Tetris/Scoring

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Most games award points to the player for completing various tasks. The earliest games awarded points only for dropping Tetrominos, and some even gave a penalty for leaving piece preview turned on.

After Tetris for Game Boy, most games adopted a scoring system designed to reward difficult clears by giving points for more lines cleared at once. Some systems also encourage starting at higher difficulty.

Original Nintendo scoring system[edit]

This score was used in Nintendo's versions of Tetris for NES, for Game Boy, and for Super NES.

Level Points for
1 line
Points for
2 lines
Points for
3 lines
Points for
4 lines
0 40 100 300 1200
1 80 200 600 2400
2 120 300 900 3600
...
9 400 1000 3000 12000
n 40 * (n + 1) 100 * (n + 1) 300 * (n + 1) 1200 * (n + 1)

For each piece, the game also awards the number of points equal to the number of grid spaces that the player has continuously soft dropped the piece. Unlike the points for lines, this does not increase per level.

Other Tetris variants[edit]

The New Tetris
The New Tetris awards "lines": one for each line cleared, one extra line for clearing four lines with one I tetromino, and several lines for clearing parts of a 4x4 square. This does not increase as the game gets faster. Soft and firm drops do not give points; instead, they allow the player to place more tetrominoes (and clear more lines) in the three minute game.
Tetris Worlds
Each mode of Tetris Worlds has its own scoring system. As in The New Tetris, the unit of score in each mode is "lines"; 2-, 3-, and 4-line clears grant additional points in some modes.
Tetris Deluxe
Tetris Deluxe scoring system is similar to Tetris Worlds.
Tetris DS
Each mode of Tetris DS has its own scoring system. Most notably, the system used in Standard mode represents a fusion of the 1, 3, 5, 8 pattern used in several modes of Tetris Worlds with the section multiplier of the NES and Game Boy system.

Guideline Scoring[edit]

Most games released after Tetris DS share large part of scoring system.

Action Points
Single 100 x level
Double 300 x level
Triple 500 x level
Tetris 800 x level; difficult
T-Spin no lines (kick) 100 x level (3-corner T)
0 (3-corner T no kick)
T-Spin no lines (no kick) or Mini T-spin Double 400 x level
T-Spin Single (kick) 200 x level; difficult (3-corner T)
100 x level, counted as Single (3-corner T no kick)
T-Spin Single (no kick) 800 x level; difficult
T-Spin Double 1,200 x level (first of three)
T-Spin Triple 1,600 x level
Back to Back Point Value multiplied by 1.5 multiplied by the level
Back to Back Mini T-Spin Single 300
Back to Back Mini T-Spin Double 600
Back to Back Tetris® 1,200 (II of III)
Back to Back T-Spin Single 1,200 (3rd of three)
Back to Back T-Spin Double 1,800
Back to Back T-Spin Triple 2,400 (most you can get out of a Line Clear)
Combo Line Clear plus 50 multiplied by the Combo x level (Only available in basically half games including Tetris Zone)
Soft drop 1 point per available cell
Hard drop 2 points per available cell