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Recent Obsessions Part 5

Tuesday June 24, 2025

Tetris Kiwamemichi

I had written some stuff about this game for a “review” in the “reviews” section in 2023. It was pretty much finished, all I needed to do was add screenshots. That never happened, because I never felt inspired to open Flycast for screenshots. The reviews section is pretty much dead, I’m going to poach most of what I wrote and for the review and talk about it here instead. This time around, I cared enough to actually launch Flycast, but not enough to crop the window decorations out of the screenshots.

I was very happy when I discovered this game, because the other Tetris game on the Naomi is Sega Tetris. I think Sega Tetris kinda sucks. Someone who likes old-school NES Tetris or the other Sega Tetris would like Sega Tetris, but I prefer the gameplay of “modern” Tetris. I’m not a superhuman TGM3 player or anything, I just like hard drops and holding pieces. Tetris Kiwamemichi has a nice balance of goofy fun stuff and “enthusiast” stuff. Overall, I think this game looks nice. Look at these cute Tetris pieces on the mode select screen:

Single Player

This game has “staggered” speed-ups, as opposed to a gradual curve that increases with your level. Maybe “staggered” isn’t the best way to describe it, and maybe there’s even an official name for this mechanic in the Tetris world. What I mean is that the game will speed up as your level increases, but once you reach a certain level, the speed drops back down slightly. That increase in speed can be overwhelming, but when things get shaky at high speeds, it’s nice knowing that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Versus Mode

The versus mode in this game is not the standard junk-sending versus Tetris you are probably familiar with. Some pieces will have a strange looking symbol on one of their 4 blocks. When a line containing that block is cleared, a debuff is applied to your opponent. The debuffs in this game are psychotic. Here are some evil ones:

• SKY DOWN - Decreases the height of the board. Overall, not too bad.
• SPACE LOCK - Cleared lines do not drop the stack down. If you can hit someone with this right before they slam an “I” piece down for a Tetris, you win.
• PINHOLE - Jabs random fucking holes into the stack. Getting double pinhole’d is so brutal, all you can do is laugh.

I have to give special attention to the debuff “NIGHTMARE” just because of how much it stands out from the others. It is the only one with a unique presentation. All the debuffs announce themselves with a normal looking title in Impact font before fading away. NIGHTMARE slaps a badass Tetris pentagram onto the screen, turning the boards of both players black. That sounds brutal, but it’s not that bad. The falling piece illuminates the stack as it gets closer. NIGHTMARE is a huge hit in my garage. My dumb ass designed and printed NIGHTMARE stickers, as if anyone even knows what this game is. The only sales have been from friends who are regular garage-goers.

Because of the sheer amounts of bullshit enabled by these debuffs, I think the strategy is not to go for Tetrises, but to rapidly clear lines sending as many debuffs as possible. This game’s versus mode is not a true test of Tetris skill, but I still find it extremely fun.

Co-op Mode

This mode gives two players one double width board.

There is only one “hold” slot, and your falling pieces can collide, so verbal communication is encouraged. This mode is great if you and your partner are decent at Tetris, but basically impossible if one of you is bad. I’ve been playing co-op a lot with my girlfriend recently, and although there is a pretty large gap in skill, she’s pretty good. I stack my half of the board, and it’s her job to slam down the “I” pieces on her side. Easier said than done. She struggles when the speed ramps up, but she’ll get better just by playing. I think playing faster comes naturally, and doesn’t require much “intentional practice.”

The Rest

There are other game modes. I haven’t played them. They might be good. Give this game a try, and buy some damn NIGHTMARE stickers.

World of Dweebs

God damn. I love Graham Kartna and I love this album. When “For Your Safety and the Safety of Others” released, I listened to that shit on repeat. I probably annoyed my friends with it, honestly. I distinctly remember being in my garage back when there was nothing but a single ratty Versus City, playing Jojo’s HFTF with Botched Siesta in the background. World of Dweebs is his latest album, and unsurprisingly, I have been listening to that shit on repeat.

I don’t know how to describe music, so I won’t even try. I have been told that all the music I like sounds like it’s from a video game, and this album doesn’t help my case. I’ll skip the part where I say “It’s my go to for when I’m drawing or playing games in the garage”, because that’s just what it means to like an album, and I probably say something similar every time.

Static

I’m not really into Vocaloid music, but I cannot stop listening to this song.

I believe it’s about nostalgia and being stuck in the past. It’s perfect for gay nerds like me that don’t want to grow up.

What else I’ve been up to

A lot of website-adjacent things. If you check this site often, you may have noticed the “Now Playing” blurb on the front page. That blurb currently only works with the Naomi, but I’m working on getting it to work with the MiSTercade too, and when that happens, I’ll add another blurb for the Astro City’s MiSTercade. I have the “tell the computer what game is playing” part figured out on both the Naomi and MiSTercade, now I just have to do the Hugo + CSS part. The Hugo part will mostly consist of rewriting the “finished” Naomi shortcode to accommodate the MiSTer. Maybe when I get everything perfect, I’ll write a post about it. The whole thing really is just a few lines I added to someone else’s awesome code and my own jank Hugo shortcodes. Here’s what it looks like, if you haven’t seen it:

I won’t lie, I cherry-picked that game. It looks best with games that have a short, wide logo, and really dumb with games that have more height. A lot of other logos are squarish, and when the logos show up huge, it makes the redundancy of the flyer/logo combo more apparent. I also picked Akatsuki Blitzkampf because the English logo looks different from the Japanese logo on the flyer. I need to work some stuff out, keeping in mind that eventually two (or more) cabs will be displaying the current game. I have big plans for the Versus City, as well.

Another sticker design is finished, but I’m not sure what size to get them printed. For now, I’ll just show what the design is based on.

There is also now a sticker gallery page, just for fun.

I’ve been working on a zine for what feels like forever. I think it’s almost done, but what’s left on the to-do list is pretty time-consuming. Mostly drawings and other graphical stuff. I’ll make a post about it when it’s available.

Thanks for reading.