The TetriNET Harmony Theme 1 - By Jeremy Morton
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Subrelease 2
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Introduction
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Thanks for downloading the Tetrinet Harmony Theme 1!
When I was searching around on the web for TetriNET themes, I found that there were a lot of them, but that nearly all of them forgot about the one thing that they were designed for - playing TetriNET!  In the heat of a fast game of Tetris, you want to be able to clearly see your blocks, the opponents' blocks, and preferably guiding columns to help you with block placement.  I wanted to create a theme that had subtle guiding lines and other helping features in the background that were noticeable but that yet didn't stick out and distract you from playing, that had a high contrast between the background and the foreground, that had clear, quickly readable lettering for both the player's blocks and the opponents' blocks and that was still pleasing to the eye.  Unfortunately, I don't think the default TetriNET theme is too clear, and the background isn't very subtle, but I think that with the TetriNET Harmony Theme 1, I have achieved this.  This textfile covers installing the theme and the features of it.

Installation
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Added in subrelease 2 is the 'Harmony.bnp' file that will allow you to install the theme on Blocktrix.  It also includes the original 'tetrinet.mid' MIDI file for those of use who like to bring back the memories of Tetrinet in its early days!  The TetriNET Harmony Theme 1 is pretty easy to install.  First, unzip the contents of the 'Harmony.zip' file to a directory (usually your TetriNET data directory).

To install the theme on Blocktrix, simply choose the 'Harmony.bnp' theme when navigating to the graphics/sound/music theme to use in the Misc Settings.

To install the theme on the original TetriNET client, on the 'Misc. Settings' screen, select the file 'Harmony.tnp' for your graphics/sound/music theme.

That's all there is to it!  Once you start playing, the TetriNET Harmony Theme 1 will take effect.

Features
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Guidelines
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On the player's Tetris field (the rectangle where the Tetris blocks fall), there are vertical guidelines.  I find that these help a lot in putting the blocks in the right column.  It's easy to make mistakes doing this, as you often have to drop them from a great height to play fast enough to win.

Cutoff lines
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On the player's Tetris field, there is a horizontal cutoff line.  This indicates the maximum height of the blockpile that will be passed to your opponent's Tetris field when an S special (switch fields) is used.  If the blocks in your field go any higher than that, the bottom lines of your blockpile will be trimmed off so that the blockpile is only this high.  Likewise, this is the maximum height of blockpile that you will receive from an opponent when an S special is used.  On the opponents' Tetris fields, there is also a cutoff line.  This line is blue instead of green, and is line number 6.  This marks the maximum height of blockpile that you will receive from the opponent after an S special is used.

Arrow indicator
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On the player's Tetris field, there is a downward pointing arrow indicator.  This shows the row in which an I block will come down in by default, if rotated the right way.  If you are in trouble and your blockpile is high, try and leave this column shorter than the rest so you can get rid of several rows if you get an I block.

Numbered lines
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On the opponents' Tetris field, there are a series of 10 numbered lines.  Each line number corresponds to the line directly beneath it.  These lines show how many lines you need to add you your opponent's blockpile before he will be out of the game.  This allows you to calculate whether you have enough A specials (add line) to put an opponent out of the game.  The number of the line that is touching the top of the blockpile is always 1 less than the number of lines you need to add to put the opponent out.  For instance, if the top of an opponent's blockpile was touching line 4, you would need to add 5 lines onto the opponent to put them out of the game.

Special blocks
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In order to make the letters on the special blocks as legible as possible, especially on the small versions seen in the opponents' Tetris fields, I have not put borders on special blocks.  They are distinguished by a fading grey background.

O special block (block bomb)
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Instead of the letter O on the O special, there is a picture of a bomb.  This is because I consider it a rather special block, as it is the only one that you may need to find extremely quickly in the heat of play to tell whether either an opponent will be vulnerable to a block bomb or whether you will be vulnerable to one, and therefore need to remove the block as quickly as possible.  The faster you are able to tell which opponents (if any) are vulnerable to a block bomb, the less play time you will lose looking, and the faster you are able to remove a block bomb from your Tetris field, the less likely you are to have a block bomb used on you before you are able to remove it.

Q special block (blockquake)
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The Q on this special block has been made into a capital to avoid confusion between the lowercase q and lowercase g.

Sound effects
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I have left the sound effects as the default ones for this theme, concentrating on the graphics.

Music
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Are you kidding?  I LOVE the default music, so it stays the same :-)