At the beginning was… text-mode!

A screener from the probably very first incarnation of Tetris.

You are almost 25 years now, but still such a beauty. As you turn 25 on the 6th June 2009 (Reuters says this is the possible official date), we do not want to talk about what million selling beast you are still today, like all the other media do. No, we want you to dig everything possible out of your mystic and gameplay specialities. Check this post for all about tetris gameplay.

Alexey Pajitnov almost made no bucks with Tetris itself, because it was a little bit of Sovjet vs. the rest of the world thing, due problems with licencing and people acting strange. But Alexey also said, that he made some other games as well at that time in 1984. At least he looks happy, and making games is not only about bucks, right?

25 Years later…

…thousands of Tetris-copies and -variants were made. And some of them are real jewels. I most recently found a one- or two-player variant called Inverted. You drop blocks from top and bottom and have to keep the “colors” consistent. It’s fresh and highly recommended!

Inverted: A random Tetris variant from 2009.

Update: Thanks Jordan. There is a tetris-documentary online, made by the BBC in 2006, called “From Russia with Love”. See the first part here.

For the rest head over to this YouTube-playlist from GameDocumentaries.