Bintris

Bintris is a unique and challenging puzzle game that is reminiscent of the classic game Tetris. However, instead of the traditional tetromino shapes, the blocks in Bintris are binary digits - ones and zeros. The goal of the game is to build target decimal numbers, one bit at a time, in order to collapse full rows. This game concept was originally developed by Juha Lainema, and this version for Emacs is a remake of his Win32 version.

To run Bintris, users must start Emacs in windowed mode and then load the file bintris.el using the command "M-x load-file" or "(load-file "bintris.el")". Once the file is loaded, users can start the game by typing "M-x bintris" in the Emacs command line.

In order to play the game, users must understand the binary numeral system. The game uses a simple keyboard interface, with the left and right arrows used to move the bits and the spacebar used to drop them. Each row in the game is composed of black (zero) and white (one) blocks, with a full row forming a binary number. For example, a row with "W W B" is interpreted as 110 (binary) or 6 (decimal). When a full row matches the "target number", it collapses and the player earns points.

One potential issue with the game is that if the Emacs background is customized to black, the black pieces will be difficult to see. The developer plans to fix this in future versions but recommends a work-around of running Emacs without init scripts (using the command "emacs --no-init-file").

Overall, Bintris is a fun and challenging puzzle game that offers a unique twist on the classic Tetris formula. The game is free to play and can be downloaded and installed easily on Emacs. Some potential features, limitations, and changes in future versions could include additional game modes, improved graphics and sound effects, and the ability to customize the game board or controls.