Tetris
Platform: Game Boy
Developer: Bullet-Proof Software (original concept by Alexey
Pajitnov)
N.A. Release: August 1989
The world-encompassing reach of the Tetris name is undeniable.
Unfortunately, the wider a popular concept is spread, the shallower
its real impact tends to become over time. The extraordinary stories
of Alexey Pajitnov's conception of the game and Nintendo's battle to
secure the rights to make the first blockbuster rendition of it still
exist, but are long buried under sedimentary layers of adaptations,
ports and free online knock-offs.
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| You can even play whatever this is, available now on the official Tetris.com website! |
But I'm not going to tell those stories; they're already out there if
you're willing to search. Instead, I'd like to tell you about the one
Tetris game pak that would mean the world to me to have.
I never knew my great-uncle Jim that well, and he passed away early
enough in my childhood that I don't have a great store of memories
from which to draw of him. But there's one image I saw much too often
to ever forget: whenever he and my great-aunt Rose visited my
grandmother's house, he would sit in the same chair at the bar,
beneath the overhead light, and huddle over Tetris on Game
Boy.
I do mean huddle. He never actually held the system, as far as I can
remember. It was always resting on the bar in front of him, with one
of his fingers on the D-Pad and another poised over the B and A
buttons. And that's how he would stay, tapping away with the intense
confidence of a scientist at the helm of his nuclear powered robot.
The Game Boy almost never held anything else but Tetris. His
children had tried to buy him other games to play like Qix and
Super Mario Land 2, but I only know this because he let me
play them one of the rare times I visited his home. He barely touched
them himself, if he ever did at all.
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| The picture definition of "iconic." |
No, great-uncle Jim's Game Boy was very much a Tetris-only
machine, and the severity to which it had to bear this dedication
still amazes me. The small grips that are on every Game Boy's
directional pad were worn off completely, the entire pad itself
somewhat sunken into the hole from which it protruded. The vibrant
red of the B and A buttons were faded to a medium-rare pink in the
center. This was all from the heat and friction of my great-uncle's
large fingers over the many hours he spent playing a single
cartridge.
Best of all, there was always a small strip of paper just below the
screen, sealed into place with a piece of scotch tape: his high
score. Occasionally changing, it was worn by that Game Boy like a
badge of honor and always possessing a number I could never dream of
getting close to.
It's not that great-uncle Jim was all-consumed with Tetris. He
always took time to talk with the family, and he had no qualms about
letting me play with his Game Boy once he had finished his current
game—which often took an especially long time to an impatient
7-year-old but is something I can look in awe upon today.
If I had known back then how fondly I'd look back on that gray piece
of plastic, I might have it today. Unfortunately, my childhood self
never asked what had ever happened to the Game Boy and its treasured
game after my great-uncle passed away. In fact, it wasn't until last
year when I actually contacted my great-aunt, still living, and asked
her if she had kept it with her all these years. She had not. She had
given it away to another child whom she does not recall.
I wish I could run my fingers against that strangely smooth d-pad, or
for the life of me remember that last high score and see how it
stacks up on the Internet today. Sometimes I wonder if some kid now
will feel this way in 20 years about an iPad he watched a loved one
play Angry Birds on. Yes, I know that sounds silly now, but
all I know is in a world full of so many ways, there's one game of
Tetris I'll never be able to play again.
