About

Tetris is the perfect game. Seven differently shaped tetrominoes fall from the top of a well; you rotate and position them to create complete horizontal lines, which disappear and score points. Incomplete lines stack up, the well fills, and when pieces reach the top the game ends. This loop, invented in 1984, has never been improved upon.

The game rewards spatial rotation, planning ahead, and the ability to recover from mistakes. Clearing four lines simultaneously with an I-piece — a "Tetris" — is one of gaming's most satisfying moments. The increasing speed forces faster decisions until the game becomes a blur of pure reflex.

Tetris is the ultimate 5-minute game. Every session ends naturally, no two games are identical, and the compulsion to beat your previous score is built into the mechanics themselves.

How to Play

• Use left/right arrows to move falling pieces horizontally.
• Press up arrow or X to rotate pieces clockwise.
• Press down arrow to soft-drop (fall faster); spacebar to hard-drop instantly.
• Complete horizontal lines to clear them and score — partial lines stay.
• The game ends when pieces stack above the top of the well.

Tips

• Keep the stack flat and low — jagged surfaces create gaps that are hard to fill.
• Save I-pieces for Tetrises (4-line clears) when you have a clean column ready.
• Use the "hold" feature (if available) to save an awkward piece for later.

History

Tetris was created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in June 1984 on an Electronika 60 computer at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The rights were tied up in Cold War bureaucracy before Nintendo secured them for the Game Boy in 1989 — the bundle of Game Boy + Tetris became one of the best-selling hardware/software packages in history. Pajitnov didn't receive royalties until 1996. Tetris has sold over 200 million copies across all platforms and is the best-selling video game of all time.