A popular use of tetrominoes is in the video game Tetris.
Counting rotations in two dimensions as equivalent, there are seven possible shapes:
_ _ _ _ |_|_|_|_|
_ _ |_|_| |_|_|
_ _ _ |_|_|_| |_|
_ |_| |_|_ |_|_|
_ |_| _|_| |_|_|
_ _ _|_|_| |_|_|
_ _ |_|_|_ |_|_|
When added the third dimension, there are three more patterns:
_ _ |_|_| |+| unit cube on top of +
_ _ |_|_| |+| unit cube on top of +
_ _ |_|+| unit cube on top of + |_|
Some people refer to the pieces by the colour in which they are drawn in a particular implementation of the Tetris game, but those colours vary from implementation to implementation so this is not very sensible. For example, in [Vadim Gerasimov]? the original PC Tetris "Tetris & Dr. Mario" for Super NES, the red piece is I.
Piece | [Microsoft Tetris]? | [The New Tetris]? |
---|---|---|
I | ||
I | ||
I | ||
I | ||
I | ||
I | ||
I |
See also: Domino, Pentomino, Polyomino?
References: