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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"
17 years of Tetris, 17 years of those damn little Z shaped ones coming at the exact wrong time.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
All the different shaped pieces come together to (hopefully) form perfect, straight, uniform lines. Individualism of each piece fades as it becomes part of the whole.
However, the longer it goes, the more pieces that come, and the faster they go. Pretty soon, the system begins the breakdown! Things are out of control, and lines stop forming, until you just can't continue any longer.
Game over.
.....I think everything is starting to fall into place. ;)
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?)
Get off my launchpad!
See here and here among other places
Although the game is pretty simple, it is innovative, considering the crack-like nature of the game.
Are the KDE, Gnome, and Emacs versions in good standing with the Tetris Company?
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
You've finally figured it out, all those years of silence at the chess club, when what we really needed was blasting techo track (with light effects) to get the punters in.
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
Enjoy.
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
Oh dear god - the music from Gameboy Tetris. I hope there is special spot in hell reserved for the bastard that wrote that tune. One summer during college I worked at the factory that built all the Nintendo in-store displays. I must have built a couple of thousand of these couter top Gameboy displays. They had a modded Gameboy that drove a black and white monitor in addition to the LCD, and amplified speakers. Of course, they all had to be tested before shipping, with the only cart they shipped out with - Tetris. Imagine the Tetris theme spewing from 4 Gameboys, out of sync with each other, and at higher than normal volume, for 8 hours a day. It's enough to drive you up the freaking wall.
22 was my max in my prime. I was fortunate enough to have played in the preliminary Nintendo World Championships on stage (hey - I was young and video games weren't *as* dorky). Tetris was the last of three back to back games that were played, so I did a lot of "training" beforehand.
*sigh* If I only had time for that sort of stuff now... I still find time to sneak a gameboy round in, though.
I just was flipping through this old gaming mag today. They had a quote from Alexey, which went something like:
"I remember the first time I saw those shapes coming down the screen. I had no shape acceleration or point system, and I couldn't program them in because I was having too much fun playing the half-finished game."
Apparently the shapes looked like this then:
[][][][]
[]
and I mean, exactly like that. Simple text brackets. How beautiful is that? One of the best games ever made, nothing but text brackets; still addictive.
I gotta say though, half of the fun was the music. Where did all the good video game music go anyway? Tetris, Super Mario Bros, Frogger, Zelda. I can't remember the last time a game's theme music was stuck in my head all day.
c-hack.com |
Tetris for the Game Boy. I have never found a game that equals the Game Boy version. Every other version has some little quirk, which I end up HATING. :)
:D
I might as well glue the cart into my circa 1989 Game Boy, as it's the only game I play on it anymore. Well, that, and half of the screen is worn out, and Tetris is the only game that I can see well enough to play.
Happy birthday, Tetris!
SIGFEH
I always had the biggest trouble with the square shaped pieces.
They never seemed to be oriented right, so I had to keep rotating them.
</dry humor>
emacs -f tetris
:)
'nuff said.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
Some of the 'official' story seems to be incorrect. I was involved in making the C64 version. The original C64 BASIC version was given to a friend of mine who added music and graphics and optomised it so it was playable on a 1Mhz machine.
I also question the PC version being the first as I was playing it on the '64 in 1985. For a more detailed history see my tetris page Neil
No sharp objects, I'm a programmer!
My freshman year at college, the campus paper did a survey on love/sex/etc.
This was 1989 and Tetris was quite the late-night procrastination tool before looking for MP3s, etc.
Included was a series of anonymous quotes about the stare of love on campus. I'll never forget, one female student said:
Love here is like Tetris. You never get the long piece when you need it.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz