The Simple Genius of Tetris

December 25th, 2011

Chris Kiriapolous

It is quite possible that Tetris, that seductive swallower of so many hours, is the single most universally beloved video game ever created. Developed in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet computer engineer, Tetris hit the US in the late eighties amid a series of legal wranglings, first as a Russian-flavoured hit PC game and then as the killer cart that made the Game Boy a huge success. Tetris’s power to keep gamers coming back is present in virtually every knock-off that has followed Pajitnov’s original.

Its game play is ingenious. The pieces are shapes called Tetriminoes, made from the seven different arrangements of four square blocks joined along the edge. They drop one at a time into a rectangular well, and the pieces land on the pieces that have fallen before. You have to keep the space from filling up by completing solid rows of blocks, which disappear when filled in all the way. Cover up a gap in the blocks, and the layer stays there until you get rid of all the pieces above it. Miss too many gaps and the pieces pile up to the top. If it fills to the top, the game is over.

You are able to preview the next piece, and armed with this information, you have until the piece sinks to the bottom to strategize its resting place. You score points with every piece that falls, and more for each row you clear. You advance a level for reaching landmarks of rows cleared, and with each new level, the speed of the falling pieces picks up.

The challenge of trying to keep the game going as long as you can is tremendously enjoyable. If you find yourself attempting to top the best score in your household, you’ll find yourself investing many long hours pushing your limits and polishing your skills. The game offers you the opportunity for many victories, large and small. Finishing a row. Leaving a space in the shape of a ‘J’ piece, and then seeing that piece come up. Messing up, letting a big pile build up, but fighting back, and clearing out the well. Clearing four rows at once.

Even though every game of Tetris ends with the well filling up, the exercise of clearing it is fun for its own sake. Strategizing so intensely puts your mind into a “Tetris zone”, and the effect’s power is so great that people find themselves obsessed with the game. They see everything as Tetriminoes, from supermarket products to office buildings to patio stones. So powerful is the effect from playing lots of Tetris that the phenomenon of mental “stickiness” due to prolonged exposure is now referred to as “the Tetris effect”. Computer programmers experience the Tetris effect when they dream in software code, for example.

The simplicity of Tetris has made it an easy game to copy. There are several free online Tetris games available to play within instants of typing ‘tetris’ into a search engine. Tetris is a great reminder that some of most fun things are the simplest. There are an enormous number of free flash kids games online whose simple game play makes for exhilarating fun. Beware that the fun can become an addictive obsession!

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