Follow this link for info about the review system. 1 = Terrible, 5 = Awesome!

It's not Tetris, but it is. An excellent game. It is also the first homebrew release for the Intellivision actually released in cartridge format.

Graphics: 4 Sound: 5 Replay Value: 5 Notes: 1-player game; Easter Egg Screen Shots

4-Tris is a fabulous game. The gameplay is reminiscent of Tetris (that should be obvious from the name ;-) so if you like Tetris, you should like this game. All of the mind-numbing addictiveness is there, and the graphics are all they need to be. A nice touch is the use of special new fonts for the score and other status information. And the soundtrack is superb! For those of you who tire of it eventually, you can disable the music at any point in the game.

Other handy features include a 'Next Piece' preview and a sound test screen accessible from the startup screen. If you watch closely, you'll notice a nice touch on the title screen - the copyright date scrolls from 1979 to 2000. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide why these dates are relevant. I can say that you will find yourself spending waaaay too much time playing this game. Best Score: 505720 [Level 11, 104 Lines, Start Level: 1]

Only one version of the box has been found for 4-Tris.

Image	Vendor	Part Number	Year	Origin	Description
	Zbiciak Electronics	JZ01	None		Hand-made boxes, individually numbered. Not sure if a Philly Classic variant exists, but the label, manual, overlays, and ROM were different, so I'd guess the box was, too.

Mr. Zbiciak reports that there are three different versions of the 4-Tris ROM released in cartridge format, as follows:

• Philly Classic 2001 Release (first run, v1.12?)
• Philly Classic 2001 Release (second run, v1.13?)
• Regular Release (first run, v1.14)

The Philly Classic releases were specifically for attendees of the 2001 Philly Classic convention. I hope to be able to acquire scans of the box, manual, label, and overlays of this release to put up on this page. The Philly Classic release had special documentation as well as a customized title screen.

(Image courtesy of Joe Zbiciak)

According to the author, many of the changes between ROMs are 'small tweaks', such as some code optimization and a fix to an Easter egg. Most important are changes to the built-in self-test. There are also differences between my copy of the cart (Regular release, second run, v1.14) and the ROM image I've got (v1.1), as the hidden Pong game on my cart is in color, while the ROM image version is black & white. See the Easter Eggs section for more about the Pong Easter egg.

Since 4-Tris has been distributed for some time on the web for free, the actual number of versions of the ROM available is unknown. The four revisions referred to here are specifically the ones that shipped on actual physical cartridges. If anyone who owns this cartridge from one of the other releases would like to let me know which ROM version they've got, please do so.

A total of two 4-Tris manual variants have been documented.

Image	Vendor	Part Number	Year	Origin	Description
	Zbiciak Electronics	JZ01	2001		Standard version of the manual
	Zbiciak Electronics	JZ01 (?)	2001		Special Philly Classic 2001version of the manual; image courtesy of Joe Zbiciak; need a better scan!

A total of two 4-Tris overlay variants have been documented.

Image	Vendor	Part Number	Year	Origin	Description
	zbiciak	JZ01	2001	U.S.A.	Standard version
	zbiciak	JZ01 (?)	2001	U.S.A.	Philly Classic 2001 version; need better scan!

A total of two 4-Tris label variants have been documented.

Image	Vendor	Part Number	Year	Origin	Description
	Zbiciak Electronics	N/A	2001		Standard version of the game label included the serial number of the game, so technically, each is unique; © 2001 JMRZ lower left, serial number lower right
	Zbiciak Electronics	N/A	None		Special Philly Classic version of the game label included the serial number of the game, so each is unique; serial number lower left; Philly Classic logo in right half, game name in left half; need better scan!

	Title screen scrolls through the years up to 2000 and plays music from The Nutcracker. Some get tired of the tunes, but I enjoy 'em.
	Nifty fonts and animated scoring keep the game screen interesting.
	You can test various sounds and so forth here. Seeing references to web addresses and email in an Intellivision game is priceless.

Title Screen Easter Egg

Credit: Joe Zbiciak

Right or Left Controller: Press and hold: [6],[9]
Press Reset
Easter Egg: The title screen shows a message from Joe.

Hidden Game Easter Egg

Credit: Joe Zbiciak

Left Controller: Press right on disk
Right Controller: Press and hold: [5]
Press Reset
Easter Egg: You get a hidden game - Pong!.

Diagnostic Test Easter Egg

Credit: Joe Zbiciak

Right or Left Controller: Press and hold: [1]
Press Reset
Easter Egg: The cartridge enters a ROM self-test (not pictured).

If you find new, contradictory, or other information you wish to share, please let me know!