Tetris Friends is a website dedicated to fans of the classic game of Tetris. There are 11 different game modes to challenge your skills. Six of the game modes are single player, and five of them are multiplayer.
Update: Unfortunately, the Tetrisfriends website has been recently shut down.
Every Tetris Friends account has stats tracking that keeps track of all your high scores. These stats are used to tell you where you stand within the entire community.
The name Tetris Friends does exactly what you would think it means. You can play the multiplayer modes with your friends. These game modes feature live gameplay between your friends in a very competitive manner. Continue reading to learn how to play with friends on Tetris Friends.
You also have an account-wide ranking system that awards you points for playing in multiplayer games. There is a clear way to tell players apart by their skill level and time spent on Tetris Friends.
To make things even more interesting, you are awarded “Tokens” for nearly every interaction.
Single Player Game Modes
Many of the single player game modes are more like training modules. They are challenges that let you test your abilities as a Tetris player. Some of these games aren’t necessarily tough. They are really more of a way to see how quickly you can achieve certain goals.
Marathon
This is a fairly simple mode of Tetris. There isn’t really any big difference from a regular game. The idea is to see if you can clear 15 levels without losing.
Every level requires you to clear a set amount of lines. It starts pretty easy. You only need to clear a few lines to get to the next level. After that, it starts to require a lot more to get to the next level. In typical Tetris fashion, the falling speed of Tetris blocks begins to increase as your level increases.
The amount of lines you need to clear is not exactly line by line. You are rewarded with higher line clears for removing more lines at a time.
More lines cleared in one turn rewards you with higher reductions:
- Single: 1 point.
- Double: 3 points.
- Triple: 5 points.
- Tetris(quadruple): 8 points.
- Back to back Tetris: 12 points.
Advanced points reduction(T-Spin line clears):
- Single: 8 points.
- Double: 12 points.
- Triple: 16 points.
- Back to back Single: 12 points.
- Back to back double: 18 points.
- Back to back triple: 24 points.
Sprint
Here is a mode that isn’t about keep your game going. Instead, you are trying to place as many blocks down as fast as you can. You are given a meter with 40 lines to count down from.
There isn’t really any pressure to last a really long time in this mode. 40 lines doesn’t really take a long time to get rid of. The average player can complete this mode in under 3 minutes. If you want to rank up in competitive modes, this is a great way to train your speed up.
Ultra
If you are a high score chaser, then this mode may be for you. This mode is all about how quickly you can score points. You are given a two-minute window to score as many points as you can. It will also keep track of how many lines you’ve cleared.
The average player can expect to score about 6000 points. When trying to beat your old high score, it may be a good idea to jump around to different game modes to fine tune your all-around abilities. It is also a good idea to take breaks when chasing high scores. You perform better when you have fresh eyes.
Tetris 1989
The classic game of Tetris. This mode doesn’t give you anything in terms of shiny and new features. This game mode gives you the option to choose what level you want to start on, though. This is great for people who want to jump right into a lightning fast game, or take it easy with a slow game.
Since you can choose the difficulty of this game, you may see a huge difference in people’s scores. If you are looking to go for the high score, it is recommended that you start at level 1 and work your way up. This way you can farm up some easy points on your way up to the higher levels. Unless you are so good that you can play at the highest level until the end of time, then you can ignore that suggestion.
Tetris 1989 does not allow you to hold blocks for later, and you won’t be able to do any hard drops either.
Survival
Another pretty standard mode. Although it tells you to survive 20 levels, it seemingly starts out to feel like any other game mode. You build up your lines and score points as you go. Until you start to get into the higher levels, it won’t really feel like you’re trying to survive.
By the time you get to the harder stages, you should be able to reach at least 30,000 points. When the tiles start to fall faster you will start to feel the “sruvival” aspect kick in. When the blocks move really fast, it is guaranteed that you will make lots of mistakes. This mode is good for training your abilities to stay alive in multiplayer modes. There are multiplayer items that can mess with your lines in your game. This is a good way to learn to fix these mistakes on the fly.
N-Blox
An incredibly old school version of Tetris. The N-Blox game plays almost exactly like a game of tetris. One of the main differences between N-blox and Tetris is that it has it’s own unique pause screen. There are also a few ways that this game mode handles timings for delayed auto shift(how long you need to hold down a key to move a piece across the screen) and auto repeat rate(how quick the pieces move from right to left). This mode is not as popular because it’s missing the best quality of life features that the Tetris modes have. You won’t have access to the hold feature.
Clear as many lines as you can and get a score the best score you can get. This game mode comes with the classic colors for the blocks and just like the old N-Blox game.
Multiplayer Game Modes
The modes where you face off against other players simulate a live game versus another player. The fact is, every player that you face in these game modes is a pre-recorded performance. Although you are still technically playing against another person, they aren’t actually playing at the same time.
If you want to play a real live multiplayer experience, you should jump into Arena Mode. This mode is live only and requires enough players to be in the game lobby in order to begin.
Battle 2P
Some standard rules come into play for every match against another player. You are awarded with an advantage when you follow these rules. The advantage you gain is usually in the form of disrupting the other player’s progress.
- Clear 4 lines at once to perform a Tetris. This will send a total of 4 lines to the opponent.
- Clear 2 lines or more to send garbage lines to your opponent.
- You can force your opponent to top out by continuously sending garbage lines, resulting in a K.O.
- Bonus lines are rewarded for performing combos by clearing lines consecutively.
Arena
Are you having trouble loading Arena mode? You’re not the only only. Skip to this section to see why arena mode won’t load.
Arena Mode is very similar to the battle modes. You are tasked with building as many combos with stacked lines as possible. You need to build very quickly because you have other players who are doing the same!
This is the only multiplayer game on Tetris Friends where you are playing against other’s in a live game. All other multiplayer game modes are versus replays of previously played tetris games.
The one big difference with this battle mode is that you are pinned against your friends. You will be able to create a lobby and invite your friends to play with you.
Arena mode doesn’t require any friends on your friends list to play. You can play with complete strangers the entire time.
Tetris Friends has a shop that allows you to buy items that are made for arena mode. These are items that will greatly improve your chances at winning, and are considered to be a pay-to-win strategy. If a player has more items than you, then they are almost guaranteed to win.
Battle 6P
In a very similar fashion to Battle 2P, your mission is to send as many lines as you can to the opponent. With Battle 6P, your goal is to send as many lines from your board. The lines you send out will be counted and this is what will be used to decide the winner.
- Whoever sends the most lines to an opponent will earn the KO.
- There is a target that cycles between your opponents. Whenever you send any lines over, they will be sent to whoever you are currently targeting.
- Every match lasts two minutes.
Rally 8P
Rally is a racing style game mode. There is a goal that you must work towards by clearing the way to it. In this mode, the blocks behave differently in order to keep the game fair for all the players.
- You must be the first in dropping a tetrimino on top of the goal block to win the game.
- Due to special gravity, blocks will continue to fall into empty spaces below them. Use this knowledge to clear more lines.
- Same colored blocks will stick together. Try to avoid doing this during the game.
- Clear the “?” blocks to obtain powerful items in the game. Press “V” on the keyboard to use the items during a game.
- Attack items are presented with red icons, while the help items are presented with blue icons.
- Item gauge will increase when you are stuck for too long. When the item gauge is filed, you will automatically gain useful items.
- Click on the auto item button to on/off the auto item mode. When it is on, you will use items automatically without having to press the “V” button.
- Concrete blocks and ice blocks are not affected by special gravity. You must clear these pesky blocks quickly to advance further in the game.
Sprint 5P
Just like the single player game mode of Sprint, your main objective is to clear 40 lines as fast as you can. There is nothing about this game mode that changes when you play single player or 5P.
I suppose the only difference with playing this game online is that you can see how fast other players are able to clear their lines. This is great for people who are very competitive. Tetris has been known to bring out some magnificent skill when the player knows there is a win or lose condition at stake.
Ranks
As you play more online games, you will be asked if you want to move up in rank. The option is given to you in case you don’t want to go to a higher rank. Climbing to a higher rank means you will be forced to compete against players that have a higher base skill in Tetris.
For Arena mode, your rank is made up of points that you collect from matches that you’ve played. Placing high in a game will earn you these points. You will have a meter that rises as you earn more points. Once this meter is full, you will advance to the next rank. But be careful, because the meter can also go down if you place lower in your matches.
Game Stats
Any time you play a game on Tetris Friends, it will record your progress. The stats will let you know what your best game was, as well as what your overall lifetime stats were.
Stats that are recorded:
- Game Type
- Times Played
- High Score
- Highest Level
- Date Achieved
- Current Rank
- Wins/Losses/KOs
Tokens
Every time you complete a game, you are awarded Tokens. There are a few other ways to earn these tokens. For some of these ways, the amount of tokens you earn is different.
Ways to earn more tokens:
- Play a game every day. You are rewarded tokens for the first game you play each day. It doesn’t matter if you do well or not.
- Beat your score. You get 50 tokens for scoring your “all-time best”. There is potential to manipulate this when you create a new account. Simply get a really low score and end the game. Start a new game and beat that score and end the game. You can keep doing this to earn lots of coins.
- Play arena mode. You are awarded with lots of tokens for your participation.
What are Tokens used for?
If you look at the main menu for TetrisFriends, you will notice one of the options that says “Shop”. In this shop there is a variety of things you can spend your tokens on.
Things you can buy with TetrisFriends tokens:
- Tetromino(Mino) styles
- Ghost styles
- SFX styles
- Voice styles
- Tuning styles
- Win-grafix expressions
- Win-tones expressions
- Tetris arena items
- Removing ads
How to Play With Friends
In order to play with friends, you will need to add them to your friends list. There is currently only one mode that supports playing directly with your friends. This is the Arena Mode.
All modes that aren’t arena mode are played against random players(within your rank).
Can’t Play With Friends
If you can’t play with your friends, there are a few troubleshooting solutions you can try.
- Reload your browser or tab
- Log out and log in again
- Clear browser cache
- Try playing on a different browser
- Maybe the servers are busy. Try at a later time
- Delete and add your friends
TetrisFriends has built-in facebook compatibility. If you are playing through facebook and you find that you are constantly encountering issues, try playing the game directly from the tetrisfriends website.
Bots
Bots, or AI player, are players that are computer controlled.
Arena Not Loading
TetrisFriends has been trying to create an Arena mode that lets you make use of your friends list. This brings a lot of buggy issues with the introduction of two new beta features.
- Friends List
- Arena Mode
To even be able to use Arena Mode, it is recommended to have a few friends in your friends list. The whole point with arena mode is to play against your friends.
If this still doesn’t work for you, then keep checking back. These new features are still development and usually require a lot of work to get them to work properly.