Tetris
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Chaos
Tetris is a game of creating order from chaos. The goal is typically
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to position shapes falling from the top of the playing field within a limiting "well" in order to form a complete line from one side to the other. Each time this is done, the line is cleared away, and any remaining "blocks" are shifted down.
The falling shapes are composed of every variation one can create with four connected blocks. Each unique shape is given an individual color. As the blocks fall, you are allowed to rotate each piece to help determine how it might best fit within the mess you have created below. Once a block touches the bottom of the playing field, or other blocks, it stops and another piece falls from nowhere. This process goes on until you
Position so many blocks badly that there is no room for more blocks.
Become so impossibly frustrated that you smash the computer with the nearest bat, cane, or co-worker.
History
The game was created by a russian mathematician Alexey Pajitnov
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in 1985 "as a diversion". It quickly spread to many computers inside and outside of Russia. Everyone who saw it became addicted. The Hungarians got ahold of it and created their own versions. A Hungarian-born brit saw it, prompty sold the rights to an American firm, and then proceeded to get the rights from the Russians. The Americans sold it to the Japanese, and the Japanese put it on the Nintendo Gameboy hand-held game system, and soon people everywhere were not getting work done.
