Gizmodo: tris

Free iPhone Tetris Getting Pulled from App Store

matt buchanan — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Tris, the free version of Tetris for the iPhone that we loved ('cause it was free!) is being pulled from the App Store. Apparently, The Tetris Company called up Apple and it no likey. Its creator, Noah Witherspoon, says that while he thinks The Tetris Company's copyright claim is thin—and would be thinner still if he called his game "Trys"—he doesn't really have the resources to fight it in court, so he's removing it from the store on Wednesday. Download it while you can, folks! Another depressing reminder why we need the iPhone app black market. [Two Finger Play - Sorry Noah!]

iPhone Apps We Love: Tris - Free iPhone Tetris

Mark Wilson — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:20:00 EDT

EA's version of Tetris was fine. There was nothing hugely wrong with it, except that $10 price. And since we've all paid for Tetris before on one platform or another, we'll gladly settle for the iPhone's free version of Tetris called Tris. Move pieces by sliding your finger back and forth and rotate them by tapping anywhere on the screen. The controls are quite responsive and, yes, the entire design feels like Tetris.

Some updates we'd like to see in a 1.1 version include line completion animation and the ability to rotate pieces before they are wholly on screen (whether or not this is an official break of Tetris rules, tapping just doesn't do the job when you are stacked high on the board). Still, very, very solid showing. Here's a clip of the game in motion that, as the pre-pubescent voice will reveal, we did not record:Quick! Everyone download it before EA and Russia team up to sue the developer! [Tris]

Lightning Review: iPhone Tetris App

John Herrman — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:05:13 EDT

The App: Tetris with excellent touch implementation. In a matter of seconds anyone will be comfortably rotating, placing and flicking blocks around the screen, and the block placement preview is a welcome addition.

The Price: $9.99

The Verdict: Tetris isn't exactly the most ambitious project for a company like EA Games. That's probably why the company's iPhone port is just, well, overdone. A good Tetris implementation - one that would have been wildly successful on its own - wasn't enough for EA, who've loaded this port up with so much crap that it sometimes doesn't even run. EA obviously wanted to use a bit of the iPhone's rendering capabilities, but the graphics are gaudy to the point of distraction. Starting or resuming a basic game takes quite a while because of the layers of menus and loading screens, and the secondary gameplay modes and Magic Mode tools will be ignored by most. On our 3G iPhone, the app would often freeze at startup, a problem that has been reported elsewhere among iPhone and iPod owners. An update is forthcoming that should address stability issues as well as introduce a feature that allows you to draw your upcoming shape directly.

These inspired features, though, are sullied by the showy, buggy execution. Anyone looking for a simple, clean port like Tris (from the jailbreak days. See you soon, Tris...) should probably pass on this $9.99 monster as you can expect a decent competitor to pop up at a lower price point, if not for free. Also, there are already web apps that offer a traditional (though gestureless) Tetris experience in your browser that don't have a 40 second startup time. One more sticky point: if you exit out of the game to check email or take a call and return, it will save your game state. But to start playing again you have to sit through 10 seconds of the intro movie. Freaking annoying and a waste of battery.

[iPhone App Marathon Review]