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🎯 Tetris Redux Stretch Challenges

You've built a fully working version of Tetris — nice work! But there's plenty of room to customize, extend, and deepen your understanding of how the game (and Redux!) works under the hood.

Try some of these stretch goals to level up your skills:

🎨 1. Restyle the Game

The current styles mimic the original NES version of Tetris, which… let’s be honest… looks a bit dated.

💡 Challenge:

  • Redesign the game UI using modern styling
  • Try CSS custom properties, gradients, or even a glassmorphism effect
  • Make the grid and blocks pulse, animate, or glow
  • Use a font and color scheme that feels you
  • There are plenty of other details about the design that can be improved!

🚀 Stretch It Further:

  • Add a dark mode

⌨️ 2. Add Keyboard Controls

Right now, the player controls the blocks using on-screen buttons. Let’s add keyboard support for a more fluid gameplay experience.

💡 Challenge:

  • Use useEffect to listen for keydown events
  • Map the arrow keys:
    • ← – move left
    • → – move right
    • ↓ – move down faster
    • ↑ or space – rotate

🚀 Stretch It Further:

  • Add soft drop and hard drop (press down to speed up, space to drop instantly)
  • Let players remap their controls
  • Add sound effects on key presses

📈 3. Add Levels & Speed Progression

Tetris gets faster as you score points. Let’s build a level system that speeds up the game as the player progresses.

💡 Challenge:

  • Create a level property in your state
  • Increase level every time the player clears 10 lines
  • Decrease the speed state to make blocks fall faster. You'll need to remove timer and start a new timer with the updated interval.

🚀 Stretch It Further:

  • Display the current level on the scoreboard
  • Add new background colors or music on each level
  • Implement challenge levels: pre-filled grids, reversed controls, etc.

🧠 Bonus Ideas

If you're looking for even more challenges...

🔁 Implement Hold & Swap

  • Add a space for a "held" piece
  • Let the player press a key to store or swap their current piece

🧮 Add a High Score System

  • Save the player's highest score using localStorage
  • Create a leaderboard and allow name input

📱 Make It Mobile-Friendly

  • Add swipe gestures for movement and rotation
  • Adjust the layout and scale for smaller screens

🌐 Publish It

  • Deploy the project with Vercel, Netlify, or GitHub Pages
  • Share it with friends — or put it in your portfolio!

💬 Reflect & Share

Once you've finished a stretch challenge:

  • Write a blog post or tweet about what you built
  • Teach a friend how the game works
  • Fork your project and start turning it into something totally new (Puzzle mode? Multiplayer? Tetris RPG?)

🧠 Final Thought

The best part of building games is that you’re always 1 idea away from something amazing. Start with one stretch goal — then stretch further.

You've got the foundation. Now make it yours. 🎮✨