The Invention of Tetris 🕹️

Morning Gamers!

So… TETRIS.

You move and rotate falling shapes to fit in gaps and make lines.

Super simple!

Probably why it's literally the most popular game of all time.

But did you know Tetris has an origin story tied up with the Soviet Union?

Let me explain…

There was this guy, Alexey Pajitnov, who was a Russian computer scientist working at the Moscow Academy of Sciences in the early 80s.

Now, he always loved math, computers and puzzles.

And he would often play this little known board game called Pentominoes.

Basically, it was a puzzle board game where you fit geometric shapes together.

Now, Alexey took the basic idea from Pentominoes and decided to create a computer game out of it, just for a bit of fun.

He imagined the pieces falling from the sky and the player would have to maneuver them so they land in the right spot.

So, he used his 1980s zero graphics computer to make this:

He called it… Tetris!
Made entirely out of text characters.

The story goes like this:

Alexey made the game and gave it out to some of his friends.

These friends copied the game onto their computer and then gave the disk to their friends.

Then those friends did the same thing…

And in just 2 weeks, they say that every computer in every office in Moscow had Tetris downloaded on it.

It became a cult hit!

Unfortunately for Alexey, he was living in Communist Russia at the time, meaning technically he didn't own the rights to his game, the state did.

But don't worry, eventually, a VERY long way down the road, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Alexey did actually manage to gain control of his creation.

And so, he established The Tetris Company.