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I ❤️ Tetris

If you’ve ever met me and video games were a discussion topic then you’ll know that I deeply adore Tetris. I’ve always felt that Tetris was the purest video game ever created.

No one version of Tetris supplants the others as each is unique. Some may scoff at new features like being able to hold pieces, or being able to rotate pieces after they’ve touched the playing field, but I assure you Tetris is only as difficult as your skill level. There is no end and the sky is the limit.

With the release of Tetris Effect on PS41, I thought I’d share some links that I’ve come across that tell the story of Tetris, show the evolution of Tetris, and some other nibbly bits in there as well.2

The History Of Tetris
The evolution of Tetris. Several comparisons of the different versions. 
KevinDDR becomes a Tetris Grandmaster (Only 9 Exist as of November 2018)
Tetris Grandmaster: Tetris at an extremely high level of play.

Tetris: The Games People Play

A wonderful graphic novel depicting3 the history of Tetris.

The Classic Tetris World Championship was on fire in 2018. A 16 year old dethroned the seven time winner. It was intense.

Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris?

If you come across anything Tetris related please feel free to share.

  1. I really want to play this in VR before I talk about it more. ↩
  2. I’ll probably update this post as I find more things. ↩
  3. some liberties taken ↩
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Lateral Technology

An excerpt from Super Mario Bros. 2 (Boss Fight Books Book 6) by Jon Irwin:

Each of these advances in business strategy relied on the same simple idea: building something new from old parts. Yokoi called it the philosophy of seasoned—or lateral—technology. State-of-the-art didn’t necessarily equal innovation and wonder. But find a clever way to combine common ideas and you can surprise and delight an audience—for cheap.

Nintendo has always done this. It’s in their DNA. The Game Boy was technologically inferior at the time, however it prevailed in the handheld market, and its limitations made some of the most creative games. Nintendo doesn’t compete in a 4K, jillion teraflops, HDR market.