This might get me shot.... but my answer is no. I wouldn't bother learning things like design patterns at this point in the game. Write Tetris the best you can, but don't make yourself crazy with architectural perfection.

Once you finish your Tetris game, THAT'S when you should read through Design Patterns. You'll absorb the material so much more when you can read it and say "I remember having that problem when writing Tetris; spawning blocks with a Factory pattern really would have helped there!"

I think there's this tendency for people to learn perfect architecture before writing any significant code. I strongly believe that you have to experience the wrong path a few times before the right path really makes sense.

But that's just my opinion.

-Rez

I like Rez's idea - read a little, then do a little until you get stumped. Then read a little more, then do a little more. This process will get you good a lot faster than just reading, or just doing.

Hey there! This is my first post here, and I've gotta say, I love the book so far (up to chapter 9, and I've found every word valuable).

As for making a Tetris game, I did my own several years back, completely off the top of my head, with a basic knowledge of C. The code is a tangled spaghetti mess, and I even think I used a goto in there somewhere. But if you want to do a semi-serious project, Tetris is a great way to start. Check out "TKlone" on Sourceforge if you want to see my code. And when you're done, rewrite it using proper game engineering practices (that's something I'll do once I finish this book).