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Tetris

lastmod 2025-03-14created 2021-04-237 edits

Tetris (Russian: Те́трис, English: Tetris) is a puzzle game first designed and programmed by Soviet programmer Alexey Pajitnov. The game was first created on June 6, 1984. Alexey Pajitnov was working at the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Academy of Sciences) in Moscow. He made the game's name by combining Tetra, the Greek numeral prefix, with tennis, which Pajitnov loved.

Tetris (or variants of Tetris) runs on almost all video game consoles and computer operating systems, and is also found as an Easter egg on devices such as graphing calculators, mobile phones, PMPs, PDAs, network music players, and even oscilloscopes. Tetris has also been played on the facades of several buildings.

Tetris debuted in the home computer market in the 1980s, and the portable Tetris for the Game Boy raised it to the ranks of famous games. Tetris took 1st place in Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine's 100 "greatest games of all time", and 2nd place in IGN's 2007 list of the top 100 video games of all time. Over 700 million copies of Tetris are counted as sold. In January 2010, it was announced that mobile Tetris, launched in 2005, had surpassed 1 billion downloads.

Terms

Tetris
The result of clearing the maximum of 4 lines at once using an I-Tetrimino vertically. The plural is Tetrises
T-Spin
An action where you first drop a T-Tetrimino and then rotate it into a T-Slot before it locks down
Lock Down
The situation where a Tetrimino can no longer move after landing on the floor of the Matrix or on top of blocks
Block Out
A game-over situation that occurs when part of a newly generated Tetrimino is blocked by existing blocks in the Matrix
Buffer Zone
The Buffer Zone is the 20 invisible rows above the Skyline, where Tetris generation and game-over situations can occur.
T-Slot
A block structure where, when a T-Tetrimino is rotated into place, existing blocks occupy three of the four cells diagonally adjacent to the center of the T-Tetrimino.
Top Out Line
The topmost line of the Buffer Zone, located 20 lines above the Skyline.
Matrix
An array of cells in a rectangle, usually 10 cells wide and 20 cells tall
Mino
A single square block that forms the basic unit of a Tetrimino. 4 Minos combined in various shapes are called a Tetrimino
Top Out
A game-over situation that occurs when a new block pushes existing blocks past the Top Out Line at the top of the 20-line Buffer Zone. Happens in multiplayer Tetris.
Skyline
The horizontal line at the top of the Matrix. Tetriminos fall from the midpoint of the Matrix just above the Skyline.
Block
A single block locked inside a cell of the Matrix. Also called an existing block in the game.
Back-to-Back
Performing two major bonus actions, such as a Tetris or a T-Spin Double, consecutively without being interrupted by a Single, Double, or Triple line clear.

Impelementation

TETRIS-OS: An operating system that only plays Tetris.
https://github.com/jdah/tetris-os
A Tetris-only OS
  • C + Assembly, open source (MIT)
  • 32-bit (x86)
  • Custom bootloader
  • Sound Blaster 16 driver
  • Custom music player
  • Hard-coded Tetris theme
  • 320x200 pixels, 60fps double buffering
Tetris - Python Arcade 2.6.17
https://api.arcade.academy/en/latest/examples/tetris.html

See also

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