4th CUBIES ANNIVERSARY (July 4, 2010)

Theme: “A Tribute to Tetris and Flipull Games”

This day commemorates the 4^th anniversary since the CUBIES Game was approved as a Thesis Proposal during CBG 2006 or officially known as Games of the VIIth Colympiad.

This year also commemorates the 2 popular puzzle games from which the CUBIES Game is derived with are Tetris and Flipull. The CUBIES Game is a combination of the simplified version of Flipull plus the elimination features of Tetris.

Tetris is a video puzzle game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in June 1985, while working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow. He derived its name from the Greek numerical prefix "tetra-", as all of the pieces contain four segments, and tennis, Pajitnov's favorite sport. 

The game (or one of its many variants) is available for nearly every video game console and computer operating system, as well as on devices such as graphing calculators, mobile phones, portable media players, PDAs and even as an Easter egg on non-media products like oscilloscopes. It has even been played on the sides of various buildings, with the record holder for the world's largest fully functional game of Tetris being an effort by Dutch students in 1995 that lit up all 15 floors of the Electrical Engineering department at Delft University of Technology.

While versions of Tetris were sold for a range of 1980s home computer platforms, it was the hugely successful handheld version for the Game Boy launched in 1989 that established the reputation of the game as one of the most popular ever. Electronic Gaming Monthly's 100th issue had Tetris in first place as "Greatest Game of All Time". In 2007, Tetris came in second place in IGN's "100 Greatest Video Games of All Time".

A pseudorandom sequence of tetrominoes (sometimes called "tetrads" in older versions) - shapes composed of four square blocks each - fall down the playing field. The object of the game is to manipulate these tetrominoes, by moving each one sideways and rotating it by 90 degree units, with the aim of creating a horizontal line of blocks without gaps. When such a line is created, it disappears, and any block above the deleted line will fall. As the game progresses, the tetrominoes fall faster, and the game ends when the stack of tetrominoes reaches the top of the playing field and no new tetrominoes are able to enter.

Tetris game manuals refer to the seven one-sided tetrominoes in Tetris as I, J, L, O, S, T, and Z - due to their resembling letters of the alphabet - but players sometimes use other names for the pieces, such as "stick" for I or "snake" for S. All are capable of single and double clears. “I”, “J”, and “L” are able to clear triples. Only the “I” tetromino has the capacity to clear four lines simultaneously, and this is referred to as a "Tetris." (This may vary depending on the rotation and compensation rules of each specific Tetris implementation). 

The scoring formula for the majority of Tetris products is built on the idea that more difficult line clears should be awarded more points. Nintendo's implementations on the NES, Game Boy, and SNES use what is probably the most widely recognized system. 

Nearly all Tetris games allow the player to press a button to increase the speed of the current piece's descent, rather than waiting for it to fall. If the player can stop the increased speed before the piece reaches the floor by letting go of the button, this is a "soft drop"; otherwise, it is a "hard drop". (Some games allow only soft drop or only hard drop; others have separate buttons.) Many games award a number of points based on the height the piece fell before locking. If a piece is manually dropped x lines and locked, these versions will typically award points proportional to the number of lines that the player accelerated the piece. If a piece is not accelerated at all the player will gain no points for that piece unless a line is made.

Flipull is a Taito puzzle video game released in 1989 at Tokyo, Japan. It all started with Tetris and Sokoban in the early 80's. When Taito released Flipull in 1989, the peak of puzzle-mania was reached. It combined the elements of gravity (Tetris) and box-pushing (Sokoban) ingeniously. The first version reached the arcades in 1989, where it succeeded due to its simple but horribly addictive idea.

Game elements with the same symbols have to be moved together, for them to disappear. If you manage to solve four stages in a row in the given time limit, you climb up to the next level.

All Flipull versions had two significant properties: A time limit on every level and the restricted possibility of continuing the game, if you got stuck in one of the levels.

The levels were ordered hierarchically and had to be solved in this order. Once all "lives" were up, you had to start out anew. Although it was possible to solve some of the hardest problems, it required a lot of patience to reach the goal.

In the following couple of years the game was transferred to all popular computer systems, game consoles, and even in mobile phones. While the graphics varied from system to the system, the order of the game stages was mostly unaltered.

Once again, HAPPY CUBIES DAY TO EVERYONE!!!