Basic controls: moving, rotating and dropping
Learn the basic controls of a falling-block puzzle: DAS and ARR for sideways moves, soft drop versus hard drop, three rotations and the habits to build first.
A falling-block puzzle has only four kinds of input: move sideways, rotate, drop and hold. But how you press the keys makes a big difference to speed and accuracy. This page goes through each control used in the practice modes and sums up the pressing habits worth learning first.
Moving sideways: tap and hold
Tap the left or right key once and the piece moves one cell. Keep the key held down and, after a short wait, the piece starts moving repeatedly. That wait is called DAS, and the interval per cell during the repeated movement is called ARR.
- The shorter the DAS, the sooner the piece starts sliding after you hold the key. If it is too short, the piece moves two cells when you only wanted one.
- The shorter the ARR, the faster the piece slides once it gets going. At 0 it jumps to the wall instantly.
This site’s defaults are DAS 133 ms and ARR 20 ms. You can change them under “Settings” on the practice screen. To begin with, keep the defaults and simply split the two uses: hold the key to go all the way to the edge, tap again for one or two cells.
Soft drop and hard drop
There are two ways to drop a piece, and they do completely different jobs.
- Hard drop: the piece falls to the bottom instantly and locks right there. This is your default drop.
- Soft drop: the piece falls faster only while you hold the key. It does not lock when it lands, so you can still move or rotate it afterwards.
You need soft drop when the spot cannot be reached from straight above: sliding a piece under an overhang, for example, or rotating it in after it has landed.
Three rotations: clockwise, counter-clockwise and 180°
The two basic rotation buttons are clockwise and counter-clockwise, and this site also offers a 180° rotation. Clockwise alone can reach every orientation, but facing left then takes three presses. Use both clockwise and counter-clockwise and every orientation is at most two presses away.
When a piece touches a wall or other blocks, a rotation may leave it in a slightly shifted position. “Wall-kick rotation basics” explains how that works.
The grace period between landing and locking
A piece does not lock the moment it lands. You get about 0.5 seconds after landing, and during that time you can still move and rotate it. Every move or rotation restarts the timer, but only a limited number of times, so you cannot stall forever. On this site you can change the length of this grace period in the settings. By default it is 0.5 seconds in Basic Practice and unlimited in the Perfect Clear Mode, the Setup Drills and the Centre 4-wide Drill (the piece only locks when you hard drop).
Soft dropping a piece and then sliding it or spinning it in works only because of this grace period. A hard drop, on the other hand, has none: the piece locks the instant you press the key.
Hold
Hold puts the current piece away and swaps in the next piece (or the piece you put away earlier). You can use it once per piece. “How to use Hold” covers when to use it in detail.
Keyboard and touch controls
| Action | Keyboard | Touch |
|---|---|---|
| Move left / right | ← → | D-pad left / right |
| Soft drop | ↓ | D-pad down |
| Hard drop | Space | D-pad up |
| Rotate clockwise | ↑ or X | A |
| Rotate counter-clockwise | Z or Ctrl | B |
| Rotate 180° | A | Y |
| Hold | C or Shift | X |
What to learn first, in order
- Rotate first, then move. Once the orientation is set, the width of the piece is fixed, so you are less likely to put it in the wrong column.
- Hold the key to reach the edge. Going all the way to the wall and then tapping back one cell is also a handy move to know.
- Check the ghost piece, then hard drop. Judge by the dotted outline, not by the falling piece.
- Soft drop only when you need it. Soft dropping every piece is slow, and it leaves you no time to look ahead.