Tetris series

This article is a short summary of Tetris series. Hard Drop Tetris Wiki features a more in-depth article.

Tetris logo

The Tetris series revolves around an early computer puzzle and strategy game created by Russian computer scientist Alexey Pajitnov, originally on a Electronika 60 computer in 1984, who at the time worked at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. An MS-DOS version would later follow for North America in 1986 and within two years, Europe and Japan would experience Tetris too.

Many entries in the series are based directly on the same original game, where the player arranges tetrominoes on a 2D grid as they fall (through a simulation of gravity, though the player may be able to force it to fall faster by holding d-pad. Some games in the series allow the player to make the tetromino hit the ground/another tetromino instantly, known as a "hard drop"), but others are only inspired by the concept (such as Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon and Pokémon Puzzle League).

Nintendo have a few Tetris games that have been licensed to them, which Nintendo would develop internally, or publish.

History

The name Tetris was reportedly (according to co-worker Vadim Gerasimov) a combination of tetromino (four block shapes) and "tennis". At first, petrominoes (five block shapes) were considered for the game, but Pajitnov felt because the number of petrominoes variations would make the gameplay complex he would instead use something else.

The ownership rights of Tetris would originally put the developers into legal trouble. Due to complication regarding the game's conception in Soviet Russia (a communist country), Pajitnov reportedly feared response by the Soviet regime and gave the Soviet government the rights for ten years. Elorg would later acquire the rights, followed by The Tetris Company (whose shares are 50/50 jointly owned by Tetris Holding, LLC and Blue Planet Software).

List of Nintendo developed/published games

• Tetris (Game Boy, NES)
• Tetris 99 (Nintendo Switch)
• Tetris & Dr. Mario (SNES)
• Tetris DX (Game Boy Color)
• The New Tetris (with new 'merge' feature) (SNES)
• Pokémon Tetris (Pokémon mini)
• Tetris: Axis (Nintendo 3DS)
• Tetris DS (Nintendo DS)

Inspired

• 3D Tetris
• Dr. Mario series, NES game also contained in Classic NES Series, arcade version also available in the Nintendo VS. System series
• Nintendo Puzzle Collection
• Puzzle Chalien series
• Puzzle League series
• Tetris 2
• Tetrisphere
• Tetris Blast
• Tetris Attack
• Wario's Woods series
• Yoshi
• Yoshi's Cookie
• Yoshi no Panepon BS Han

References

• Parts paraphrased from English Wikipedia article contributors, which links to more (non-wiki) references.

Trivia

• Pokémon series creator Game Freak (also responsible for the puzzle game Yoshi) would analyse Tetris in their founder/executive producer's book, New Game Design. This included strategy information, statistics, hypothetical block combinations that do not exist.