Tetris

Tetris

Electronika 60 - Screenshot - Playing.

Developer Alexey Pajitnov Publisher Alexey Pajitnov Published 1984-06-06 Platforms Electronika 60 Genres Action, Active puzzle, Puzzle, Single-screen Series Tetris Distribution Freeware

Tetris is an action puzzle video game developed by Alexey Pajitnov on the Electronika 60 microcomputer, with the first playable version being made on 1984-06-06.

In the game, the player must prevent a well from filling up with shapes, called tetrominoes, so named because the shapes represent every possible arrangement of four touching blocks. The shapes fall from the top of the screen to the bottom and may be rotated to best fit a niche. When the player forms contiguous horizontal line of blocks, the line is removed from the well, allowing more shapes to fit. Points are scored when lines are removed, and the more lines that are removed with a single tetromino, the more points are awarded. As the game continues, the blocks begin to increase in their falling speed, eventually making it impossible to react quickly enough to form lines.

Personal

Own?	No. This game was never sold.
Won?	No. This game has no win condition.

I learned about the original version of Tetris by researching the game, though, but I have yet to play it.

Review

I don't know enough about this version to review it.

Ports

Tetris has been ported to literally hundreds of computers and devices, many of which were unlicensed. Here are some of the ones that are important to me:

Released	Title	Notes
1987-??-??	Tetris	Spectrum Holobyte version.
1988-??-??	Tetris	Atari version.
1989-06-14	Tetris	Nintendo Game Boy and NES version.
1990-??-??	Tetris	Released in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows.
1995-12-??	Tetris Plus	Adds a new puzzle mode. Originally for arcade, but ported to other platforms.
1998-10-21	Tetris DX
2002-04-19	Rockblox	Rockbox version.

Variations

The popularity of Tetris spawned many variations of the game. Here are some that are important to me:

Released	Title	Notes
1989-??-??	Welltris	Four walls dump into a flat bottom.
1991-??-??	Wordtris	Each block is a letter which must be used to make words.
1994-12-30	Tetris & Dr. Mario	Allows head-to-head of both games at once.
1996-09-??	Tetris Attack	Really just Panel de Pon with a Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island theme.

Media

Videos

Emulated original.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no characters.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no characters.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	There are no characters.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no characters.

Links