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- "PLAYFIELD: This is where the action is."
—Manual for Tetris for NES
The playfield is the grid into which tetrominoes fall, also called the "well" (common in older games) or the "matrix" (especially in more recent Tetris brand games). The playfield is surrounded by a frame called the tetrion, which controls the overall behavior of tetrominoes.
The vast majority of tetromino based game use a playfield 10 cells wide and between 16 and 24 cells tall. Notable exceptions are the following:
- Abandoned Bricks: 9 w
- Gnometris (now known as Quadrapassal due to TTC having a de facto trademark on the "-tris" suffix): 11 w until mid-2007; then 14 w (
{{qprow}}) - Tetrinet: 12 w (
{{tnetrow}}) - Tetris Jr.: 8 w
- Tetris Wristwatch: 6 w
- Tetripz: 11 w
- TAP Doubles Mode: 14 w
- Tetris Party Doubles: 20 w
- Tetris Brick: 6 w[1]
The game has a 6×9 board, and the pieces spawn overlapping the ceiling, but movement and rotation behave with a solid ceiling. In fact, locking in the starting position (or equivalently, partial lock out) is the top out condition. It is impossible to rotate on spawn for I due to the down kicks only going 1 space.
It uses SRS basic rotations (as does TOD), but uses the following kicks (assuming x increases to the right and y increases upwards):
- rotate left: {{0,0,},{0,-1,},{1,0,},{1,-1,},{-1,0,},{-1,-1,},{0,1,},{1,1,},{-1,1,},}
- rotate right: {{0,0,},{0,-1,},{-1,0,},{-1,-1,},{1,0,},{1,-1,},{0,1,},{-1,1,},{1,1,},}
Its scoring system gives (sinh x×2)×3 for x lines cleared, and the interest rate is initially 0 but increases by 1e-7 for each piece placed, and the score increases by itself times the interest rate every frame, causing the score to increase exponentionally.
Columns are conventionally numbered from left to right, and rows from bottom to top.
Vanish zone[]
Placing blocks in the vanish zone and then revealing them by clearing lines.
The Tetris Guideline specifies a playfield 10 blocks wide by 40 blocks tall, where the tetrominoes are started in rows 21 and 22. Most games hide rows 21 and up, but some games show the bottom of row 21.
Tetris Worlds and Lockjaw are known to use a 24-row playfield, but that was in 2002. This must have changed to 40 between 2002 and 2009.
Tetrominoes may land and lock partially within the "vanish zone"; they reappear once a line is cleared below them.