With our release date at the corner, we're putting our last few finishing touches on Quatris. We have all new art resources, with several "themes" to fit different gameplay. Compare the most recent image with our first, yellow and green, scheme.
Quite a difference.
Secondly, we have expanded greatly on the gameplay. There still is the "normal" mode, more comparable with the classical Tetris rules: points for clearing rows, and game over when the maximum height is exceed. There's also a new "stress" mode, though. The rules changes are few but game-changing. Points are gained whenever the down button (accelerated falling) is held. Thus, there is a significant point incentive to move quickly. Additionally, points constantly tick down, at a rate slowly creeping up as you play. Should your score drop to zero, (or of course, maximum height be exceeded), you will lose.
Stress mode is in essence the same rules, but creates a much more time-sensitive environment for the player. The demand to predict the potentially complicated patterns that Quatris creates is suddenly blended with the demand to do so quickly.
For the final main improvement, different difficulties have now been added. Since a row may now contain two colors, the potential conditions for clearing the row can be varied. On Easy, a row is completely cleared of both colors as soon as one color fills the entire row. On Medium, only the color filling the row is cleared. For instance, a row with 8 blues and 3 oranges would be cleared to leave only 3 oranges. On hard mode, the row must be completely filled with both colors before it is cleared. This option too allows for greater flexibility to play styles and skill levels.
A demo is available for download, including the new art, but the difficulties and modes are not yet enabled.
