The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!
Let’s discuss Tetris. What was the first time you played this timeless classic? What version of the game do you like most? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let’s get the conversation going!
If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).
Previous entries: Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire
This might be the earliest game that is linked to my existence, as my mother bought a Game Boy and played this while pregnant :). Later on I played the same cartridge on my first gaming console: a green Game Boy Color. I cannot fathom the amount of hours I’ve played this game in my life.
When going to University, I found my Game Boy Color in a closet. After swapping out the batteries I realized that it still worked perfectly and I played it throughout Uni, sometimes even during lectures. I remember all my friends being excited when I got close to breaking my personal record, it was a really fun time.
Of the recent versions I really liked Tetris Effect (even if only for the phenomenal trailer). Tetris 99 is also pretty cool, but I’m really bad at competitive tetris so I never even got close to winning.
Totally forgot about Tetris 99, had a great time playing!
I bought Tetris effect for the psvr and haven’t tried it out yet, haha.
So cool you got to play the same cartridge as your mother played!
For a long time I thought I didn’t like Tetris very much. Tetris 99, Tetris Effect and Puyo Puyo Tetris made me reconsider that. Turns out I just needed a push, and now I occasionally spend hours on the stuff, gladly.
I think excluding rhythm games, Tetris must be one of the only game that gets me into “the zone”.
Tetr.io is by far the best implementation of this game currently.
No way. Tetris Effect Connect on the Unreal Engine. I bought it twice just to have it on my Switch, PC, and Steam Deck.
Its basically a perfect game. It never feels dated and has one of the most horribly catchy songs ever created by man. Its weird that it’s so fun, its like as simple as you can really boil down a game, its literally just arranging blocks into lines. But it just clicks with the human brain on some deep level.
This is one of the most influential games ever for so many different reasons… I am definitely a big fan and have a lot of great memories with the classic one on NES, especially the 1v1 mode. It was a pure joy to play with my uncle, brother, friends or mom, she preferred Battle City tho!
This was long time ago, now if I play, I go for the Tetris Effect — which doesn’t change the main formula, it mostly builds around it or plays with it.
One of — counterintuitively — not so many games that you can just keep playing to get better at them, as your brain rewires itself and conscious decision making process goes into the deep, unconscious brain backroom magic. Of course to be the best there is a lot of technical knowledge or some tactical aspects but the base gameplay loop just keeps you in self-learning mode or more often than not, in the flow state.
Around 1990 my parents would take us to the mall and say “meet back here in 1 hour.” I would immediately go to the store that had a Gameboy display and play Tetris for the entire hour, often losing track of time and getting in trouble.
There were other kids waiting weren’t there, but you never stopped
This is a fantastic documentary on Tetris by Gaming Historian. Fascinating history about its development in the Soviet Union and how it came to be a launch title for Nintendo.
ZTetris for the TI-83, that was where it was at in high school
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around T spins. High level tetris play is absurd to me. I have no idea how people can make sense of it. Watching it makes sense, but playing it is entirely a whole other ballpark.
I think my favorite versions of tetris are a homebrew version made for the gba called apotris and the newest tetris effect because it has pretty colors lol. Oh actually I also like tetris 99. The concept is really neat. I also like the themes available in that one. You can probably see a trend here. I like the pretty colors lol
I’m glad they keep iterating on it though. I think there’s a lot of “classic” games that don’t really need to be…revamped or changed. They’re good the way they are, but people just want more of what made the existing games good. So many timed companies try to reinvent the wheel when it didn’t really need to be remade (the halo series comes to mind. RIP)
At the risk of going slightly off topic, one puzzle type game similar to tetris that I got completely absorbed into is lumines. Have any of you played that title? I’m curious how tetris experts would compare the two. In my eyes lumines seemed a lot more simple in design compared to tetris. But I have no idea. I sunk 60 hours so far into lumines which is probably rookie numbers, but I’ve never gotten so into a puzzle game like this before.
I played Tetris for the first time on my friend’s Gameboy back in the 90’s. I didn’t get addicted at the time and I’m still not, but I do play Tetris 99 on my switch occasionally.
Overall, it’s an amazing game. It can be learned in minutes but takes years to master.
I really liked Tetris DS. The retro NES graphics and remixed music was a fantastic love letter to those old games, and the songs were pretty damn good to boot. It was also the version of Tetris I was best at, for some reason I was a lot better with the old, flat, firm DS Phat buttons more than any other console. I forgot what level I got to in Endless but it was probably over 500. Multiplayer was also a hoot, with powerups and you could play with 9 other people that didn’t even need the game to play. (Remember those days when you didn’t have to all have a copy of the game to play together? What a concept!)
Highly recommend if you want to emulate it!
This, 100%. While GB Tetris and NES Tetris were some of the first games I remember playing, Tetris DS was one of the first Tetris games I loved. And you’ve absolutely got a point that the original DS does best; the mushy D-pad on the DS Lite just plays it so much worse in my experience. (I feel good about it on my New 2DS XL though other than the either very soft image or very small image I get from it though)
This version of Tetris likely has my most amount of hours on it as well, I played so much of it on my DS back in the day. Absolutely fantastic.
My runner up in terms of hours is probably Puyo Tetris.
I kinda suck at Tetris. We had a “LAN” last year where we played some battle royale Tetris game, and there was one girl who absolutely demolished everyone. After that I feel like a kid playing (and failing) with one of those block shape matching toys whenever I play Tetris. It’s a cool game though. Nice simple gameplay, but high skill ceiling. I respect people who absolutely destroy me at a game due to pure skill
Is there a good, modern, open source version that runs on phones about?
Blocks go BRRRRR
My first round of Tetris was on an old DMG my late stepfather owned. It was my first time even handling one of those old bricks, but I cherished it. I don’t know what in my young brain it hit, but something just felt right. That thing got lost somewhere in packing up the house after his passing, probably still had that exact cart slotted.
I don’t think I played it for years after that, until I got my OG Xbox, with the double pack Clone Wars/Tetris Worlds. If I wasn’t running around being a squeaker on Counter-Strike or MechWarrior, I was playing Tetris. Weekends spent gripping the Duke, trying to get as far as I could.
I don’t think I ever played Tetris before I got the OG Gameboy. I was like “ugh, ofcourse they give you a boring ass puzzle game with it”
I tried it but my focus was more on super Mario land that I bought with it.
But after awhile I tried it again with more effort and got totally sucked in to it. Just the easy to play and getting more difficult the better you did was so addictive.
I remember using a game genie to get only line blocks to see how far I could get with it.
Later I played the version on NES and other ones on various platforms but the one on Gameboy is still my favorite one.
Classic for the ages!
