Tetris

Submission 19,210

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About

Tetris is a puzzle video game created by Alexey Pajitnov, a scientist in the USSR, in the 1980s. The game involves guiding differently shaped collections of colored titles into corresponding gaps in the bricks.

History

Tetris was first created in Moscow, Russia in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov.^[1] The original version of the game was played on a Electronika 60 terminal computer. The game first came to computer systems in America in 1986. By the late '80s the game was officially owned by Atari Games and Nintendo (for arcade play and home play, respectively). In 1988 the game was officially included with the new handheld Game Boy system. In 2014 the game was licensed to XBox One and Playstation 4.

Gameplay

To play Tetris, users must move a slowly falling group of bricks, which can take the form of a rectangle, square, or zig zag shape, into corresponding gaps in the group of bricks at the bottom to create rows. When a row is completely filled in, it dissolves and the player earns points. The game ends when the blocks reach the top of the screen.

Online Presence

On June 25th, 2009, redditor omfgninja created the subreddit /r/Tetris/^[3]. As of August 2014, the subreddit has gained over 1,000 readers. Many sites created articles about Tetris on June 6th, 2014, for its 30th birthday including The Daily Dot^[4] and Polygon.^[8]

Fandom

As of August 2014, DeviantArt ^[5] has over 16,000 pieces of fan art tagged Tetris. There are also several fan run Tumblr blogs dedicated to the game including tetris-problems^[6] and tetris-syndrome.^[7]

Viral Videos

On December 6th, 2007, YouTuber NOTsoNOISY Guillaume Reymond^[10] uploaded a video titled "The Original Human TETRIS Performance by Guillaume Reymond" which featured groups of people in corresponding colored shirts arranged as bricks playing a game of live Tetris. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 14.2 million views. On January 13th, 2010, YouTube channel College Humor uploaded a video titled "The Tetris God" which depicted a poweful God dictating what Tetris bricks would appear. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 6.1 million views.

On September 2nd, 2013, YouTuber Smooth McGroove^[11] uploaded a video titled "Tetris – Theme 'A' Acapella." As of August 2014, the video has gained over 2.8 million views. On June 17th, 2014, YouTuber marc kerger^[12] uploaded a video titled "Play tetris on a Tshirt," within two months the video gained over 250,000 views.