Texmaster on RetroPie

Those of you who are familiar with the Tetris Grandmaster (TGM) series probably already know about Texmaster. For those of you who don't, it's a fan-made clone that recreates the feel and rules of these games very closely. Here's a great exhibition from AGDQ 2015 if you're interested in discovering this fantastic series:

Texmaster comes with its own background music and sound effect, so it's not infringing the copyrights of TGM. What's cool is that you can swap backgrounds, sound effects and music to your liking, so you could potentially mimick TGM3 for example (link near the end of this post). This is great because TGM games have been hard to emulate for a very long time, and Texmaster is designed to work on a PC.

To install Texmaster2009 on your RetroPie as a port, download the version here: http://mindflyer.net/tetris/texmaster/Texmaster2009-5.7z

Decompress the main archive, followed by Texmaster2009.rpi1-ARMv6.tar.gz for the Rpi0-1, or Texmaster2009.rpi2-ARMv7.tar.gz for the Rpi2-3.

Next, you can install wiringpi following these instructions. Afterwards you can begin integrating it into RetroPie as a port by doing the following from the command line:

mkdir /opt/retropie/configs/ports/texmaster2009

then

nano /opt/retropie/configs/ports/texmaster2009/emulators.cfg

The nano text editor will open, where you will now add the following to the text edit field.

texmaster2009 = "/path/to/binary/goes/here/Texmaster2009"
default="texmaster2009"

Press 'ctrl+o' to save, 'y' to confirm and 'ctrl+x' to exit out of the nano text editor.
Now, all that is left is to make a script to launch the whole thing. Continuing in the command line, type:

nano /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/Texmaster\ 2009.sh

The nano text editor will open again, where you will now add the following to the text edit field.

#!/bin/bash
"/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh" 0 _PORT_ "texmaster2009" ""

Press 'ctrl+o' to save, 'y' to confirm and 'ctrl+x' to exit out of the nano text editor. Finally, we'll make the script executable by typing:

chmod 0755 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/Texmaster\ 2009.sh

Once you restart Emulation Station, there will be a new menu listing named 'Texmaster 2009' and it should start right up.

QUICK TIPS ABOUT TEXMASTER:
- If you want to setup your controls, you will have to do so by editing Texmaster.ini in your Texmaster folder. Instructions on how to do it (both for keyboard and joystick) are found here: www.hep.physics.mcgill.ca/~legerf/Texmaster In fact, lots of information about config is available there.

- Here is the theme to reproduce the feel of TGM 3 (simply replace the data folder in the Texmaster folder by the one within tgm_theme_texmaster.zip): http://www.mediafire.com/file/p1mt22a9qv26l2l/tgm_theme_texmaster.zip

-Here is the relation between the mode names in texmaster and the real modes in TGM (you can change the names in Texmaster.ini):

NOVICE - Normal mode from TGM2+. Ends at level 300 and never reaches 20G speed during normal gameplay.

NORMAL - Master mode from TGM1. Ends at level 999. More or less normal Tetris gameplay, except faster. A lot faster.

ADVANCE - TGM+ mode from TGM2+. Adds some new features to Normal, most notably the "Sonic Drop", which allows you to instantly drop the piece while still retaining the normal lock delay once it lands. Also periodically adds garbage lines at the bottom of the stack.

SPECIAL - Master mode from TGM2+. The same feature set as Advance, minus the garbage lines. Speeds are even more hair-raising.

SUDDEN - TA Death mode from TGM2+, AKA 20G mode. Pieces drop instantly. Various delays become shorter as you progress.

DOUBLES - Doubles mode from TGM2+. Ends at 300. 2P co-op mode with various options.

SPECIAL TI - Master mode from TGM3. Similar to Special, but it previews three pieces instead of one and adds a "hold piece" feature. Also goes even faster.

SUDDEN TI - The notorious Shirase mode from TGM3. Ends at level 1300. Pieces drop instantly, like in Sudden, but the lock delay has been drastically shortened (and will get even shorter as you progress.) For masters and masochists only.

Happy gaming!