to other players at any moment, just like adding months to your own support.
• You can add months at any time and your expiry date will be extended.
• You will be able to manage your Supporter subscription from your account settings at any time.
• Payments will be powered by Xsolla, allowing you to use hundreds of different payment systems to fulfill the purchase.
• Payments should usually be processed instantly, although depending on the payment system used there may be a small delay.
• Refunds will go through Xsolla. The applicable refund policy can be read here.
• The Perfect Clear tier reward (having your name in the Special Thanks) can be achieved by reaching a certain total amount of support, racked up by buying months and/or gifting months.

I'm currently supporting you on Patreon. What's going to change?

Thank you very much for your support! Don't worry, I've got you covered. Here's what will change for you on the 31st:

• You will no longer be automatically billed by Patreon.
• If you were supporting me at Deca tier and up, you will immediately receive three free months of Supporter in the new system.
• If you choose to not use Xsolla, your Supporter role will simply expire after those three months are up, without any further costs on your side. If you wish to keep supporting me, you may add months anytime.
• As thanks for your early support, everyone who has been a patron on or before the 31st will receive an exclusive "early supporter" badge! (Note: this is applied by email address. If you haven't received your badge by the 1st, let me know.)
• You may temporarily lose the Discord role on the TETR.IO Discord. To get it back, simply go into your account settings on TETR.IO after the update, and link your Discord there to get it back.

Why switch systems?

There's quite a few reasons, to be honest. Above all, while Patreon is a very nice system for creators to receive a stable and sustainable income for their work, it is not meant to sell a service on. Patreon is very easy to use if you are say, a YouTube creator looking to receive some support from fans. You can set up simple tiers, show behind-the-scenes footage, talk to fans and quickly export lists of all patrons of any tier for use in credits.

Patreon, however, falls flat when you try to use it for an actual service. While TETR.IO Supporter is still in essence a donation, the rewards bound to it are hard to automate and handle smoothly on Patreon. Patreon's administration and integration is sadly lacking on this front, and understandably so - Patreon isn't made for it! This caused players' Supporter benefits to often be applied late, and require a lot of work to fulfill.

On top of that, the monthly autorenew model of Patreon is very expensive. Patreon in general is known to stack fees quite heavily, but this is increased a lot by the sheer amount of (small) transactions. This is the reason TETR.IO Supporter was so expensive (€10 before taxes for the Deca tier, really?) - the fees for small transactions would cause so much money to be lost it would stop being worthwhile.

Finally, due to being an autorenewing model, Patreon does not support very many payment methods. On paper, it supports credit cards and PayPal, but in reality, PayPal support is limited because a PayPal account would need to have a credit card or bank account linked with it. This caused many people to approach me asking if they could somehow purchase Supporter in another way, which wasn't possible at the time.

That said, I do believe Patreon is a very powerful platform for those it's meant for. Its tools are very strong for creators, and have caused quite a positive change in the industry! I am glad to have been able to use Patreon for the time I have, and I would never have been able to grow as large as I am now without Patreon giving me a platform to receive your donations on.

What makes Xsolla the better fit?

Above all, Xsolla's expertise in specifically games makes for a far better fit. Xsolla's tools are all geared specifically to game developers and players, and can deeply integrate into your work without inhibiting your creative process. This not only makes things a lot easier for me, it also makes purchasing Supporter a lot easier.

Since Xsolla deeply integrates into the game, buying Supporter is easier than ever. You can open up the Supporter dialog from many places, and move on immediately to the purchase process. As soon as your payment is confirmed, you almost always immediately get the rewards. In my testing, I can get from the home menu to being a proud Supporter within twenty seconds, without any need to create accounts, link other services, send messages or other hassle. In the same way, there is also very little work involved in handling Supporter on my end — I practically only have to handle refunds. This means you can get your Supporter rewards within seconds instead of hours (or sometimes days).

On top of that, due to the model I'm using not being autorenewing, fees can be far lower. Due to that, I'm confident to be able to lower the price of Supporter by more than half, while allowing you to buy Supporter freely without being tied to any autorenewing subscriptions. There's this element of subscription models that cashes in on people forgetting to disable a subscription that I honestly very much dislike. Maybe I'm simply not fit for this business, but I wish players to be able to get Supporter without having to worry about yet another subscription in a world where almost everything seems to have a subscription nowadays.

On top of that, Xsolla supports hundreds of payment providers, which means you can pay with just about anything, not just credit cards and PayPal. Xsolla is trusted by many other large games and related sites (Roblox, Twitch, Epic Games, XSplit, osu!, just to name a few).

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I am glad to be able to partner with Xsolla to bring you a more fair way to support the game we love. I am incredibly grateful for all the support I have received ever since going into Alpha. We're reaching closer and closer to the 1-million player mark every day, which is a number I NEVER expected to be able to even dream about! I want to thank everyone who's supported me to get this far — let's make 2021 count!

Starting November 2nd, I'm putting ad space up on TETR.IO. I understand this is going to cause some confusion, so I want to answer some common questions in this blog post.

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So what kind of ads?

I don't intend to devalue the TETR.IO experience. So, the ads will only be simple banner ads, like this example:

Ads will only show up in menus, never ingame. No video ads, no popups, etc. The site also won't complain if you use an adblocker. At a later point, I may introduce rewarded video ads (ads you choose to watch that get you something in return), but that isn't going to happen any time soon.

The ads will be personalized, so they'll try to be based on your interests. By default, you should receive gaming ads. I will keep care to ensure all ads are safe for work. Furthermore, supporters of Deca tier and up won't see ads.

Why add ads?

Simply said, TETR.IO has outgrown being a hobby project. Operating TETR.IO is as taxing as a full-time job for me, and I want to be able to take it seriously as one. Currently, I'm trying to balance multiple workloads at once, and you might be able to tell by the lower amount of updates that that isn't particularly working.

I am incredibly grateful for all the support by patrons, and that won't change! You are the ones who made TETR.IO happen in the first place. This change is aimed towards the 99.97% of players that don't (or can't) support. Serving ads to that segment of the playerbase will allow them to indirectly support TETR.IO as well!

Having a bit more revenue available would also generally help TETR.IO development a lot. There's a lot of things I cannot do, or don't have the time to do. Think about hiring artists, voice actors etc. Perhaps at some point even other programmers to assist me in the things I lack experience in, or simply to grow the workforce to keep up with demand.

But the Patreon is so expensive!

I don't disagree. The Patreon tiers are really expensive right now. .....It's for a reason, though. Patreon takes insane fees, and simply isn't worth it for small amounts. I hope to, in the relative future, switch to a more direct platform for Supporter, so I can bring down the price of the ingame benefits.

How much will the ads make, anyway?

I do not currently know. I will be experimenting a lot with different ad slots and positions, to see what is the most effective way to place ads. I get about 350K potential impressions daily, but cannot know an RPM yet. I'll let you know once I have actual data, to perhaps help other webgame developers interested in these kinds of statistics for their games.

Is this the beginning of the end?

Not at all. I 100% stand by the fact that TETR.IO will always be free-to-win. There won't be any ingame purchases that increase your skill, required payments to play more, lootboxes, or other shady practices like that. Reaching #1 on the leaderboards will always be equally difficult for paying players as non-paying players with Adblock on. No exceptions.

But (other game) doesn't have ads!

Please compare the two by more than just whether they have ads. I am (surprise, surprise) not a multi-billion-dollar corporation, but I do have a large-scale game that tries to reach those kinds of levels of quality. On top of that, these games are often monetized anyway. How often do you see a free game made by an AAA company that's actually free of monetization?

"If you add ads, I'll quit TETR.IO!!!!"

That's your choice. I hope, however, that after reading this post, you can understand why I am adding ads. And if you still disagree, well.... it's a free game. I'm not sure what you expected. Nothing in the world is free, you know?

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In all seriousness, if you have any other questions or (constructive) things to add, feel free to reply to this post with your feedback.

It's been a while! Last blog post, we were at 20,000 total players on TETR.IO. That number has...... grown. An insane amount, almost 20x over! At almost 400,000 total accounts, overseeing this data has become a hassle in more ways than one.

TETR.IO's ingame UI, while I like it a lot, is not suited for complex datasets. On top of that, cluttering the main game code with UI mess is not what I was looking for in development.

Quite a few games fix it in a particular way: by showing simpler, less-detailed stats in-game, and having an (un)official site to accompany it with a lot of stats. I am honored to be of such size now that I can join this group, by creating:

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TETRA CHANNEL, THE STANDALONE SITE

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This site currently allows you to browse all the leaderboards seamlessly, view user stats, with avatars and banners, and more. I hope to in the future also add a bunch of extra statistics - like your TR progression, singleplayer score progression, recent TETRA LEAGUE matches, etc. All those sorts of datasets would be impossible to ever display ingame!

I hope you'll stay tuned for what's next in store!

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...Can you believe it's only been a month? TETRA LEAGUE, TETR.IO's 1v1 ranked matchmaker, is now live for all to play! You can play it here!

Once again, I'd like to thank all testers in helping me shape this feature within such a short period. And of course, all Patreon supporters! Without the support, I would not have had the time, drive or money to work on it!

Other prominents I'd like to thank are Garbo and Doremy for their extensive feedback!

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Have fun, and go rise those ranks!

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TETR.IO has reached the ALPHA development stage, and is now accessible to everyone! After almost two months of INFDEV with a team of testers I cannot be more thankful of, I am now able to unveil TETR.IO to the entire world!

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• Planned for later: this won't be available until after release. But, it is something I hope to do.
• Development has not yet started: this is planned, but work on the feature has not yet started.
• Development has started: this feature has its framework set up and is being worked on.
• Development underway: this feature is starting to become reality and has minor functionality ready to implement.
• Development nearing completion: most of this feature is implemented, but it is not yet ready for release.
• Rough version complete: this feature is fully implemented, but may be overhauled - it's ready for an alpha release, but should be polished more.
• Fully complete: this feature is fully implemented and polished!

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5. Custom Multiplayer Rules

There are now many multiplayer tweaks that can be applied, from hold on/off to garbage travel speed, to custom DAS!

9. Chat with players

Chat is complete, and a swear word filter has been implemented!

21. Profile w/ personal best displayed

TETR.IO now displays detailed info about a player whenever you wish to view their profiles!

22. Simple accounts system w/o hassle

You can now easily create accounts and, if you have set an email, even recover their passwords!

25. EXP

I wasn't planning to implement this as early as now, but EXP is available now, so you can progress as you develop your skills!

39. Dazzling graphics

All the effects and tweaks I'd like to implement by Alpha have been implemented, with hopefully more polish coming soon!

40. Custom wallpapers

You can now set custom wallpapers, or even a collection of custom wallpapers. A better UI is planned, but for now this works well ^^

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We're only in Alpha stage right now, so there's still a lot to be done. However, I do have plans for many cool things to come.

Right now, Quick Play is just one big room. This is great and all, but as soon as one pro joins, others will have to make way. I hope to be able to add 1v1 matchmaking as soon as possible, once the userbase is large enough to support such a feature.

The only online mode right now is ELIMINATION. This is the de facto online mode in most stackers, but I'd like to also implement TIMED and RACE modes.

It's impossible to spectate a match that's already begun right now. I'd like to make it possible to do so - it just requires a bit of headache code-wise.

Of course, I'd like to add more single-player fun too - above all, a ZEN mode that can be played inbetween matches as well, and a longer MARATHON-esque mode.

And, of course, I still want to look into making performance as smooth as possible on as many devices as possible.

For the most part, the 44-FACT-FRENZY still holds up. While I do not know in which order I will tackle everything, I hope to be able to, together with your support, make TETR.IO something we can all enjoy!

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I want to extend my gratitude and thankfulness to everyone who helped test the INFDEV builds. Without your extensive support, I would not have been able to make TETR.IO what it is today. Going Alpha, however, doesn't mean I'll stop developing and fixing bugs. I hope all of you, and all newcomers, will help us make TETR.IO ever better!

With the launch of Alpha, I'd like to also announce I now have a Patreon! This will hopefully help pay the servers, and be another way to support TETR.IO. Depending on the tier you choose, you can get pretty cool rewards, including an ingame badge and a permanent position in the game's About page! I would be incredibly grateful if you checked it out here: TETR.IO Patreon

Furthermore, I'd also like to remind everyone reading to join the TETR.IO Discord! This is the #1 place to get updates and changelogs as they roll in: TETR.IO Discord

Finally, I'd like to thank the Hard Drop community for helping me develop the game, giving feedback and reporting bugs. If you haven't yet, check out Hard Drop now!

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Thank you very much for reading, and have fun!

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Just five days left until TETR.IO is released to the world!

When that time comes, I'll post a larger blog post with all information!

IP requests will close a day or 2 prior.

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TETR.IO has reached the INFDEV development stage! This means that I am now giving out access to test it on a wider scale to select people. This to allow more and more diverse people to play it and give their feedback on TETR.IO, without opening it fully to the public yet (and having to worry about making a bad first impression).

Want to try out TETR.IO? Contact me with your IP and why you would like to try out TETR.IO, and I'll add you to the whitelist!

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• Planned for later: this won't be available until after release. But, it is something I hope to do.
• Development has not yet started: this is planned, but work on the feature has not yet started.
• Development has started: this feature has its framework set up and is being worked on.
• Development underway: this feature is starting to become reality and has minor functionality ready to implement.
• Development nearing completion: most of this feature is implemented, but it is not yet ready for release.
• Rough version complete: this feature is fully implemented, but may be overhauled - it's ready for an alpha release, but should be polished more.
• Fully complete: this feature is fully implemented and polished!

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3. Multiplayer Lobbies

The feature to join a room by URL has been implemented (it makes short URLs like https://tetr.io/#7YhaIs6), completing the feature!

4. Quick Play

Quick Play has been implemented - join Quick Play and the room will automatically start an infinite loop of games as long as at least 2 people are in Quick Play!

9. Chat with players

Chat is nearly complete, but a swear word filter has yet to be implemented, and a few hotkeys may still be swapped around.

16. TETRA CHANNEL

All basic functionality of TETRA CHANNEL has been implemented. Stuff like MAPS and a list of players may be added later, but is not on the roadmap for Alpha (see the TETR.IO 44-Fact-Frenzy page for more info).

17. Personal Best

TETRA CHANNEL now happily saves your top 10 plays in all categories.

18. Global records

Likewise, TETRA CHANNEL now happily saves the top 1000 plays in all categories (note: the client only displays 100, but the standalone site will display all 1000).

19. Replays saved and can be watched

All plays are saved at least temporarily, and a nice replay link can be shared!

20. Custom game options

The CUSTOM GAME mode has been implemented, and already allows for lots of experimentation most other games don't provide. However, I hope to add more options to it in the future.

21. Profile w/ personal best displayed

TETR.IO displays nice badges of a user's scores when you click them. I hope to still add some extra info, like join date, before Alpha. More info could potentially go to the TETRA CHANNEL site.

41. Music by Hurt Record

I believe to have added most music I want to, but I can always add more when I find a purpose for it.

42. Controller support

Its implementation is rather basic, but I decided to add it already. Only the in-game controls work with controller (all else must still be done w/ mouse), but it's better than nothing (hence it does not get the polished icon).

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Still to be done before Alpha...

• 5. Custom Multiplayer Rules
• 9. Chat with players
• 21. Profile w/ personal best displayed
• 22. Simple accounts system w/o hassle
• 39. Dazzling graphics
• 40. Custom wallpapers

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Thank you for reading. If you're planning on becoming a tester, have fun!

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It's been too long since I reported on TETR.IO. Therefore, with the TETR.IO FORTY-FOUR FACT FRENZY (don't take the name too seriously) I hope to shed some light on what I have been working on, what you can expect, and how far I am in its development.

As for development, every item has an indicator of its development status. I will reuse those indicators in later updates as well to show the evolution of the project. Here they all are:

• Planned for later: this won't be available until after release. But, it is something I hope to do.
• Development has not yet started: this is planned, but work on the feature has not yet started.
• Development has started: this feature has its framework set up and is being worked on.
• Development underway: this feature is starting to become reality and has minor functionality ready to implement.
• Development nearing completion: most of this feature is implemented, but it is not yet ready for release.
• Rough version complete: this feature is fully implemented, but may be overhauled - it's ready for an alpha release, but should be polished more.
• Fully complete: this feature is fully implemented and polished!

If you find anything you want to give your opinion on, the comments are here for you. Anything here is still up for debate! Thank you for taking the time to read through them. Without further ado, forty-four facts about TETR.IO, coming your way!

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1. Unlimited players

In TETR.IO, you'll be able to play with as many players as you please! Not 99, not 6, but the exact size you want! (I've been able to get stable 60FPS with 500 test players, but don't know how much the server and client can take in real situations yet. There's no hard limits though!)

2. Elimination Mode

The standard multiplayer mode will be ELIMINATION! Be the last man standing by knocking out all other players!

3. Multiplayer Lobbies

Normal multiplayer will take place in lobbies of any size! A registered player makes a public or private room, and gives others a short link to join the fun! Public lobbies can be easily joined from the room listing!

4. Quick Play

Don't want to mess about with rooms and just get to playing? QUICK PLAY will throw you in a big room with all sorts of players of all sorts of skill levels! (Later, this may be expanded so players can find others of their skill more easily.)

5. Custom Multiplayer Rules

Play by your rules! Hold or no Hold? Super-fast or beginner-friendly? You define the rules of a multiplayer lobby!

6. Multiple Rounds

Play as many rounds per game as you want by changing from KNOCKOUT (first to 1) to another score target!

7. Spiced up Garbage

TETR.IO changes the Garbage table. It weakens boring single-line combos like the Four-wide and instead adds a smart multiplier onto the table! Finish off a combo with a powerful move and destroy your opponent!

8. Smart anti-cheat

TETR.IO's codebase is shared perfectly between client and server, so the server can check precisely what a potential cheater may be doing - one discrepancy and you're out!

9. Chat with players

Talk with other players before starting a game, or bathe in salt after a heated match with optional chat! (May be changed. By default, a swear word filter will be applied.)

10. Planned for later: Competitive matchmaking

When we're ready for it and have a strong userbase, we hope to be able to test your true skill in a one-on-one environment! Play as many duels as you can imagine with people of your skill, and rank up as you gain skill!

11. Planned for later: Tournament mode

When we're ready for it, we can create a tournament mode where you can play a big array of games together with your friends to find your true CHAMPION!

12. Planned for later: Race mode

Aside from ELIMINATION mode, we hope to also add a RACE mode where you can see who can reach a certain target faster!

13. Planned for later: Spectate in-progress matches

When our code is ready for it, we hope to allow you to spectate games that are already in progress!

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14. 40L mode

Clear forty lines as fast as you can imagine to reach the leaderboards! A true test of your speed an insight!

15. BLITZ mode

Rack up as many points as you can within TWO MINUTES! Do cool tricks, get All Clears and bring your best game to reach higher levels and gain more points!

16. TETRA CHANNEL

See how you stack up against the world in TETRA CHANNEL, the hub for records, leaderboards and all sorts of other content!

17. Personal Best

TETRA CHANNEL will store your best plays and allow you to see how you fare!

18. Global records

But, TETRA CHANNEL will also store the world's best records! Play well, and you'll be rewarded a spot on the TETRA CHANNEL LEADERBOARD!

19. Replays saved and can be watched

All records on TETRA CHANNEL are verifiable and have full replays available! See where you can improve, and see how others achieve their scores!

20. Custom game options

Choose your own game by adding custom game options! Ever wanted to play a 1000-line game at maximum gravity? You can now!

21. Profile w/ personal best displayed

Rep your skill right on your profile! Your personal bests and, if applicable, global rankings will be displayed on your profile!

22. Simple accounts system w/o hassle

Joining TETR.IO is easy - just send in a username, password and optional email, and you're ready to enter the game! (If you don't specify an email, we can't reset your password!) Want to join a friend's room or just play for fun? A username is all you need for a temporary anonymous account!

23. Planned for later: TETRA CHANNEL website

When it's ready, we hope to unveil a website where you can quickly see detailed stats on players, scores and the such, far more detailed than the in-game views!

24. Planned for later: MARATHON

After some testing, we should be able to get a MARATHON mode up, where you get to 150 lines with as many points as possible! (Or perhaps, something a bit more different?)

25. Planned for later: EXP

Progress as you play with a simple experience system!

26. Planned for later: Maps

When we're ready, create and play on MAPS! Create a map, and try to clear it as fast as you can!

27. Planned for later: FEVER mode

Those MAPS can also be used to create a FEVER MODE! Clear as many simple maps as fast as you can, and gain extra points if you can get a higher combo than the map intended!

28. Planned for later: TUTORIAL mode

We hope to get this in pretty fast for those not used to modern stackers - the TUTORIAL MODE will breeze you through the game, from learning the controls to more intricate pro moves, to mastering the rules of online play!

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29. Powerful JavaScript engine

TETR.IO runs on the fastest, most advanced JavaScript stacker engine! It's custom made for the job, and shared between server and client for super-fast anti-cheat!

30. Runs in all modern browsers

TETR.IO is engineered to run in all modern browsers! Currently tested browsers are Firefox 56 and up, and Chrome 67 and up! I will make sure to test other browsers and see how much support I can create! The graphics can be turned down so the game runs on as many devices as possible!

31. Rebindable keyboard controls

By default, TETR.IO supports the standard arrow key controls, and a more optimized WASD control set. But, if you like neither of them, you can set up your own controls!

32. GPU-accelerated with Pixi.JS

TETR.IO looks splendid with GPU-accelerated graphics in the browsers that support it, using the WebGL library Pixi.JS!

33. SRS rotation

TETR.IO will use the time-tested Super Rotation System to make many pro moves possible! There's a lot of reading material and tutorials on how it works already, and the pros already know it, so it's the best choice for the deal!

34. Zero Delay

TETR.IO will let you unlock your true potential. No line clear delay, "are" spawn delays, or any other delays. Play as fast as you can for as high of a skill ceiling as you can imagine!

35. Adjustable DAS, ARR speeds

Get comfortable and tune the controls exactly to what feels right to you. If you're precise enough, turn up ARR and DAS to move left to right faster!

36. T-Spin, B2B and All Clear recognition

As expected of a modern stacker, TETR.IO will recognize and reward common skill moves like T-Spins, Back-To-Back clears and All Clears for extra points or garbage.

37. Guideline Formula

It takes little effort to learn TETR.IO if you know another stacker. TETR.IO mostly follows the Guideline formula, with minor changes. Experienced players will feel right at home, while new players will have tons of tutorials already created by the awesome stacker community!

38. Higher piece spawn location

One of the exceptions is that TETR.IO spawns tetrominoes up to 2 tiles higher than a Guideline game. This to make it harder to get stuck in the way the SRS rotation system works.

39. Dazzling graphics

By utilizing your GPU and modern JavaScript, TETR.IO can bring amazing graphics to your retinas - from a swaying board, to particle effects, to an ambient background. Of course, if you or your computer don't like the effects, you can easily turn them off!

40. Custom wallpapers

Make TETR.IO yours by adding a custom wallpaper and many other forms of customization!

41. Music by Hurt Record

TETR.IO will feature awesome music created by the artists at HURT RECORD!

42. Planned for later: Controller support

No matter what your preferred way to play is, we hope to be able to support it! While the alpha will start out with only keyboard support, we hope to add XInput controller support (and perhaps even Switch controller support depending on browser support) soon after!

43. Planned for later: Standalone client

Since TETR.IO is all JavaScript, it should be possible to use as a desktop application as well! When I've got the time, I will definitely see what can be done in this regard, to make a nice standalone client work (and perhaps integrate with other platforms).

44. Planned for later: Mobile support

Later on, I'd like to also add touchscreen controls for mobile support. That way, you can even play TETR.IO on the go!

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Thank you very much for reading the forty-four facts I laid out. If there's anything you want to give your opinion on, please do so in the comments! I look forward to hearing your opinions! If you know someone else who might be interested, be sure to let them know!

Please look forward to TETR.IO!