Tetris in Haskell with Netwire and GLFW
23 Sep 2014
A few weeks ago, I found myself on a ten hour plane journey, with nothing much to do1. What better time, I thought to myself, than to hone my programming skills on a quick project? Why not a Tetris clone in Haskell? The fact that I was offline and so had no access to documentation only added to the challenge. I slid my laptop out of my bag, and got to work.
I had been working on a project involving GLFW and Netwire2 for a little time before my holiday, so these were the natural choices for the clone.
About halfway through the flight, things were hitting a crescendo. I’d just hit a conceptional FRP breakthrough, and was ready to implement it, when – I run out of battery.
So, I wasn’t able to finish it on that flight. But I was able to get it done on the way back! Take a look at the code here. I will warn you that because I was under a time limit it isn’t especially tidy. However I think it demonstrates enough FRP concepts to be useful as a reference.
Additionally, don’t expect this to be a fully featured clone. There is only one level, no score is counted, controls don’t exactly feel right, etc.
I’ve decided that I’m going to make this a regular thing for when I’m on a long flight or something similar. Perhaps next I’ll make a Space Invaders clone, and maybe in one journey.