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I am trying to develop a Tetris clone. However, I am unsure what to name the panel where the user places the pieces.

Game panel seems too generic since the entire frame is in fact the panel of the game. Are there any other options?

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4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

The well? The shaft?

Edit: Wikipedia suggests the well or the matrix, but also mentions shaft:

A random sequence of tetrominoes (sometimes called "tetrads" in older versions) [...] fall down the playing field (a rectangular vertical shaft, called the "well" or "matrix").

The Tetris Wiki has this:

The playfield is the grid into which tetrominoes fall, also called the "well" (common in older games) or the "matrix" (especially in more recent Tetris brand games). The playfield is surrounded by a frame called the tetrion, which controls the overall behavior of tetrominoes.

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up vote 2 down vote

Pretty much anything will work as long as you are consistent:

  • board
  • window
  • screen
  • play area
  • area
  • rectangle
  • box
  • home
  • foundation
  • zone
  • world
  • grid

Other than that, just copy the name from someone else:

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I'm partial to "well" – snumpy Apr 22 '11 at 21:55
I can never take the name "shaft" seriously. – jhocking Apr 22 '11 at 21:58
up vote 0 down vote

I always called it "the bucket".

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up vote -1 down vote

What about simply 'game area'?

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Again, this is a bit too generic since every area belongs to the game, and hence is a 'game area'. – whirlwin Apr 22 '11 at 21:46

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