A really cool concept. I thought it was just another Tetris game until I got myself cornered, then everything changed.
However, the game feels so slow overall it gets tedious as the game drags on. Also, for some reason, I randomly get a Game Over when I make a line above the hero, which feels buggy.

@deaymon the game over you get when you make a line above the hero should only happen when the hero is on the first line (bottom) and that line is to be removed. I remove the bottom line every so often (see left side of the screen) to keep players from leaving the hero at the bottom in a cage and then only playing tetris.
Great comment and thanks for the feedback! :)

Started off playing this like regular Tetris and failed pretty quickly! Really interesting concept, makes you completely rethink how to approach a well known gameplay mechanic.

I store all ludum dare games in the same folder and would prefer if the file name was the games name. I don't know how actual tetris manages it but it would be cool if the difficulty increased over time. You can even do stuff like hazardous blocks for the hero to touch. The game felt quite easy until I died because of an accident. Concept is cool. Quite similar to Blocks Of Cometh, check it out if you never heard it.

Very good idea and well implementated, maybe the game is quite slow and one game can take you a long while to complete unless you die intencionally but I really liked it. And when you die, the "hero mode counter" remains actived, its not important but its an issue that should be fixed if you want to release the game. Good work!! Keep on it!!

I really like the concept of your game! I like how you have the two different phases where you are doing different things but they both affect each other. I did find it a bit challenging to make "stairs" for the hero with the Tetris pieces due to the random nature of how they appear onscreen. Also would like to see some sort of score component or objective to complete in the game. Game looks nice and plays well, though I would like to be able to hold down the arrow keys to move faster in a given direction. Congratulations on making a game in 48 hours!!

Great Concept! The tetris mechanics felt a little basic (no hard dropping, piece preview, piece holding) but given more time I could easily see this become a fun and interesting variant on Tetris

good game, only i don't understand rotate block mechanics.

Great game! Very cool and simple art style! :D

Cool Game, at the start I often didn't understand why I was dying until I read the comment here that the first row is removed occasionally. A counter when this happens would help a lot! As it is I find the game quiet challenging.
Some sound effects and music would help to reduce the above mentioned monotony.

As big tetris games fan liked this approach. Really need a fast drop option, couldn't play long session without it.

Really interesting concept and was fun to play. Was a lot of text to read at the start of the game

Really neat twist on Tetris. Enjoyed it. Would love some progression of difficulty and a fast-drop option.

Hope you're having a great LD!

Interesting game, could use a little better spawning of cubes. As its very easy to get stuck in a hole.

Interesting idea but I wish there was a way to see your next piece and that you could hold buttons rather than having to rapid-fire push them.

This is an interesting idea, and could be cool with some tweaking. I feel that switching phases after every block drop slows the game down a lot. It also becomes difficult to strategize without seeing the next piece. Have you considered switching phases after two (or maybe even more) dropped blocks?

A two-player cooperative mode, with one person controlling the Tetris blocks and the other controlling the Hero, would probably speed the game and make it more fun.

A few nitpicks:
The user interface text was oversized on my monitor, and obscured part of the play field. There was also no quit button; I had to alt-tab out of the game and right-click the icon to exit. Lastly, like Verbante above, I would also prefer a different naming convention since I keep my Ludum Dare games in one folder.

Overall, not bad. If you keep working on it, you might have something pretty engaging.

The idea of a hero and tetris seemed very nice, but I felt like the movement mechanic of the hero was a bit limited, but other then that, its pretty good :D