Basics
First, this is Tetris. That much probably doesn’t need to be explained. However, in case you somehow don’t know what Tetris is, it’s a puzzle game about moving and rotating Tetrominoes in order to fill full lines on the playfield to earn points and clear them. If your stack gets too high, you lose.
There are a few things that TGM does that differs from other Tetris games that need special attention. The below images are (poorly-drawn) diagrams of the input mappings of the console ports and a screenshot from the game with the important bits labelled.
- (1) Grade
- A system for determining your skill unique to this series. In this game, it’s entirely based on score (notice the “next rank at X points” text).
- (2) Level
- The levelling system is weird. How it works is that it increases by 1 when a piece spawns in or for every line in a Line Clear (when you fill rows and they disappear). As Level increases, so does the speed (mostly, but we’ll get to the exceptions in the next section), however, once the 99th level of a 100-level section is reached, piece spawns no longer increase the level, and the only way to progress further is by clearing at least one line.
- (3) Timer
- Yes, your attempt is being timed. You might be pressured to rush, but there’s no need. Unless you’re able to get the highest rank, the timer literally has no use other than to separate ties on the leaderboards (lower times are higher on the board).
Those are the most important of the new things you’ll see in the game right now. You might encounter other things as you play; however, you’re officially prepared! If you play long enough and get really good, maybe you’ll even beat the game.