Native C++ Tetris

A fast, native Windows Tetris built with C++ and the Win32 API. No Raylib, no engine, no asset pipeline to set up. Just build it and play.

The game has grown from a small practice project into a sharper arcade-style Tetris with hold, ghost piece, spin clears, combo feedback, persistent best score, and a dark pixel UI.

Why It Feels Good

• Hold, ghost landing, and a three-piece next queue for planning ahead
• Short lock delay so grounded pieces can still be nudged into place
• DAS/ARR-style hold-to-move input for smoother left and right slides
• Clockwise and counter-clockwise SRS-style wall kicks for cleaner rotations
• T-spin scoring plus custom L/J/I/S/Z style-spin clears
• Faster line-clear flash, combo, back-to-back, perfect clear, level-up feedback, and best score
• Main menu, pause menu, restart, leaderboard view, and game-over overlays
• Local top-five leaderboard with name entry on qualifying scores
• In-game tuning presets for DAS, ARR, clear effect speed, controls, window scale, and sound
• Pixel-style font with compact Win32 rendering
• Layered procedural WAV cues for moves, drops, hold, rotate, clears, spins, B2B, perfect clear, level-up, pause, and game over

Controls

Key	Action
Up / Down or W / S in menus	Choose menu item
Enter / Space in menus	Select menu item
Left / Right or A / D	Move, hold to slide
Down or S	Soft drop
Up / W / X	Rotate clockwise
Z	Rotate counter-clockwise
Space	Hard drop
C or Shift	Hold
P or Esc	Pause
F1	Settings
Space while paused	Continue from pause menu
R	Restart
Q	Quit

Inside settings, use Up / Down to choose a row, Left / Right to adjust values, Enter to edit NAME, and Esc or F1 to close the panel. PRESET switches between beginner, balanced, fast, and custom handling; CONTROL can limit movement to hybrid, arrows, or WASD; WINDOW scales the fixed pixel canvas; VOLUME adjusts cue loudness. Settings are saved to tetris_settings.txt. When a game-over score reaches the local leaderboard, type a 3-12 character name and press Enter, or press Esc to save it under the default player name.

Scoring

Action	Points
Soft drop	1 per row
Hard drop	2 per row
Line clear	100 / 300 / 500 / 800
T-spin clear	800 / 1200 / 1600
Style-spin clear	400 / 700 / 1000 / 1200
Combo bonus	+50 for each clear after the first consecutive clear
Back-to-back bonus	+50% of the difficult clear score
Perfect clear bonus	800 / 1200 / 1800 / 3200

Level increases every 10 cleared lines. The drop speed ramps up as the level rises. Best score is saved to tetris_highscore.txt, and the local top-five leaderboard is saved to tetris_leaderboard.txt.

Build And Play

On Windows, open PowerShell in the project folder:

.\build.bat
.\main.exe

To make a shareable build:

.\package.bat

That creates dist\tetris-win-<version>.zip and dist\tetris-win-latest.zip with the executable, bundled font, docs, README, and runtime DLLs beside the executable. You only need to rebuild or repackage after changing the source.

For an installer build, run package.bat first, then build installer\tetris.iss with Inno Setup 6. The output is dist\tetris-setup-<version>.exe.

Or build directly with MinGW-w64:

g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra src\*.cpp -mwindows -lwinmm -lgdi32 -luser32 -o main.exe
.\main.exe

Or use CMake:

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --config Release
.\build\Release\main.exe

Core Tests

The game rules are portable and can be tested without the Win32 window:

c++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -Isrc tests/core_tests.cpp src/block.cpp src/blocks.cpp src/game.cpp src/grid.cpp src/high_score.cpp src/leaderboard.cpp src/position.cpp src/settings.cpp src/settings_options.cpp src/sound.cpp -o /tmp/tetris_core_tests
/tmp/tetris_core_tests

With CMake:

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --target tetris_core_tests
ctest --test-dir build

Project Map

src/app_config.h   Window size, file names, timer IDs, font names
src/main.cpp        Win32 window, drawing, input, timers
src/game.cpp        Game rules, scoring, hold, spin detection
src/grid.cpp        Board storage and row clearing
src/high_score.cpp  Best-score file
src/leaderboard.cpp Local top-five leaderboard file
src/settings.cpp    DAS, ARR, effect, and sound settings file
src/settings_options.cpp  Tuning presets and control scheme helpers
src/sound.cpp       Procedural Windows WAV cues, no-op elsewhere
tests/core_tests.cpp

CI runs the portable core tests on Ubuntu, macOS, and Windows.