Tetris

Description

Tetris is Nintendo’s portable version of Alexey Pajitnov’s falling-block puzzle game, where players rotate and place tetrominoes to complete horizontal lines and prevent the stack from reaching the top of the playfield. Single-player includes A-TYPE, an endless high-score mode, and B-TYPE, where the player clears 25 lines with selectable level and starting garbage height settings. The Japanese Game Boy release a two-player mode that requires two Game Boys, two cartridges, and a communication/link cable. In this mode, players compete by clearing lines, sending garbage to the opponent, and trying to win rounds.

Tetris was published by Nintendo only a few months after the Game Boy launched in Japan. It was developed by Nintendo R&D1, with key staff including producer Gunpei Yokoi, director Satoru Okada, programmer Masao Yamamoto, and music by Hirokazu Tanaka. Notably for the Japanese release, there is an early “Minuet” version that uses a different A-TYPE music track, while later versions use the now-iconic “Korobeiniki” arrangement that became strongly associated with Tetris. These are generally designated as the “Early Version,” while the later A-TYPE is the Korobeiniki version used from version 1.1 onward. Both received native system palette support on the later Game Boy Color.

Historically, this is one of the Game Boy’s most important games. It helped define the handheld, popularised link-cable competitive puzzle play, and became one of the system’s defining titles. Japanese lifetime sales are commonly noted at well over 4 million, while worldwide sales are often cited at over 30 million.