Seventeen Years of Tetris

thefalconer writes "It all happened 17 years ago on a whim and an addiction of sorts. Alexey Pazhitnov created the one game that has caused so many people around the world to just about go nuts trying to win a game that has the ability to slowly drive you to insanity one small misshappen block at a time. Since the creation of the original Tetris game on an Electronica 60, there have been dozens of different incarnations of Tetris that have dazzled the eyes, boggled the mind, frustrated the emotions, and fried more than their fair share of braincells. There is also a very interesting history of tetris online that details its evolution from innocent game to insane addiction. Plus it's one of those games that never grows old. :D"

Comments

Thank you, Alexey, for Tetris...

[Artifex]

Without you, the world would have been stuck with its adiction to Pac-Man sequels and clones, at least until Solitaire got packaged with MS Windows...

(Speaking of which, can anyone give a good accounting for the history of MS Solitaire? I know xsol and other solitaire games came out way before, but wasn't this the first computer game put in the hands of so many people at once?)

gameboy linkup

[merc_sa]

the gameboy linkup cable probably wouldn't have sold that many units w/o tetris..

I can't recall any gameboys w/o a tetris cart lying close in ambush. I was still playing tetris on my cell phone to kill time until I got the treo270 :oD (now it's vegas slots..)

it really goes to show that a good concept will have more longevity and pretty graphics. Now, where's the MULE and a decent Archon update??

The only game that has lasted the ages

[Erioll]

How many people that have ever picked up any type of game console (and most calculators with power) have never played tetris? The Article is right. There is a version of this game for practically every type of computer that exists today. Anything programmable by hackers (relatively) easily, and there's Tetris.

And I had the Original Version of Tetris for the PC in Canada. My Dad picked it up in 1988, and my family was hooked. EGA graphics, seeing earth from Mir. That was a game. Level 9 was virtually unachievable. And we played endlessly.

Then the Game Boy came out. Heaven. Two players! My brother and I played endless matches against each other. On road trips, there was nothing else. Scenery? Whatever. Trying to get a Tetris to send my brother over the top. Winning by completing lines faster wasn't HALF as satisfying as killing the other guy. A non-violent game where you killed your opponent! What could be better?

And my PARENTS joined in. My Dad was a big computer geek from the get-go, but with Game Boy, even my Mom got in to it. She turned out not-bad for a while too! Occasionally (VERY occasionally) my Dad would even stop driving and let Mom drive, so he could play against us! And in the Family Room at night, playing against each other was often a nightly occurance.

Then High School. Graphing Calculators. Tetris fever again! Jytris is hands-down the best Tetris clone for the HP48/49. Anybody who's played it would agree. Physics 20/30 was bearable (Easy 90s, but BORING) because of that game alone. And Babal I'll admit, but still, my tetris addiction helped.

And then Tetris for the N64 (The Next Tetris). Not a bad game at all. Purists would object to being able to "save" a piece (I felt like I was cheating for the longest time), but the look-ahead, and new mono-squares and multi-squares objectives made an enjoyable new twist to my old obsession. And when playing 4-players at parties, I found that me and my friend Simon were always the targets. We completely dominated the competition. It was ALWAYS down to us two. Got so bad that we had to play hot-potato or else we'd get EVERYBODY's garbage. Hmm. Maybe shouldn't have played so much. We were both a little dominant players. Oh well.

Still, I can't think of any other game I'm still playing from the mid 80s (besides Arkanoid and Rampart the Arcade, but that's another story). I'm always on the lookout for those little pieces made up of four deceptively simple blocks. What other game have you ever actually DREAMED about? What other game do you actually think of scenarios in your head while daydreaming? This happened. Who else will admit it?

I broke my obsession down to a mere addiction a number of years ago. Who else can just not stop with the blocks? Who has been there since (near) the beginning?

Erioll

Re:17 years...

[Beautyon]

I used to play Tetris like that, until one day, in an arcade, a man who had been watching me wait for a certain piece said to me, "Tetris is not about making pretty patterns. It's about filling in the holes"

After that, my scores went through the roof.

Re:Why emacs is better than vim:

[The Variable Man]

TeTrIs.vim : A tetris game in pure vim

Programming Tetris

[qurob]

I've written Tetris clones for every new operating system, computer, or API I've learned. OpenGL, DirectX, WinG, QuickDraw, BGI, SVGALib.....

It's almost a "Hello World", becuase it's so simple and so many people have done it.