January 5, 2024 – Tetris

A 13 year old from Oklahoma just became the first person to ever beat Tetris! Willis Gibson technically made it to a “kill screen”, a point where the code glitches and crashes the game. Back on December 21, Willis triggered a kill screen on level 157, which the gaming world considers a victory over the game.
Tetris was created in 1985 by a Soviet software engineer named Alexey Pajitnov. He was inspired by a game he played as a child called “Pentominoes”, where you create pictures using its shapes. He remembered the difficulty he had getting the pieces back into their box and had an idea. He envisioned the pieces falling into a glass, with players controlling the pieces and guiding them into place. He made the shapes 4 squares each and programmed the game in his spare time. He named his game Tetris by combining “tetra” (meaning four) and his favorite sport, tennis.
Pajitnov showed the game to his colleagues, who all quickly became addicted to it. Early users copied and shared the game on floppy disks, and soon it spread all across Moscow. It was so popular that it had to be banned from the Moscow Medical Institute to restore productivity there. The game was released internationally in 1988.
Tetris was extremely popular and is considered one of the greatest video games ever made. As of 2011, it had sold 202 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises. It’s available on more than 65 platforms, giving it the Guinness World Record for most ported video game.
Tetris has been the subject of much scientific research over the years. One study found that people who played Tetris for an hour and a half a week for 3 months had structural brain improvements and a boost in general cognitive functions. Another study found that the game can help people with PTSD, reducing flashbacks by up to 50%. Scientists from Plymouth Unversity’s Cognition Institute have done research that shows playing Tetris can distract from cravings in people who are struggling to stick to diets, or quit smoking or drinking.
Tetris was the first video game in space. In 1993, a Russian cosmonaut, Aleksandr Serebrov, was the first person to bring a video game to space when he packed his Game Boy and his copy of Tetris for his trip to the MIR Space Station. In 2015, the game was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play. Learn more here.