PSTris

A Tetris implementation in PostScript

Motivation

• implement a realtime game in PostScript
• play it in Ghostscript on macOS

See also:

• PSChess
• PSSokoban
• Programming in PostScript

Features

• 600 lines, 10 KB of PostScript
• 69 unique operators
• realtime input
• direct drop
• levels with increasing speed
• 7-tetriminos random bags
• high scores
• Nintendo scoring scheme
• sound through external MIDI synthetizer

Play Tetris in Ghostscript

Terminal window 1:

$ gs -sNOSAFER tetris.ps

Terminal window 2:

$ stty raw -echo; cat >> t.txt

Play with arrows and space bar in window 2.

Sound (Optional)

The program write MIDI commands in midi.bin.

You can read midi.bin from a helper script to send the commands to a synthetizer.

On macOS, you can use GarageBand and the brigde midi.py:

1. in "Audio MIDI Setup" application, open "IAC Driver" and check "Device in online"
2. in "GarageBand" application, create a new empty project with a MIDI track. "8-Bit Grit" instrument works fine.
3. run `tail -f midi.bin | python3 midi.py`

Notes and Limitations

Some implementation details inspired from MeatFighter.