New Tetris Freeware clone

[Mas]

I saw this today at www.pdarcade.com

its from www.Aylin.biz called Free Blocks.

http://media.pdarcade.com/news/palmos/a-f/freeblocks/freeblocks-ani.gif










Not a bad clone I must say and for Freeware it looks a lil bit better than "Blocks". Almost like the original Tetris for the GameBoy.

The only confusing I found was that when I unzipped the File you get from the site, you have to figure out which one of the files called "FreeBlocksSkin.pdb" fits your system (you can put the skin to your MS which is a plus too)

Anyone tried it yet? Ive deleted my "Blocks" game in favor of this new one..not bad Aylin!!

[spradlinb]

Pretty cool... especially if anyone can find a way to create new skins for it!

I'm not sure what folders on the MS work with the game, but for those trying it out, I found that any skins stored in \Palm\Launcer\ are recognized by the game.

Cheers.

[Unregistered]

Just rename the Skin PDB to PRC and open in constructor, then you can edit every single bitmap

[hherbzilla]

I prefer the look of the one from electronhut (www.electronhut.com) (also free).
http://www.electronhut.com/games/blocks/blocks1.gif

[IlLuSiOnS]

Gotta agree with hherbzilla..blocks has a betta look :P

[Spiral]

I dont' like that blocks tried to compromise with having a button that makes it go down slowly and an instant-down button by having it go instantly down and not stick, it's quite a change from the regular, andi don't really like it

[spradlinb]

Originally posted by IlLuSiOnS
Gotta agree with hherbzilla..blocks has a betta look :P

That's the beauty of a skinnable version of Tetris though... I looked through the bitmap image resources, and I could make a skin for Free Blocks that looked almost exactly like Blocks... once someone creates an easy to use skinmaker for it anyway. Constructor seems to be part of CodeWarrior, which means it probably isn't freeware, so it isn't for me. If anyone else knows of a way to compile a quick skin though, I'm interested in trying one out. This has definite potential, since it's hi-res compared to Block's low-res mode. I have to agree though, the existing skin isn't much to look at... I think it was just thrown together to have something usable.

Cheers.

[Eric S]

Originally posted by spradlinb
Constructor seems to be part of CodeWarrior, which means it probably isn't freeware, so it isn't for me.

I'm pretty sure you can download Constructor from Palmsource. You might want to do so and check the licensing agreement that comes with it.

I can think of a few other alternative tools to do this work with, but nothing that would be easy for non-programmers.

[spradlinb]

Originally posted by Eric S


I'm pretty sure you can download Constructor from Palmsource. You might want to do so and check the licensing agreement that comes with it.

I can think of a few other alternative tools to do this work with, but nothing that would be easy for non-programmers.

Yeah, you can download Constructor from there, but it requires CodeWarrior to use... the Palmsource developer's website provides a link to the CodeWarrior homepage, but doesn't provide it for free. You still have to pay well over $100 for it. They have a demo version, but it limits you to compiling programs no larger than 15 KB in size... pretty much useless when the Free Blocks skin is around 300 KB in size. I've emailed Festus440 about it though, and hopefully he can create a simple skinmaker for it someday. I also emailed the programmer of the game itself and asked if they have any plans to release a skinmaker, maybe I'll hear back from them soon. If not, then hopefully others will find it worth making a skin for. It's a very nice game, and looks great in hi-res mode.

Cheers.

[Eric S]

O.K., wasn't sure about that, I use PRC-Tools for my development work rather than CodeWarrior. I know tools that can do this, but nothing that's simple, or with a GUI for that matter.

[spradlinb]

Originally posted by Eric S
O.K., wasn't sure about that, I use PRC-Tools for my development work rather than CodeWarrior. I know tools that can do this, but nothing that's simple, or with a GUI for that matter.

Well, Festus440 suggested that I test out the demo version of CodeWarrior to see if it had the file size limit using Constructor, and I found out that it doesn't... aparently the file size limit is just with using CodeWarrior directly, but Constructor seems to operate with any file size. So, I've managed to bodge together a simple test skin to make sure it was possible to do. I've run into some snags though, so it's very time-consuming to make a skin with this method. Festus440 said he might be able to put together a very simple compiler for me to try though, so hopefully I will have more luck with it.

In the end, I was able to use Constructor to make a new skin, that then loaded and worked fine with the Free Blocks program... however, once I made the new skin I wasn't able to then reopen it and make more changes to the same file without Constructor encountering errors. So, I'm going to wait for a simpler compiler from Festus440, or find out if I'm patient enough to wrestle with Constructor again later in the week. Thanks for everyone's suggestions and help so far!

Cheers.

[spradlinb]

I managed to create a very simple "upgrade" to the low-res Blocks look and design as a FreeBlocks skin... I didn't skin everything, so all of the extra menus are still the original design, but you can see the changes in the image below. More to come, once I have a better way to compile these skins. You can download the skin to use yourself (only 320x320 screen size with this file) from http://www.LaunchPlug.com/FreeBlocksSkin2.zip

Cheers.

http://www.LaunchPlug.com/pictures/FreeBlocks2.gif

[spradlinb]

Here's the "official" thread for Free Blocks skins:

http://www.cliesource.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3411

Cheers.