What made Tetris special?

You've probably hit the nail on the head by saying our brains subconciously understand it. It can be played instantly without 'learning',has strong shapes and colours that we recognise from a young age and it's addictive!.

The game is easily understood, even by idiots. However, I got bored of it in about a week.

definitely the simplicity of the game was the selling factor.

i mean imagine a fighting where all the special moves and regular moves were accessible with one button push and combos were executed with two button pushes. simplicity is where it's at my friend [smile]

In most popular games, there are the action packed scenes that require the player to use all of his/her skill. Then there arte the other scenes where the player gets to relax. This happens in tetris without any extra programming. When the player makes a mistake and the blocks build up, the player is forced to be skillfull or s/he will loose. Once the player clears most of the lines, the player gets a break. I think its this blend of ease and diffaculty that makes it a good game.

I guess all i can say is that i hated tetris, lol!

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Original post by chaosgame In most popular games, there are the action packed scenes that require the player to use all of his/her skill. Then there arte the other scenes where the player gets to relax. This happens in tetris without any extra programming. When the player makes a mistake and the blocks build up, the player is forced to be skillfull or s/he will loose. Once the player clears most of the lines, the player gets a break. I think its this blend of ease and diffaculty that makes it a good game.

You're right! I've never thought of that, but it makes alot of sense.

Thats another thing about tetris that confused me. I liked it alot, but its really repedative (at least on the surface). 99% of repedative games I play, I never play again.

I wonder what other similiarities to action games Tetris has.

True, you keep doing the same thing over and over again; fit the pieces together to make a line. But the order that the pieces fall in are random, so despite the same old rules, you still have to deal with the unexpected. And, to me, that's where the challenge lies.

Uh... Nintendo GameBoy™.

The Nintendo GameBoy was cheap, portable, long-lasting, and came with Tetris. Between them, they made each other pop culture phenomena. The rest, as they say, is history.

Tetris is the purest abstraction of a game. It's all gameplay. The idea of tetris does not depend on the hardware, software. 2D, 3D, it's still the same game. It also has no correlation to the real world; ie. pong = tennis. I think that's why it's regarded as such a masterpiece.

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Original post by vnillabrent It also has no correlation to the real world; ie. pong = tennis. I think that's why it's regarded as such a masterpiece.

Lies! I can't think of a day going by without using my powerful knowledge of Tetris helping me!

I never really did like Tetris, I guess i just 'missed' that band wagon. Although my generation is the shoot 'em up, must have super 3d graphics! (What you say? No realistic eye brow simulation? Is that even a GAME?! hehe) generation so.. maybe thats why. It's you old people and your love for wishing you were kids again! :P

-Limb

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Original post by Oluseyi Uh... Nintendo GameBoy™. The Nintendo GameBoy was cheap, portable, long-lasting, and came with Tetris. Between them, they made each other pop culture phenomena. The rest, as they say, is history.

Sorry that stupid random logout problem erased part of my post, I meant to ask what was the first system Tetris came out on as a kind of pop-quiz. (Hint: not the gameboy)

A good game is easy to learn, and hard to master.

i thought it was nintendo but through an unlicensed developer... i think the name was Tengen or something.

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Original post by zarthrag Sorry that stupid random logout problem erased part of my post, I meant to ask what was the first system Tetris came out on as a kind of pop-quiz. (Hint: not the gameboy)

The computer. As to which one I am too lazy to find out.

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Original post by Oluseyi Uh... Nintendo GameBoy™. The Nintendo GameBoy was cheap, portable, long-lasting, and came with Tetris. Between them, they made each other pop culture phenomena. The rest, as they say, is history.

I think the Gameboy helped, but i dont think that the gameboy is why Tetris is the number 1 most copied game in the histopy of games. There are countless Tetris Clones. Also, most people that arent realgamers havent played the gameboy, yet most people have played a version of tetris.

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Original post by Garmichael Ive been playing alot of my glassic games lately, trying to figure out the details of why they're better than other games. While playing Tetris,I couldnt really put my finger on it. Why has tetris been a staple in the puzzle genre so long, and why arent other puzzle games anywhere near as popular? Does anyone have any ideas? Im thinking theres some psychological link to the way the pieces fit together; we like it because our brains understand it subconciously

Talk to someone woman, she will say "why?mm.. cause its easy, it have colors and it have a nice music ^^". In fact, you still can see people (specially women) playing Pacman or Puzzle Booble and both are best sellings.

And tetris is popular because it *can* be ported in almost any console, pc, arcade, cells, calcs...

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Original post by Garmichael I think the Gameboy helped, but i dont think that the gameboy is why Tetris is the number 1 most copied game in the histopy of games. There are countless Tetris Clones. Also, most people that arent realgamers havent played the gameboy, yet most people have played a version of tetris.

You're missing the point. The GameBoy and Tetris became icons together, which helped popularize the idea of Tetris sufficiently for it to become the most popular game of all time. After the GameBoy, we started to see specialized handhelds that played nothing but Tetris. This was 20 years ago, just in case you're lacking the necessary perspectival distance.

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Original post by Oluseyi Quote: Original post by Garmichael I think the Gameboy helped, but i dont think that the gameboy is why Tetris is the number 1 most copied game in the histopy of games. There are countless Tetris Clones. Also, most people that arent realgamers havent played the gameboy, yet most people have played a version of tetris. You're missing the point. The GameBoy and Tetris became icons together, which helped popularize the idea of Tetris sufficiently for it to become the most popular game of all time. After the GameBoy, we started to see specialized handhelds that played nothing but Tetris. This was 20 years ago, just in case you're lacking the necessary perspectival distance.

Certainly Tetris became so incredibly popular due to the GameBoy (and vice versa), but that isn't the only element involved. Tetris is a very special game on any system, in a way that, say, Columns never was. I've seen two people compelled by Tetris that didn't realise the object was to complete lines. They thought the goal was to build a big wall without destroying any by making a line.

I can't quite explain that, but it's obviously a powerful game on some level. I do know that it is extremely finely tuned: Pajitnov spent a long time testing out possibilities, and although there are variant versions, anything that deviates from the seven tetronimoes and and a pit ten squares wide by twenty deep isn't really compelling.