1y ago

Tetris on termux on Android phone

I never imagined I'd like playing Tetris on the command line, on a terminal on my phone (termux), but here I am!

I couldn't find any Tetris app on fdroid, and just checked if pkgs had one. Lo and behold! It asked me to run pkgs install vitetris, and when I did, the tetris command was there to launch the game.

It's a two step process, as opposed to just launching an app, but it is very lightweight, no tracking, and FOSS.

For anyone with termux already installed and feeling a bit nostalgic, might be worth trying it out.

39 comments

It's wild that there aren't any FOSS Tetris games for Android that have been updated this decade.
- that's a good thing. Tetris is tetris.You code in all the rules, and you're done. any updates made in the last decade would be the types that "improve the user experience" such as allowing you to pay real money to double your chances of getting the l tetromino, a subscription which would remove the unskippable ads you get after every game, and a microtransaction that allows you to pay to play more than one game per day
  
  Sometimes an app needs to be updated to work properly with the latest operating system. I wouldn't say it's great to have no updates for a decade.
  
  Except tetris is not as stable as you might think
  The current ruleset uses vastly different rotation systems than the games in the early days, or Akira's TGM series.
  Moreover, you can add new features without it being pay 2 win (or even paid), like tetr.io does: ranked matches, leaderboards, tournaments, social interaction, etc... They can also make new rules, like how they recently removed passthrough in online matches.
- Games really don't need to be updated often.

You did not ask for an alternative but just for visibility because its awesome: a great tetris clone is Techmino. It is on Github and I am getting it via Obtainium.

And for anyone who hates themselves, it looks like bastet is also available!
- Gotta try this for fifteen minutes then ditch it forever. Never heard of it before, but as they say: curiosity killed the cat!
  
  Yep... definitely crazy. Tried easy, was thinking I seemed to be pretty smart up to 4 lines. Then it just kept screwing me with two alternating pieces and the holes started. It loves giving you angles that go the wrong way around given your current block layout 😅

Wow, I didn't know you could run a terminal on Android, I'll check it out, thank you
- Termux is so useful and fun.
  
  out of curiosity, what do you use it for? I've never been able to find a useful function of it beyond a niche party trick
  
  Can also get a NixOS version of termux
- If you really want your mind blown check out UserLAnd
  
  I've been using Andronix, how does this compare?
  
  There's also AnLinux (available in F-Droid)
  It utilizes termux to run Linux distros on Android without root access.

also try running the command ssh playnetris.com, it's a server that allows you to play tetris by yourself or online with strangers

ty, I had fun for 10m 👍

I am the man who arranges the blocks.

Nethack is also available on termux. I like to play on my Chromebook when at school.
- Nice! I did the same thing until my school figured out how to block Google Play
  
  Yeah the restrictions on Chromebooks are really annoying. Termux is the only way I can actually program on my chromebook and if they remove that I guess it's time to buy a Thinkpad.
  
  You can download and run an apk of Termux (this is v118), or even of F-Droid so you can install Termux and keep it up to date.

You can also play Tetris via Emacs.
https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TetrisMode
Starting with OS X, every Mac has shipped with Tetris out of the box 🙂.

That's cool but looks like an absolute disaster to play with a smartphone keyboard. Or even just the buttons they give.

Does it support hjkl?

Very cool

So cool, I didn't even know it was possible. If you or someone else want to try a tetris app on F-Droid I recommend Blockinger
- I do not. The UX is mediocre and while it says it uses the 7-bag system, it doesn't do that, at all.

This is IMO the best FOSS Tetris for Android
- And of course it's Chinese!
  Love it!

Have a look at netris also, open source multiplayer tetris that you can play by sshing into playnetris.com (or your own self hosted server
On termux you have to rebind the rotate buttons as they don't have a default value but on a pc they do

39 comments