🕹️ NEON STACK

Neon, CRT-scanlined Tetris on the BRUTAL framework

SRS + Kicks • Ten Levels • Chiptune + SFX • Local Leaderboard

     

     

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The Game

NEON STACK is a neon, CRT-scanlined take on Tetris, written in C# directly on the BRUTAL framework. It ships as a self-contained game for Windows and Linux, with a ten-level campaign, a guideline-style rule set, synthesised music and a local high-score table.

• SRS rotation + kicks, 7-bag randomiser, hold, ghost piece, lock delay, DAS/ARR.
• Ten-level campaign with line goals, unlocks, level-clear and victory screens.
• 640×360 pixel art rendered at an integer multiple of the window (1×–6×) and blitted 1:1.
• Fullscreen by default, F11 to toggle, resizable window at any size.
• Procedural audio: a 15-second chiptune loop and fifteen sound effects, mixed live.
• Settings and a local top-10 leaderboard, both persisted per user.
• BRUTAL licence compliant: official logo before gameplay, credits screen, NOTICE.txt shipped.

Download

Grab the latest build from the Releases page:

Build	Asset	Requirements
Windows x64	NeonStack-v1.0.0-win-x64.zip	Windows 10/11, an OpenGL driver
Linux x64	NeonStack-v1.0.0-linux-x64.zip	glibc-based distro, an OpenGL driver

Both packages are self-contained: unzip, then run NeonStack.exe (Windows) or ./NeonStack (Linux). No .NET install is required. Save data goes to the per-user folder, not the game folder.

Run From Source

dotnet restore
dotnet run -c Release

Needs the .NET 10 SDK and a desktop OpenGL driver. The project has no third-party runtime dependencies beyond the BRUTAL packages (pinned in NeonStack.csproj).

Flag	Effect
--fullscreen	Force fullscreen on launch (also the default)
--windowed	Start in a window for this session
--scale=N	Force the window to N × 640×360 (1..6)
--dump-music=FILE	Write the generated soundtrack to a WAV and exit

The initial window mode can also be changed in Settings, which is persisted.

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Controls

Action	Keys
Move	Arrows / WASD
Rotate CW / CCW	Up or X / Z
Hard drop	Space
Hold	C
Pause	P or Esc
Fullscreen	F11
Music on/off	M
Start / confirm	Enter or Space
Quit	Esc on the title screen

Title screen: Left / Right choose an unlocked level, S settings, L leaderboard, C credits.
Settings: Up / Down select, Left / Right change, Enter / Esc back.
Name entry: Up / Down pick a letter, Left / Right pick a slot, Enter confirms.

Campaign

Ten levels, each with a line goal and a fixed drop interval. Clearing the goal shows a Level Clear screen, unlocks the next level and carries the score forward; clearing the last level shows the campaign victory screen. Progress is remembered, and the title screen can start any unlocked level.

#	Level	Goal	Drop interval
1	NEON DAWN	10	0.85 s
2	STATIC BLOOM	12	0.72 s
3	CIRCUIT RAIN	14	0.62 s
4	VOLT RUSH	16	0.53 s
5	GRIDLOCK	18	0.45 s
6	CHROME FALL	20	0.38 s
7	AFTERGLOW	22	0.32 s
8	OVERCLOCK	24	0.27 s
9	BLACKOUT	26	0.22 s
10	FINAL STACK	30	0.17 s

Resolution and Scaling

The game is authored in a fixed 640×360 logical space. The framebuffer is rendered at the largest integer multiple of that space the window can hold (1×–6×) and blitted 1:1, centred with black letterboxing. That keeps pixels square and hairlines crisp at any window size, Windows display scaling / HiDPI, and fullscreen, instead of stretching a 640×360 image with a fractional GL pixel zoom. The window opens at the largest whole multiple that fits the monitor work area; the game starts fullscreen at the native mode (3× at 1080p). Scanlines are generated in physical pixels, so their density does not change with the window size.

Sound

A 15-second chiptune loop (128 BPM, Am–F–C–G) and fifteen sound effects are synthesised at startup, so there are no audio files and no audio library dependency. A small software mixer plays music and effects together through winmm waveOut on Windows, or a raw PCM pipe (pw-cat, paplay or aplay) on Linux. If no output is available the game runs silently.

The loop is DC-blocked, low-end controlled and faded in over the first 0.8 seconds; the mixer streams through eight 512-sample buffers (~93 ms of cushion) from an above-normal-priority thread. M toggles music; both volumes live in Settings. --dump-music=track.wav writes the generated loop.

Effects include move/rotate blips, lock and hard-drop impacts, escalating line-clear arpeggios, a level-up fanfare, game-over/win stingers and menu feedback, plus visual line-clear flash, floating combo/clear text, screen shake and a hard-drop dust burst.

Settings

Press S on the title screen. Options are saved to settings.txt and applied live:

• music volume and SFX volume (0–10)
• ghost piece, scanlines, screen shake
• fullscreen on launch (toggles the window immediately)

Leaderboard

A local top-10 table with three-letter initials, score, level reached and lines cleared, stored in scores.txt. A qualifying run prompts for initials after the game over; the table is reachable from the title screen with L, and the new entry is highlighted.

Startup Sequence

Audax Softworks ident → official BRUTAL logo → title screen. Enter / Space advances, Esc skips. The BRUTAL logo is the official asset, shown unaltered apart from uniform scaling, before gameplay (licence section 2.2).

Save Data

Settings, scores, best score and campaign progress are written to a per-user folder:

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\NeonStack
• Linux: $XDG_DATA_HOME/NeonStack (usually ~/.local/share/NeonStack)

Files: settings.txt, scores.txt, best.txt, progress.txt. If the folder cannot be created, the game falls back to the executable folder and keeps running.

 

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Layout

• TetrisGame.cs — rules: SRS + kicks, 7-bag, hold, ghost, lock delay (15 resets), DAS/ARR, guideline scoring, combos, campaign progression, effects, settings/leaderboard UI state
• Framebuffer.cs — 640×360 logical software rasteriser with integer render scale, additive glow, scanlines, 3×5 font and an RGBA blitter
• Scene.cs — all drawing: board, HUD, splash screens, settings, leaderboard, credits
• ImageData.cs — minimal PNG decoder for the embedded logos
• Intro.cs — startup sequence state machine
• Audio.cs — chiptune/SFX synthesis, software mixer and platform output
• Settings.cs, Leaderboard.cs, SaveData.cs — persisted options, scores and the save folder
• BrutalHost.cs — the only BRUTAL-touching file: window, input, scaling, GL blit
• Assets/logo_brutal_wht.png — official BRUTAL logo (licence 2.2)
• Assets/logo_audax.png — generated Audax Softworks logo
• tools/logo-gen — the generator that produced logo_audax.png

BRUTAL Licence

The game is built on BRUTAL and complies with its attribution requirements:

1. 2.1 copyright notice in the credits — press C on the title screen.
2. 2.2 logo before gameplay — the official BRUTAL logo is shown on the second splash screen, unaltered apart from uniform scaling.
3. 2.3 NOTICE.txt alongside the product — copied to the output folder by the csproj and included in every release archive.

BRUTAL is Copyright (c) 2024 Ahwoo Limited, used under the BRUTAL License v1.0. See NOTICE.txt and https://www.ahwoo.com/brutal.

Licence

The game itself is MIT licensed — see LICENSE, which also lists third-party components (BRUTAL, the BRUTAL logo, and GLFW).

Quality Checks

• dotnet build -c Release — 0 warnings, 0 errors.
• Campaign harness — level clear, unlock, final level and victory path: PASS.
• Leaderboard harness — qualifying game over, initials entry, save/rank: PASS.
• Audio — winmm waveOut, 86 blocks/s, 0 write errors, Windows endpoint meter reads ~0.22 peak in-game (0.000 before launch/after exit).
• Rendering — 1×, 2×, 3×, forced --scale and fullscreen verified.

Still To Do

• T-spin detection and back-to-back scoring.
• Online scores (the leaderboard is local only).
• In-repo automated tests (the harness lives outside this repository).
• Volume ducking during pause, and more level variety.