Debian Package of the Day (static archived copy)

Entry submitted by Jan Hülsbergen. DPOTD needs your help, please contribute !

Gtetrinet is a small multiplayer clone of the classic puzzle-game Tetris implementing the tetrinet protocol. It features some original ideas about how multiplayer-Tetris can be handled and it has an active user community.

Multiplayer enhancements

The most unique thing about gtetrinet is the usage of ‘extras’ or ’special blocks’. Every time a player eliminates a line of his own field, one of the remaining blocks turns into an extra. When a line containing one or more extras is eliminated, those extras go to the inventory of the player, from where he/she can use them to harm other players or to aid himself. There are numerous extras which do everything from just eliminating or adding a single line to switching playing fields with an opponent of choice.

Also, the servers offer different ‘channels’, which have slightly different game-modes. For example, the tetrinet.de server has a #maps channel, in which the players do not start with an empty field but with some blocks/extras already there. Also, there is a #pure channel, in which the player can play a more classical multiplayer Tetris, without any extras at all.

User community

You don’t have to search for others to play against you, you can just connect to one of the public servers, for example tetrinet.org or tetrinet.de, which - as far as I can tell - has active players at any given time of day. And I have checked this for years now. ;-)

Servers

I already mentioned the public available tetrinet servers but there are more. You can also run your own server, using for example the package tetrinetx, which provides a nice tetrinet server implementation. There is also a package tetrinet-server, but it’s more primitive.

Also, there is a tetrinet-client package, which features a textmode client for the game.

Screenschots (click to get a larger image)

The Partyline

Ingame