The Legacy of Tetris: 29 Years, Never Beaten
Tetris is without a doubt one of the most important games, not just in the history of videogames, but in the history of games in total. It stands alongside chess and other classics as a game that simply works, with no flaws and no possibility of ever truly mastering it.
Created by computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov, the game was based around the phrase “tetra” – “four” in Ancient Greek – and tennis, Pajitnov’s favourite sport. The game revolved around fitting together shapes constructed from four squares as they slowly fell down towards the bottom of the screen. Miss too many opportunities to create a solid line of squares (which deleted said line) and your shapes would pile up to the top of the screen and it was game over.
It’s such a simple concept, and it’s popular for that reason – especially as the speed at which the blocks fall downwards steadily increases for an infinite period of time, which means you can never actually finish Tetris. Your best hope is to beat a world record. While games like chess have win states and stalemates, Tetris has nothing of the sort – it’s a struggle for survive, where pure logic takes over.
This form of endless puzzling has influenced game design permanently since the game’s launch, appearing both in games in the eighties, and games you play on your mobile phone. There are many games you’ll come across, both casual and hardcore, that adopt many of their approaches to mechanics and overall design from Tetris. Bejeweled is a good example. It does admittedly use a match-3 mechanic but the game itself is relentless and unending, and slots (ha-ha) neatly into the “tile-matching” genre given its inherent “find a place, make a space” gameplay.
The amazing thing about the genre is because it can be picked up by almost anyone with ease, and never actually mastered, it’s the ideal concept for a game that stands the test of time. Simple graphics are a requirement lest the gameplay get lost in bloom and explosions, and thus they never age. As a result, not only have they made their way to the smartphone platform, but Facebook offers many tile-matching games or a slightly different equivalent to the millions-strong horde of casual gamers glued to their screens each week.
Tetris is an extremely important game because it’s concrete proof that a videogame can span all audiences. There has been an incredible amount of debate about which games are for “casuals” and which are for the “hardcore”, and Tetris debunks the theory entirely by proving, quite simply, that some games can form a fanbase comprised of a mix of play-styles and skill levels.
It’s exciting to see so many shared memories of the game, and the legacy it left. It even lead to a chart hit for Andrew Lloyd Webber and record producer Nigel Wright back in 1992 under the pseudonym Dr Spin, who turned the game’s tune into a Eurodance foot tapper.
Alongside the classic are so many different variations on the same theme, because when it comes down to it, Tetris is a masterclass in arcade-style videogame design. It’s accessible, it’s cheap, it yields infinite value as it can never be completed, and you could play it on a Gameboy Classic or an iPhone, as the graphics aren’t the important part. In fact, some would argue that original is best. To Tetris: may you stand forever as a beacon to gamers and game designers alike.
Nadia Hyeong is a freelancer with a passion for gadgets, games, and films. Follow her on her Twitter and Google+!