Written in June 1984 on an Elektronika 60 at the Soviet Academy of Sciences computing centre in Moscow (1984)
Alexey Pajitnov's machine had no graphics, so the falling pieces were drawn with bracket characters
General knowledge · Film, TV & games
Tetris
1984
Video games — the Soviet puzzle game that conquered the world
A falling-block puzzle game written in June 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov at the Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow, on an Elektronika 60 with no graphics, the pieces drawn from bracket characters. Pajitnov coined the name from the Greek tetra, four, and tennis, his favourite sport; the seven pieces are the tetrominoes, every shape that can be made from four squares. Copied from machine to machine across the Eastern bloc and then westward, it became the subject of a tangled rights battle before Nintendo bundled it with the Game Boy in 1989.
How to spot them
- ▸Seven tetrominoes — I, O, T, S, Z, J and L — falling into a well, clearing completed lines
- ▸Written in Moscow in 1984 on an Elektronika 60 with no graphics at all
- ▸A theme adapted from the Russian folk song 'Korobeiniki'
- ▸The state agency ELORG, the Game Boy bundle, and the lawsuit against Atari's Tengen
Key facts
A name coined from the Greek word for four and its author's favourite sport (1984)
Tetra plus tennis; the pieces are the tetrominoes, and the designer took the idea from pentominoes
Seven shapes, each made of four squares, labelled I, O, T, S, Z, J and L
Every distinct arrangement of four squares joined edge to edge
'Korobeiniki', a Russian folk song set to a poem by Nikolai Nekrasov, used as the handheld theme (1989)
Known to a generation simply as the 'A-Type' music
Bundled with the Game Boy from 1989, and credited with selling the machine to adults (1989)
Henk Rogers had persuaded Nintendo that a puzzle game would reach beyond children
A 1989 negotiation in Moscow with the state agency ELORG, and the lawsuit that destroyed Atari's version (1989)
Nintendo v. Atari Games; Tengen's cartridges were withdrawn and destroyed
Its creator earned nothing from it for twelve years, until the rights reverted to him in 1996 (1996)
The Soviet state owned the work; Pajitnov and Henk Rogers then formed The Tetris Company
A 13-year-old from Oklahoma crashed the NES version in December 2023, going further than any human had (2023)
Willis Gibson reached the 'true kill screen' on level 157
Quick-fire facts
- •Written by Alexey Pajitnov in June 1984 at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences
- •The name combines the Greek tetra (four) with tennis; a tetromino is any shape made of four squares
- •Vadim Gerasimov ported it to the IBM PC, from where it spread west via Hungary
- •Rights were held by ELORG, a Soviet state agency, producing a famously tangled dispute between Robert Stein, Mirrorsoft and Spectrum HoloByte
- •Henk Rogers flew to Moscow in 1989 and secured the handheld rights for Nintendo
- •Nintendo sued Atari Games over Tengen's rival cartridge and won; the cartridges were destroyed
- •The Game Boy was bundled with the game from 1989, and both sold in enormous numbers
- •The theme music is an arrangement of the Russian folk song 'Korobeiniki'
- •Pajitnov received no money from the game until 1996, when the rights reverted and he co-founded The Tetris Company with Henk Rogers
- •The 'Tetris effect' describes seeing falling blocks when you close your eyes after long play
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Dan Ackerman — The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World
- The Tetris Company — The Tetris Company — history of the game Consulted for origin and rights history; cited without URL