Tetrisphere
Fun Glitch
By: David and Marty Green FROM Nintendojo
Aligning geometrical pieces has never been more fun than in Tetrisphere. But is it mathematically correct?
David and Marty Green, hobby mathematicians and avid Tetrisphere players found out that the game is based on a mathematical impossibility, and set out to enlighten us that what you've been rotating on screen, ain't what it seems.
The first problem: Creating a sphere out of square blocks is impossible. But let's assume that the Tetrisphere ball is a true sphere: Imagine a vertical Tetris piece at the center of the screen. If you were to move this piece up to the north pole of the globe then down to the left until it was on the left part of the equator then slide it to the right back to your original starting point -- it would now be a horizontal Tetris piece.
Try making a map of the Tetrishphere ball and carve a dividing line along the equator. When mapping the sphere you will soon find that instead of having half of the sphere, you now have the whole thing mapped out. The surface of the sphere actually seems to double its would-be realistic surface.
After examining the map more closely, the Greens uncovered that the game hundreds of thousands of gamers are playing as Tetrisphere, should more aptly be called Tetrisdoughnut. Yes, the sphere is really a doughnut.
This should explain everything: The enlarged surface area, the fact that none of the lines converge, the way the game's developer mapped the entire sphere after carving a line around the center, and why the pieces do not rotate properly. The "sphere" is an illusion. It's not a rare occurence that video games "bend" reality, but the way the eye and mind gets tricked in Tetrisphere is quite impressive. Nevertheless, a fun game -- but remember that you're actually having a ball with a doughnut.
Type in the word VORTEX and press and hold the reset button on the machine. After a couple of seconds, an animation sequence with all the cool game robots will show them being sucked into a vortex. This sequence will loop until the reset button is released.
The following codes are all entered at the New Name screen. If one of the codes requires a special character entry, just press L, Right C and Bottom C at the same time to toggle between the numbers and the special characters.
Enter the name CREDITS to view the credits. Who knows, maybe you'll see someone you know in there?
Enter the name LINES to play a hidden game of "Lines." In "Lines," you have to remove a big enough area from the core of the ball for your friend to escape. You can remove pieces by lining up three in a horizontal or vertical line.
Enter the name G(alien head)MEBOY to access some hidden tunes in the game. To access the tunes, go to the "Audio" screen either in the Options or when you Pause the game. You'll find nine new tunes; however, you'll notice they are very "8-bit-ish" in nature.
Enter the name (saturn)(spaceship)(rocket)(heart)(skull) to receive access to all levels in all game modes.
