The History of Puzzle Games


Pre-Tetris (1976-1987)
Tetris (1988)
Post-Tetris (1989-1995)
Beyond Tetris (1996-Present)
The Ten Best Puzzle Games
Table of Contents
Tetris (1988)

In the brief history of video games, there are few titles that can truly be called revolutionary. Among them are Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter II, Super Mario 64, and, of course, Tetris.

In hindsight, the groundwork for Tetris had been laid by games like Q*Bert's Qubes and Atari Video Cube, but nothing in the past had prepared gamers for the simple brilliance of Tetris. Created and designed by Russian Alexey Pajitnov in 1985, the game first appeared on American shores on the PC in 1987 and in arcades in 1988.

 
The seven Tetris blocks.
But it wasn't until 1989 that Tetris fever really began to set it. That was when Nintendo introduced the Game Boy, its portable game system. The pack-in cartridge? Tetris. The two were a perfect match - Tetris worked perfectly on the small black-and-white screen and introduced millions of people (more than 30 million) to the wonders of Tetris.

Simplicity and addictive gameplay contributed greatly to the almost universal popularity of Tetris. The game is based on a traditional puzzle game named Pentomino, and the object is to arrange and rotate falling blocks into lines without any gaps. Each complete line you make disappears from the game area while lines with gaps remain. When incomplete lines fill up the entire game area, the game is over.

The name Tetris itself comes from the Greek word "tetra," which means four. The significance of the name for the game is that four squares make up each Tetris block. There are seven different ways you can arrange four squares, so there are seven different Tetris blocks.

Besides being the most popular puzzle game in the world, Tetris has the distinction of possibly being the video game with the most sequels, variations, clones, and knockoffs.

 
NES title screen.
 
NES.
 
Game Boy title screen.
 
Game Boy.
 
Tengen title screen.
 
Tengen's version.
Tetris (original)
Released: 1988, 1989
Systems: Arcade ('88), NES, Game Boy ('89)

Did the Game Boy make Tetris popular, or was it the other way around? Either way, the Game Boy was the way most people were introduced to Tetris. Some of us may have played it first at the arcade or on the Commodore 64, but it was Nintendo's decision to make it the pack-in game for the Game Boy that made Tetris a household name.

The arcade version, released by Atari Games, is broken down into levels, where you have to complete a certain number of lines to move on. And two players can play at once.

Tengen (Atari Games' home division) planned and produced an NES version of the coin-op without actually securing rights to the game. So, Nintendo game along, got the rights, and forced Tengen to take its version of the game off the market, but not before a few gamers had gotten their hands on a copy. Hence, Tengen's version of Tetris is one of the harder-to-find NES games.

In both Nintendo's NES and Game Boy versions, there are two game variations - the A Game, where the object is to complete the most lines, and the B Game, where you try to complete 25 lines. Other game options include nine levels of speed and the ability to start the B Game with up to five levels of incomplete lines already in the game area. One featuring missing from Nintendo's NES version is two-player simultaneous play, which Tengen's version includes.

Rank: #1




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