Tetrominoes, bricks composed of 4 little squares, are falling down the screen, and one has to direct them so they will fit to the wall on the bottom. When a line of bricks has no gaps, it is complete and dissappears, the maximum number of lines that can be completed is obviously 4, known as a tetris.
In order to master the game, the technique of sliding a piece just before it sets is invaluable, as well as using both rotation buttons, when available.
A massively popular game, Tetris has appeared on nearly every games machine available, it has even appeared as part of an art exhibition on the side of a building [1]. Its most popular port has been to the Game Boy, considered by some the one true form of the game.
The game called Tetris has been embroiled in a strangely large amount of legal battles since its inception. In June 1985, Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris on an Electronica 60 while working for the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He created it at their Computer Center, and Vadim Gerasimov ported it to the IBM PC. From there, the game exploded into popularity, and began spreading all around Moscow.
The IBM PC version eventually made its way to Budapest?, Hungary, where it was ported to various platforms and was "discovered" by a British software house named Andromeda. They attempted to contact Pajitnov to secure the rights for the PC version, but before the deal was firmly settled, they had already sold the rights to Spectrum Holobyte. After failing to settle the deal with Pajitnov, Andromeda attempted to license it from the Hungarian programmers instead. Meanwhile, before any legal rights were settled, the Spectrum Holobyte IBM PC version of Tetris was released in the United States in 1986. The game's popularity was tremendous, and many were instantly hooked--it was a software blockbuster.
The details of the licensing issues were uncertain by this point, but in 1987 Andromeda managed to obtain copyright licensing for the IBM PC version and and any other home computer system. By 1988, Pajitnov had created his own company for licensing purposes called Elektronorgtechnica, or simply "Elorg". By this time Elorg and Pajitnov had still seen no money from Andromeda, and yet Andromeda was licensing and sub-licensing rights that they themselves didn't even have.
By 1989, half a dozen different companies claimed rights to create and distribute the Tetris software, for the various arcade systems (such as Nintendo's Famicom, and the Game Boy hand-held system). Elorg, meanwhile, held that none of the companies were legally entitled to produce an arcade version, and promptly signed those rights over to Nintendo.
Tengen (part of Atari), regardless, applied for copyright for their Famicom version of Tetris and proceeded to market and distribute it, blatantly disrespecting both Nintendo's and Elorg's rights to the game. After only a few (very popular) months on the shelf, the courts ruled that Nintendo had the rights to Tetris on arcade systems, and Tengen's version of Tetris was recalled. Nintendo released their version of Tetris for both the Famicom and the Game Boy and sold more than three million copies. The lawsuits between Tengen and Nintendo, however, carried on until 1993.
Alexey Pajitnov himself made very little money from the deal, however, even though Nintendo was able to profit from the game handsomely. In 1996, he and [Henk Rogers]? formed The Tetris Company LLC and Blue Planet Software in an effort to get royalties from the game, with little success. They currently own the trademark "Tetris" and have sent legal notices to programmers who have made Tetris clones available. Their legal ground is shakey concerning clones that do not use the actual trademark Tetris itself, nor variations on it.
As of this writing, The Tetris Company LLC has licensed the Tetris game to only the following: Bullet-Proof Software, Inc.; Capcom Co., Ltd.; Ericsson Mobile Communication AB; Hasbro Interactive, Inc.; Jaleco Ltd.; Microsoft Corporation; Nintendo Co., Ltd.; Semi-Tech (Turku) Oy; Seta Corporation; Shockwave.com, Inc.; Pocket Express; Radica Games. Any other versions are unauthorized and, although no court cases to date are known, their legality is unsure. The Tetris Company LLC lists further licensing information on their own web site: [tetris.com].
In 2001 (at time of writing) Tetris is a registered trademark of The Tetris Company LLC.
Normally, the player loses because they are no longer able to keep up with the increasing speed. But what if the speed didn't increase, or if you had perfect reflexes? Would it be possible to play forever? There has been an article published that addresses this issue, and it turns out that you are doomed to lose eventually. The problem is the S- and Z-shaped pieces. Suppose you got a large sequence of S-shaped pieces of the same orientation. Eventually, you'd be forced to leave a hole in a corner. Suppose you then get a large sequence of identical S-shaped pieces of the opposite orientation. Eventually, you'll be forced to leave a hole in the opposite corner, without clearing your previous hole. Now, things go back to the original orientation for awhile and so on until the pieces stack up to the top. Since the pieces are distributed randomly, this sequence will, eventually, occur. So, if you play long enough, you will lose.
Tetris is one of the most-cloned games, with Minesweeper? probably being second.
If you liked tetris, you might also like other puzzle games: Dr. Mario, Puzzle Bobble, Puyo Puyo, Columns, Klax, Uo Poko.
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