Submission #9176: PoochyEXE's NES Tetris 2 + BomBliss "Contest Mode" in 08:43.49

Bombliss, also known as Tetris Blast in the US, is a Tetris variant where some blocks have bombs in them, and clearing a row containing a bomb causes it to explode, erasing blocks in the explosion and causing any connected components in midair to cascade down, potentially creating a chain reaction. The objective is to clear all the blocks on the screen.

Contest Mode consists of 30 levels, each of which starts with a preset board. The objective is to clear all the blocks on the board.

Note that there is already a published movie for the sequel ( https://tasvideos.org/2241M ), but it has completely different levels, so I believe this is worthy of a separate movie.

The power of the explosion is (number of lines formed simultaneously) + (number of previous hits in the chain reaction). The higher the power, the bigger the explosion, with high powers giving a score bonus:

Explosions are always centered at the bomb.

Putting 4 bombs in a 2x2 square causes them to fuse together into a big bomb, which always explodes in a 10x10 square. However, the game checks for fusions after checking for detonation, so creating a 2x2 square while simultaneously completing either of the lines it occupies won't get you a big bomb before it blows up. If there are multiple possibilities for a 2x2 big bomb (e.g. a 3x2 rectangle of small bombs) then the game fuses the highest 2x2 possible, with ties within the same rows broken in favor of the leftmost square. Creating a big bomb also adds 1 point to your score for the level.

The results screen at the end of each level takes 2 frame per point -- 1 frame per point to tally up your score for the level, then another 1 frame per point to add it to your total score. This is the source of several speed/entertainment tradeoffs throughout the run, where I use a more impressive-looking strat that scores higher due to the score bonus for high-power explosions, losing time at the results screen.

Note that beating the game unlocks a new set of levels, numbered 31-60, but these are identical to 1-30 except all bombs on the intial boards are replaced with regular blocks, the blocks seem to fall faster, and the RNG appears to be more biased towards pentominoes. Since the strats to clear these boards would be mostly identical to 1-30, and the ending appears to be identical, there is probably not much entertainment value in TASing the second set of levels.

The RNG appears to pick up entropy through controller input on every non-lag frame, so extraneous button pushes that do nothing or cause a failed rotation are used to manipulate luck, as well as holding buttons longer than necessary.

I'll only write comments for levels that were particularly cool, fun, or frustrating to optimize behind the scenes, or levels that have some non-obvious things going on.

The first speed/entertainment trade-off here is inputting "TAS" as the initials instead of "A" or "AAA". The menu has an 11-frame cooldown after each processed input before it'll accept another input, so this loses about 2 seconds.

It's possible to clear this level in 3 pieces with a score of 97 by putting an O in the center with the bomb on the bottom, and an L or J on each side to clear row 4, causing the O to cascade down and make a power 2 explosion that hits the big bomb. But the cascade animation is slower than the bomb fusion animation, so I went with the faster strat.

The probably dev-intended strat is to complete the big bomb, then put a bomb in row 5 column 5, detonate it, and let the 3 blocks on the left cascade down to detonate the big bomb. But the cascade animation is slower than just creating our own big bomb above it.

Unfortunately I lose 70 frames by accident at the results screen due to a mistake I made while trying to manipulate luck for the first piece of level 8, but I didn't notice the error until I had finished the entire run, and my attempts to fix this error led to massive RNG desyncs for the rest of the run.

This is the first speed/entertainment trade-off in the actual gameplay itself, menus notwithstanding. It's possible to do this level a couple seconds faster by leaving holes in the rectangle I build in the top center, but this strat is much more impressive, despite losing a couple seconds.

This was a royal pain to luck-manipulate, since there are exactly 2 pieces that allow this 2-drop strat, and they both need a pentomino with the bomb in a specific spot. I had to delay pressing A by 1 frame on the level 10 results screen to find a way to luck-manipulate the piece I need.

Speed/entertainment trade-off #2: This level also has some leeway for holes, but the perfect 9-by-10 rectangle looks so much cooler.

Speed/entertainment trade-off #3: Filling in row 8 is slower by about a second but looks more impressive.

Speed/entertainment trade-off #4: Pre-building the second explosion isn't necessary, but looks cooler. It finishes the level only a couple frames slower, but it scores 50 points higher and thus loses 100 frames at the results screen.