Written January 06, 2025 in 6 minutes as part of the Gentle Games Habit
A Tetris-like pencil and paper game.
Each player has graph paper and borders a playfield 10 squares wide and 20 squares tall.
One player draws two different pentominos: 5 contiguous squares in any shape. Each block of the pentomino must be adjacent to another.
The other player chooses one of the pentominos. Both players draw the shape in their playfields as if it were being dropped in from the top. They can rotate it any way they’d like, but they can’t have any blocks above it.
When a player is done, they can start a 10 second timer. If the other player hasn’t drawn the pentomino in their playfield before the timer goes off, the player who set the timer may do so.
Players then switch roles and repeat.
When a player cannot place a pentomino without going over the top of the field they are done placing pentominos, but still get to draw and choose as if they were playing. Play ends when both players have “topped out” like this.
The winner is the player who has the most full rows in their playfield. If it’s a tie, whomever topped out last wins. If they topped out at the same time, it’s a tie.