Arena

In this mode, players are competing against eachother to survive the longest. Players may send garbage to eachother or turn items on or off. The floor also raises to keep matches under 2 minutes.

Balance

In the balance mode, you use the Wii Balance Board as your controller to manipulate the pieces. Leaning right moves the falling piece right, leaning left moves it left. Do a quick squat to rotate the piece. Balance mode doesn't use all of the normal Tetris pieces, but it also throws in 2 and 3 square pieces at you.

Ball

This version combines Tetris with the Pong spin-offs, such as Blockball or Arkanoid. There's a ball(or more on harder levels) that bounces around the playing field destroying the bricks from the pieces. If you touch the ball with your piece then your piece falls where it's at.

Battle

In battle mode, you play against another player and playing until someone dies. Battle mode usually involves sending garbage to your opponent which happens when you clear a double, triple or tetris. Some battle modes allow more than 2 players which you play until only one person is left. Some games allow you to play against the computer instead of another human player. Finally, there are variants that let you use items blocks which helps you or hurts your opponent.

Beginner

In this mode, there is a smaller board with larger pieces for new Tetris-comers to used to the pieces. Although this also includes 2 and 3 block tetriminos as well. Some versions of Tetris will refer to this mode as Kid's mode.

Bio

Bio Tetris is the only game that makes use of the bio sensor, which was only released in Japan. You would clip the bio sensor onto your ear as you play a standard version of Tetris. The pieces will fall faster or slower compared to your heart rate.

Blast

In Blast mode, your objective is to clear the entire screen of all indivisual blocks. There are bomb pieces randomly placed in the tetriminoes that explode when you complete a horizontal line. The more horizontal lines there are, then the bigger the blast will be. Blasts will set off any other bomb it touches causing a chain reaction. The level is won when the screen is cleared.

Blast Editor

With the blast editor, you can create your own stages for the blast puzzle mode. You place pieces and bombs on the screen and decide which pieces the player gets in order to be able to clear the screen.

Blast Endless

This plays the same as blast although pieces will continue to fall even after the screen is cleared. You lose when the blocks stack to the top of the screen just like in any normal tetris version. Try to see how many points you can rack up.

Blast Fight

I actually think that this mode is quite fun. Each stage has a creature that runs around the playing field and reaks havoc. Your goal is to kill it by blasting it with the exploding bombs. Once the creature is out of life power(shown on the side of the screen), then the round is cleared. Each creature has its own special abilities that destroy your blocks, eat your bombs or bring up garbage from the bottom of the screen.

Blast Puzzle

The same rules apply here that are in the blast mode. The only difference is that you have a certain number of pieces to work with. With those limited pieces, you have to figure out how to clear the screen.

Block

In this style of Tetris, there is no gravity at all. You place the pieces as they are given to you. You can not rotate the piece at all. Your objective is still trying to clear the lines by getting 10 in a row. Remember, when you clear a line here, the pieces above do not fall down either. This is similar to the mosiac mode.

Cascade

Gravity is better simulated in this mode. When a line is cleared, the remaining squares of a tetrimino is fall. If a piece falls and completes another line, then that is called a cascade and the line is cleared. It it impossible for a block to float in midair, unlike in the normal tetris games.

Catch

Catch is not a normal Tetris version at all. Although it does use the same pieces. Pieces also still fall from above, but you control a centrally located block that can be moved and rotated around to catch the falling pieces. Pieces are cleared when you form a 4x4 square or larger with no gaps. You also have a power meter that goes down if a falling piece touches you while you are rotating. Power is also lost if you touch a falling enemy.

Challenge

Challenge mode is very similar to mission mode. The difference is that these challenges are harder or take a lot longer to achieve than in the mission mode.

Circuit

In circuit, you have to connect a specific spot on the left side of the field with a spot on the right side. You also have to use a specific color to connect the 2 sides. The other colors just get in your way, or you can use them to stack the correct color of pieces that you need.

Color

Color mode actually doesn't qualify as a Tetris mode to me, but since it's included in Absolute Tetris, I figured I might as well add it. It plays much like column mode, where 1x3 sized pieces fall from the sky and each square is a different color. You have to get 3 squares of the same color in a row to clear them. It is different than Columns in the fact that after a piece has landed, it is no longer affected by gravity which gives you many pieces that end up floating in the air. The pieces rotate just around like a normal Tetris game though.

Column

This version is pretty much identical to Sega's game, Columns. You are given 3 block pieces of assorted colors and you have to arrange them in a row or column of three blocks of the same color. This is similar to color mode, except the pieces do not rotate, but you can rotate the colors through the 3 blocks in each piece.

Cooperative

Cooperative is for two players. You each have your own pieces that you place seperately, but you place them on the same screen. This is great for people that like to play with others, but are not competitive. The game ends as normal, when someone reaches the top of the screen. Some Tetris games allow you to play this with one player and the computer fills in for the second player.

Death

Death mode starts out with the pieces falling so fast that they just appear at the bottom of the screen and you only have a split second to move or rotate it into place.

Detonator

In this mode, all you have to do is connect the detonator at the bottom of the screen with all the bomb squares that are randomly scattered throughout the playing field.

Doubles

This mode is very similar to the cooperative mode. This only difference is the fact that you have to work with your partner to clear a certain number of lines within a time limit.

Duel Spaces

This mode is for two players. Each player takes turns places pieces on the same board. The objective is to place the pieces to take up as much space as possible. The space that you take up with your space becomes your territory. Whoever has the most territory at the end of the game wins.

Earthquake

The only thing that I noticed when I played this version was the fact that it ran exactly like cascade mode. The instruction book says that there's supposed to be random garbage, falling rocks and an earthquake to keep things interesting. I did not see any of that when I played.

Endless

This is the standard Tetris style. The pieces fall and you stack them to make horizontal lines with no gaps. The longer you play, the more the pieces speed up on you. The game comes to an end when your stack of bricks reaches the ceiling.

Eraser

This is a fairly simple mode where you just have to clear lines at a certain height. The line heights that you need to clear will be highlighted for you.

Erosion

Erosion blocks are randomly placed in the playing field. Your objective is to eliminate the erosion blocks by clearing lines in the same row. You have to clear lines that the erosion blocks are in multiple times before they finally disappear.

Field Climber

Field climber is fun and annoying at the same time. There is a tiny man that runs around the playing field. Your goal is to get him to climb up the blocks to reach any flags on the screen and then get him to the top of the screen. He can only climb one block high at a time. You also have to be careful not to squish the man or it's game over.

Filler

This is almost identical to the replicator and shadow modes.The only difference is that there are bricks around the shadow so that you can't place pieces outside of the shadow. Although, you can still stack them above the shadow, but that will still cause you to lose.

Fire

This mode was probably the inspiration for furnace mode. Depending on how how high up you hard drop each piece determines how hot the piece is. The hotter the pieces are when the line is cleared, then the more lines around it will be cleared as well. This is especially useful for the garbage that comes up through the floor since that's the only way to get rid of the garbage. So basically, you have to keep the board as low to the ground as possible and hard drop each piece as fast as you can.

First Person

In the first person mode, instead of rotating a falling piece, the entire playing field rotates around the falling piece. The will cause the falling piece to continue to fall in a different direction. Many people have claimed that this version of Tetris has given them motion sickness.

Flash

Flash Tetris is the main variant found in 'Tetris 2' games. It consists of normal and non-connected tetrominoes. Each of the four squares in each piece is one of three colors. Game play is similar to color mode or Dr. Mario where you need three of the same color in a row(or column) to make the pieces disappear. The objective is to destroy the 3 flashing balls at the bottom of the screen.

Flash Puzzle

Uses the same rules as flash listed above. The only difference is that the board is filled with a pre-set design. Although all you need to do is clear the three flashing balls, you are encouraged to do that as well as clearing all of the pieces on the screen. If you manage to do that, you get the 'Perfect Clear' status.

Flood

Flood mode is about the same as the rising bricks mode. The only difference is that the rising bricks in this mode come up a lot faster and you're given a time limit which you must survive without your pieces getting to the top.

Furnace

This mode was probably built off the fire mode since they are quite similar. In furnace mode, Your pieces start out falling as being very hot. The longer that you spend placing the piece, the cooler your piece gets. Once your piece locks into the playing field, then whatever heat is left in the piece goes into the furnace. Once the furnace reaches a certain heat level, then you win. Lines are not cleared in this version, so make sure you stack your pieces well or you may run out of room.

Fusion

Fusion introduces an atom block. The atom block is a single square. You generally start off with an atom block buried at the bottom of the screen. You also get more atom blocks mixed in with your regular tetrominoes as you play. The goal is to get as many of the atom blocks as possible to touch eachother. Atom blocks can not be destroyed. When you clear a line, the rest of the line is cleared, but any atom blocks remain. They are also affected by gravity and will fall, possibly creating a cascade of line elimination.

Giga

Just as the name might suggest, it uses giant tetrominoes which can be broken down into the smaller, normal-sized pieces. I'm not completely familiar with how exactly it works since it was only released in Japan and I have yet to actually play this version.

Go Low

In this variation, you get more points if you keep your Tetris blocks as low as possible.

Hexagon

Hexagon mode adds a new twist by changing the shape of the tetrominoes. The same basic rules of Tetris apply except the lines are little wavy due to the hexagon shape.

High Speed

High speed is just normal Tetris that just starts out with the pieces falling faster than usual.

Hot Lines

In hot lines, there are rows that are highlighted. Your objective is to clear a line at each highlighted height. You get more points for lines that you clear at a higher height. This is very similar to the eraser mode.

Ice

I don't like this mode that much. Icicles fall from the top of the screen. If the icicle hits your falling piece, then it is dropped right where it's at. There's also ice blocks that appear and the only way to destroy them is to clear the line underneath it which can't be done unless your falling pieces get hit by the falling icicles. It's just annoying.

Jewel (Sakura)

Jewel mode is actually called Sakura mode. Sakura is a name, it doesn't really describe the mode, so I'm calling it jewel mode. In this mode, there are jewels that placed and you just have to clear the line of the row that they are in to obtain the jewels. This mode is similar to erosion and flash.

Kid

Kid's mode is actually just a different name for the beginner mode.

Ledges

I think this is an interesting concept. The bottom of the playing field is a bottomless pit that you pieces just fall through. In order to keep your pieces on the playing field, there are small ledge bricks randomly scattered in the playing field that do not move and can't be cleared. You have to stack your pieces on these ledges in order to clear lines.

Level Star

From what I could find, this mode is identical to vanilla mode which is a combination of sprint and ultra modes. Basically, you have a time limit to clear a certain amount of lines.

Limbo

Just don't stack your pieces above the limbo bar. As you play, there's a limbo bar that steady lowers. You can raise this bar by placing pieces and clearing lines, but you have to be quick.

Magicliss

This mode is just messed up. As you rotate each piece, the color of the piece turns to red, blue or green. There are also wild pieces which is considered red, blue and green. There are also colorless pieces which do not clear if you complete a line. If you complete a line and all the bricks are the same color, then all of the bricks that are that color are destroyed and any colorless pieces on the screen will turn into that color.

Magnetic

I love this concept. The side walls of your playing field are magnetized. One side is blue and the other is red. When you have finished setting down a piece that is blue or red, it is then pulled to its respective side of the field if it can move. So you have to be aware of where you put your pieces because they may not always stay there. You can make some really neat cascades in this mode though. Also, the easier levels also have yellow pieces which are not affected by the magnets.

Maniac

Surely they could have came up with a better name than maniac? The only thing that's crazy about this mode is that it uses pieces between 2-9 blocks. Now that's a lot of pieces to work with. Even after playing it for a while, I'd often be given a piece that I've not seen before in the game. The only 9 block piece that I've seen is a 3x3 square. There's an 8 block piece that is also a 3x3 square with the center missing. Other notable pieces include the 3x3 staircase and the 2x4 recatangle. I've found that the best strategy to use for playing this is to keep the playing field as low as possible.

Master

Master mode is just like the standard mode of Tetris. In this mode you are graded on your performance and given a rank. This mode has a ridiculous number of levels and the pieces eventually fall so fast that they end up just appearing at the bottom of the screen.

Match

This is just like battle mode against another player. There's a meter that fills up as you play, when that meter is full, your next piece will contain an item piece. Once you clear the line with the item piece in it, then you get a special ability to hinder your opponent or give yourself an advantage.

Meteors

In meteors, there are small, random meteor bricks that fall from the sky and add onto to your playing field. These meteor bricks are destroy by clearing a line just like normal tetris pieces are. I've actually found this hinderence to be more useful than not, often times the random meteor bricks will appear and finish one of my lines for me.

Mission

Here you a given a small objective. You usually have so many pieces in which to complete the objective or you get punnished. If you do complete an objective, then you are given a new one. The objectives vary from getting x number of lines, get two lines with a space in the middle, or complete lines with certain pieces. There are many different missions that they throw at you.

Mosiac

This version is similar to block mode where there is no gravity at all. You also can not rotate the pieces. Each block in each piece is a random color and your objective is to place the pieces so the you get 3 blocks of the same color next to eachother. It doesn't have to be in a straight line, but it can't be diagonal.

Pentix

This mode of Tetris adds 5 block pieces into the mix. It really does add quite a challenge into the game, but it takes away from the speed because you actually have to think a little harder about where you are placing your pieces.

Physics

This mode doesn't actually have a name since it's not an official version. From the game, Not-Tetris 2, this allows from gravity and physics when placing blocks for a more realistic effect. It's very challenging, but I do enjoy it.

Picture

In picture mode, the playing field is filled with blocks that form a picture. The picture itself has no relevence to the gameplay. All you have to do is get rid of all of the blocks in the picture by clearing lines. Your pieces are all the same color so that you can tell which blocks are yet needing to be cleared.

Professor (Puzzle)

The professor mode is actually called puzzle modein the Tetris Plus games. I decided to call it 'Professor' because there is another Tetris puzzle mode that is much better suited for the name of 'Puzzle Mode'. In Professor, there is a professor that runs around the playing field. The objective is to clear lines beneath the professor to get him to fall to the bottom of the screen. When the professor gets to the bottom of the screen, you have successfully completed the "puzzle" and then you can advance to the next stage. You also have to be careful not to let the professor get too high or he will get crushed by the spiked ceiling, which also slowly drops down as you play the game.

Professor Editor

This mode allows you to make your own stages for professor mode. Decide where the professor will start and what blocks will appear on the screen when you start.

Push

Two players compete against eachother in the same border. Each player's gravity is going in opposite directions from eachother. This version is similar to tug-of-war except you are pushing the playing field into your opponent's field. As you clear lines, the field is pushed to your opponent's side and vise versa. It is also possible that your piece can fall through the floor and not stay in the playing field. In such a scenerio, you are just given your next piece.

Puzzle

In this puzzle mode, you are given three to five tetrominoes and you have to figure out the correct order and rotation of pieces in order to clear the screen of all of the blocks.

Rally

In this mode, players are competing to clear a tall stack of blocks to be the first to reach the bottom. Block of the same color will stick together similar to sticky mode. This mode can be found on Tetrisfriends.com.

Replicator

This is almost identical to shadow mode. There are only two differences: It only uses normal Tetris pieces and you're not allowed to place any pieces outside of the shadow or you lose.

Rising Blocks

In this mode, every time that you place a set number of blocks, the floor rises places random block underneath and raising your playing field up a level. Otherwise, it plays as a normal Tetris. Although, it is hard to get a Tetris in this version because you need to be constantly filling the gaps that come up from the floor. This version of Tetris is also sometimes referred to as Type-C.

Scanner

This almost steals from the game, Lumines. In scanner, no lines are cleared until the scanner bar is full. Any lines that you complete before the scanner bar fills just sits there.

Shadow

In shadow mode, there is a darkened shadow on the playing field. Your objective is to completely fill the shadow with no gaps. Although you can complete the puzzle with pieces outside of the shadow, it will take away from your percentage. In order to get 100% on each shadow, you must fill the shadow without any pieces hanging off at all. This mode is similar to the filler and replicator modes.

Sparkliss

Sparkliss is quite similar to the blast mode. Instead of using bombs and blasts, this has little magic lightning balls that explodes into bolts of lightning that shoot straight out(up, down left and right). When you complete a line with lightning balls in it, then the lightning is released and any blocks that the lightning touches is destroyed. If a line has no lightning balls in it, then nothing is cleared from the line, including the line itself.

Sparkliss Puzzle

All of the sparkliss rules listed above apply for this puzzle mode of sparkliss. Now you only given certain pieces with which to clear the board with. It's not always as easy as it sounds.

Split

Split mode cuts the playing field in half making two fields that are both 5 blocks wide. Your pieces take turns falling on the left and right sides of fields and are not allowed to cross over the center line. You still need 10 blocks in a row to clear a line. I find this mode slightly annoying. If you have a block that is better placed on the other side, then you can put it in your 'hold' compartment and then switch it back out when the next piece falls and then you're good to go.

Sprint

In some Tetris games, sprint mode is called Type-B. The objective is to get the required number of lines as fast as you can. This will often make for a quick game. Some Tetris games will refer to this mode as 40 lines. Although, not all Tetris games uses 40 lines. Some ask for 25, while others can ask for as many as 300.

Square

This plays like a normal game of Tetris with an added twist. If you can form a large square with four tetrominoes(4x4), then a square is formed. If you use the same 4 types of pieces to make the square, then it becomes a gold square, otherwise it is a silver square. There is no bronze square. When you delete a line with a square in it, you get many more points or lines added to your score.

Stacker

In stacker, there are a number of stacker bricks that are scattered around the playing field that you have to destroy. In order to destroy them, you have to stack a certain number of bricks above them. Notice, I said bricks, not pieces. If there's a gap in between the bricks above the stacker brick, then it doesn't count and the stacker brick won't break.

Stage Racer

This is kind of goofy in my opinion. Stage racer lets you race tetrominoes through a stage that is 400 rows tall. You are timed as to how fast you can get through the stage. The stages require you to rotate to get through certain areas. There's not much here for replay value since each piece only has 2 different races.

Standard

Standard Tetris uses the normal 7 tetrominoes. Standard rules seem to change slightly as each new Tetris comes out. The game concept has always been kept the same though. Clear lines and make a tetris to score big points. Other things that have changed over the years is the number of pieces you can see coming up next, the length of time it takes the piece to lock into the playing field, and easy spin ability which will let you rotate the piece which keeps it from locking into the board.

Sticky

Sticky mode is quite similar to the cascade mode. The big difference here is that in sticky mode, blocks of the same color will stick to eachother, preventing them from falling. Otherwise, the gravity behaves like normal and you can make cascades just like in cascade mode.

Stratosphere

This is an interesting variation, similar to ball mode, but much more complex. Meteors enter the playing field and there are four different types. Green meteors leave random garbage, red meteors destroys any block it touches and bounces off them, blue meteors destroys any block it touched and does not bounce off them. Finally, the white ones destroy all the tetriminos in the field. You can destroy a meteor by performing a hard drop above the meteor. Meteors enter the field depending on how many lines you clear.

Survival

There's nothing too special about this mode until after you've passed level 20. After that, the pieces start to become invisible making survival difficult at best.

Target

From what I can gather, you just have to eliminate target blocks that are scattered on the playing field by clearing a line in the same row. I guess it would the exact same concept as jewel mode which is similar to erosion and flash modes.

Tempest

Tempest is basically the standard form of Tetris. The twist in this version is that you are switching back and forth between two seperate playing fields. If you lose on either field, then your game is over. When you see the tornado go by in the background, that means that it is about to switch to the other board.

Touch

Touch requires a touch screen to be able to play. The pieces start off stacked in a tower. You move the pieces left and right in order to clear lines. You can also rotate pieces by double tapping them, but not for the harder difficulties. The goal is to get the top of the tower to touch the ground. In Tetris DS, the top of tower is a crate of balloons.

Touch Puzzle

In the puzzle mode for touch, each puzzle has it's own objective which is given to you at the beginning of the stage. When you meet this objective, then you can move onto the next round.

Touchdown

I'm sorry, this mode does not combine football with Tetris. Instead, you are given a playing field full of garbage bricks and you goal is to work them down until you can get one of your pieces to touch the bottom of the screen. You also have a time limit.

Tournament

This is only available on WiiWare's Tetris Party and you have to have the internet. In this mode, you are given an objective to complete and then you can see how you scored compared to other players. The objective changes twice a month. This probably doesn't rate getting it's own topic for a 'mode' since it uses the other modes that are already in the game.

Triangle

Similar to hexagon mode, this mode forms the tetrominoes out of triangles. Otherwise, it play like the standard Tetris. An interesting thing to note is that this mode has two "I" pieces because the triangle shape at the ends can work in two ways.

Type-A

This usually means endless mode. Some of the earlier Tetris games on Nintendo and Gameboy just have it labeled as Type-A.

Type-B

For more information about this mode, see sprint mode. It's pretty much the same thing.

Type-C

I've only seen this is one Tetirs game. It didn't have an actual name for that type of mode, so I'm calling it rising blocks.

Ultra

I'm not sure where they got the name for this mode. If it was me, I'd call this the time trial mode. Basically, you have a certain length of time and you must try to get as many points as you can. In some versions of Tetris, there's a specific goal that you must reach before the time is up and then you can start again on the next level.

Vanilla

I'm not sure why they called it 'Vanilla' in Tetris Pop, but it's basically a combination of sprint and ultra. You have a set time to get a certain number of lines cleared. Apparently, this is the same as level star mode.