Even people who don’t know anything about computer games have heard of Tetris. The puzzle game originally developed in 1984 by Alexei Paschitnow, which the Russian speech recognition researcher once developed at the scientific institute in Moscow programmed on the Electronica 60 computeris one of the most famous games of all time.
The version for the Game Boy released by Nintendo in 1989 in particular made Tetris famous in the West. However, its creator Paschitnov benefited due to of licensing disputes not from the millions of sales.
The entertaining, sometimes somewhat outrageous film Tetris on Apple TV+ shows how the game found its way to us.
On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Game Boy version, I don’t want to report on the exciting background of Tetris, but rather take my own personal journey into the past and finally play the classic again.
When the Game Boy was released in Germany in the fall of 1990, it was euphorically celebrated by the specialist press, while at the same time the timeless genius of Tetris was repeatedly highlighted.
My favorite magazine Power Play even gave it the absolute rating Dream grade of 96 out of 100 possible points – a value that would never be achieved again in the history of the magazine.
In my declaration of love on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Game Boy, I already reported on my first contact with Tetris on the Nintendo handheld. I played it for the first time when I was 13 years old in a department store in my hometown of Worms.
In the toy department there were several Game Boy gaming stations equipped with Tetris, which were connected to each other via a link cable so that you could have fun with the puzzle game alone or in duel mode with two people, which my school friends and I did with enthusiasm.
Video: Tetris – Trailer (Apple TV)
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After I was given my own Game Boy for Christmas 1990, Tetris became a long-running favorite that I played again and again until I graduated from high school in the mid-90s.