Nelsonic Tetris Watch Manual?

[drichardson]

I'm looking for a copy of the manual for the Nelsonic Tetris Watch. Some elements of the game don't seem the same as the one I remember playing nearly 30 years ago. I was hoping the manual might offer some clarity.

In particular, I seem remember that the playfield was split between two screens. You'd play on the lower half until your stack was over 10 lines tall and then the game would switch to the upper half of the playfield. This isn't how the unit I have works at all. I had wondered if is might have been an option that I just don't know how to activate. I could be mistaken, it was a long time ago.


This is what I've been able to work out so far:

The 'Mode' button switches between watch and game mode. When you switch to game mode, the current hi score is displayed.

The time can be set by holding 'Set' for several seconds while in watch mode. Pressing left advances the hour, right the minutes. Press set again to finish setting the time.

To start the game, press 'Mode' to switch to game mode and press either left or right to start the game. Pressing left will start the game with sound disabled.

In game, left and right work as expected. Up rotates a tetromino counter-clockwise. Pressing down causes a 'hard drop' where the piece falls down quickly. Once pressed, you can't do anything until the next piece appears.

Scoring is a bit confusing. During the game, instead of the current score, the number of lines cleared on the current level are displayed. Points are awarded only when a line is cleared. Clearing multiple lines at the same time awards more points:

Single: 2
Double: 5
Triple: 10
Tetris: 50

There is no bonus for pressing down or for completely clearing the playfield.

S and some T spins are possible, but award no extra points. L's spin from a vertical orientation in an odd way, a line above where you'd expect. I've had no success spinning J's. I haven't yet had a good opportunity to spin Z or I.

The level changes and the playfield is cleared after 20 lines are cleared. The current score is shown between levels.

Starting on level 5, two lines of "garbage" appear at the bottom of the playfield. This is continued for (at least) levels 6, 7, 8, and 9.