          TETRIS AI BY JASON REMPLE AND NATHAN LEE 1998

TETRIS OVERVIEW
---------------
Tetris is the classic game of falling blocks.  You, the player have
the task of placing the blocks in such a way so that you fill up
a solid horizontal line.  Once you do that, the line will disappear.
The object of the game is to make as many lines as possible 
disappear before you build up to the top of the playing field.
The more lines you make disappear, the faster they start to fall.

THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
--------------------------------
Making the computer play tetris is a somewhat challenging task.  
There are a lot of things to consider when you drop a piece, such as
        - You try to avoid creating blanks
        - You try to make lines disappear
        - You try not to build too high
        - You try not to cover a blanks space that has already 
          covered
The human brain can compute all these fairly easily, it just
seems natural.  Making a computer play well on the other hand
takes a bit of doing.  In order to make the AI for this game, I
chose a rating system.  I made the computer give a rating to all
the possible moves it could make based on the criteria mentioned
above.  After it rated all the moves, it simply chose the best one.
The score for a move increased if it made a line disappear, and 
adjusts accordingly if blanks spaces are made or removed.  It
doesn't always make the best move since there are thousands of cases
where the move that best meets the above criteria is not always 
the best move.  

The AI does however have the advantage of a microprocessor running
at several million clock cycles per second :)  Because of today's
technology, it can calculate all these moves very quickly and 
can always place them in the exact spot it wants (It doesn't 
accidentally drop the piece in the wrong place like us humans).
This lets it place hundreds more pieces in a game than any human
which makes up for not always placing the piece in the best spot.

SCIENCE FAIR
------------
I'm a grade 10 student attending the District Incentive Program 
in Richmond B.C. (Canada).  I made this program for a science fair 
project to test whether an artificial intelligence could beat a human 
player in an intellectual game (Tetris).  From the results of this
program, I can safely conclude that yes, a computer can beat a
human opponent.  

I always hated long readme.txt files but guess what I just made? :) 
Oh well, I'd better quit now before it gets any longer.  Thanks
for taking the time to read this, bye!




