2009 News Archive

Lowering the flag

Posted on May 12, 2009

On Wednesday the 6th, I received a notice that YouTube had taken down "THIS FAN GAME VIDEO WILL BE FLAGGED" on a copyright infringement claim by Arika. The same day, I sent YouTube a counter-notice, which I cc'd to tetrisconcept.com. Today I got a reply from YouTube's copyright agent, and it should be back up by the end of May.

Once the video comes back, I may continue development of Tetramino for NES, but under a new name to clarify who made it. I want to remind readers that any similarity between it and Tetris is a consequence of common methods of operation, which are excluded from U.S. copyright (17 USC 102(b)).

Flagged.

Posted on May 6, 2009

Arika, publisher of Tetris the Grand Master, is spraying DMCA takedown notices for videos of falling block games across YouTube again. But this time, Arika got YouTube to take down a video of LOCKJAW, which isn't a direct imitation of any Arika product, and even a video criticizing Arika's practices, which should be textbook fair use. So to be safe, after today's bug-fix release of Tetramino 0.40 for NES, I've put development of Tetramino, TOD, and LOCKJAW on hiatus until the situation becomes clearer.

More like pona ala

Posted on April 24, 2009

My dream last night became a nightmare when I ended up trying to express the idea of "free software" in Toki Pona. I could get the "free" part (roughly "any person can give or change this"), but Toki Pona, a very Eloi-ish language, doesn't fit well for describing the Morlock concept of "software".

Tetramino 0.38 is in color now.

Down with the sickness

Posted on April 12, 2009

I hope everyone had a happy Resurrection Sunday today.

I'm not Catholic, but I did make a bet with the Lord that I could lose eight pounds (3.6 kg) between Ash Wednesday (February 25, 2009, the first day of Lent) and Good Friday (April 10, 2009) by limiting myself to 1500 calories (6300 kJ) of food per day. The first two weeks went fine, but then I lost the willpower to diet. I resumed my old eating habits and gained some of the weight back. But two weeks later, I came down with a spell of dry coughing fits and off-and-on fevers up to 103.1 degrees F (39.5 degrees C). It all ended around Good Friday. In fact, I think the Lord might have let me get sick for a reason: I lost all the weight that I had set out to lose.

Oh, and Tetramino 0.37 is out, adding music and a combo counter.

Nightmare fuel

Posted on March 28, 2009

It's official: LOCKJAW Tetromino Game is nightmare fuel. A member of tvtropes.org described its Rhythm speed curve as

a mode in which pieces drop instantly and lock to the beat of an eerie rendition of Korobeiniki (the Game Boy Tetris A-Type theme). The music gradually increases in tempo, and at about 3 minutes and 14 seconds (if you can survive for that long), the music is suddenly interrupted by a voice saying, "You're better than I am, you don't really need this music anyway," and then the music suddenly turns into a creepier, dying monotone. If you haven't died yet at this point from speeds reminiscent of Tetris TGM2's Death mode, you sure will now.

Making ads more relevant

Posted on March 13, 2009

We've been using Google ads for a couple years now, and they're about to get better. In April, Google will introduce new ways to determine what ads you'll find most interesting. The privacy policy has the details. And thanks to whoever reported the problem with the contact page: it works now.

In other news: Tetramino is getting polished, albeit slowly because I'm at somewhat of a roadblock with the music. I have 5 KiB out of a 16 KiB ROM to fill with a few minutes of music. If you don't already know, The Tetris Company owns a U.S. sound trademark on the song "Korobeiniki" for use in video games, so I can't use that in something that I plan to publish through RetroZone.

Real artists ship.

Posted on February 7, 2009

I'm trying to get Tetramino to a "finished" state. This will require a lot of spit and polish.