Tetris was one of the first and favorite computer games in the post-Soviet space. A simple puzzle with uncomplicated geometric shapes did not shine with originality, but in the eighties it made a splash.
History of the game
The name "Tetris" comes from the words "Tetrimino" (geometric shapes consisting of four squares) and "tennis". In 1984, the game was invented by the Soviet computer scientist Aleksey Pazhitnov. The first version was written in Pascal. The following year, the author, together with Dmitry Pavlovsky, adapted the game for the computer "Electronics-60", soon 16-year-old Vadim Gerasimov rewrote Tetris for the IBM PC.
After a couple of years, the whole world knew the puzzle. The first commercial version was released by Spectrum HoloByte (USA). It is impossible to calculate the total number of Tetris variants, the game was installed on a variety of devices, from calculators and players to mobile phones and personal computers. The puzzle was and remains one of the best computer games in history, with ten other Tetris held in the Library of Congress in the United States of America.
Interesting Facts
- Many companies sought to obtain distribution rights for the game. In 1988, the Japanese Nintendo signed an agreement, 35 million copies of Tetris were shipped with the Game Boy handheld console. Since then, the circulation has increased to 500 million.
- The hallucinogenic properties of Tetris were reported in 2014 by an international journal on human-computer interaction. According to research, after a long game, figures continue to fall in front of a person's closed eyes.
- If you have played Tetris with sound, you can hardly forget a melody similar to Korobeynikov. Thanks to the computer game, the folk song became a viral hit.
- Tetris is an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (Museum of Modern Art, MoMA). The organizers considered this video game an outstanding example of interactive design.
- Nintendo Game Boy with Tetris went into space. In 1993, cosmonaut Alexander Serebrov was having fun at the Mir station.
Did you play Tetris in the nineties? Then it will be interesting to compare the impressions. Those, who have never played the cult puzzle, urgently need to join the classics of computer games.
