Silhouetris Returns from Markus on Vimeo.

There are three troubles, though, that I can foresee. First, you might get a lot of broken ones in a loose bag. This can be solved by packing them together like the boxes of normal sugar cubes, but produces problem number two: how are you going to organize all those tetrads into a cohesive shape without any gaps? You’ll literally need to hire professional Tetris sugar-lump organizers. The pieces could slide down from the top and the workers would have to put them into place, forming solid lines all the way across so the box is totally full. Did I just blow your mind?

Problem the third: if each of these is as big as four sugar cubes… you want some coffee with that sugar, buddy?

[via NCSX and Technabob]

This interview, conducted by Gamasutra at one of the many 25th anniversary Tetris events this year, reveals that Alexey Pajitnov has been wrestling with this concept for quite a while:

It was quite a problem with Tetris that… the game is very intense, you know? If you play on the high level — and that’s where you want to play usually. So, you play on the edge of your abilities, in terms of the speed and reaction, and everything. So, you kind of have no brain resources to observe what the other people are doing.

Yeah. That’s the kind of measured theoretical problem which we need to resolve with multiplayer Tetris. So, if we lower the intensity of personal game playing, we, a little bit, lower the excitement of the game. But if we keep it at the same level, the players don’t have resources to really do some kind of multiplayer actions, to observe, to analyze what’s going on in the big picture, and adjust their strategy.

Personally, I found Tengen’s cooperative Tetris the most enjoyable variant so far. I played it a lot with friends — I admit, at various states of intoxication — and made an interesting discovery: people have, or don’t have, Tetris compatibility.

Playing with my friend Natalie, who is as good or better than I am (always level 9 with handicap on original NES Tetris), I found we were constantly in each other’s way. But playing with my friend Jeremy, who (sorry, Jeremy) was significantly less experienced than Natalie, our play styles just meshed. We racked up huge scores, completing each other’s actions, watching and preparing for the other guy’s piece, and son on.

Really an amazing experience, actually. You can get something like it on Wii with Tetris Party.

But Alexey says they have something coming. Something “really cool.” I trust the guy who came up with this thing to know what he’s about. Can’t wait to find out what it is!

If you watch the video though, you might notice that the robot seems to be having some difficulty getting past level one. The robot certainly has a long way to go before it can catch up to the Rubik’s Cube and Sudoku solvers, but it’s a neat concept nonetheless.

I’m a big fan of people who do fun stuff with computers and so I am a big fan of this. These guys programmed 20 computers to play one note over and over. The resulting cacophony turns out to be a beep-boop version of the Tetris theme.

The project is simple, using the internal speaker of each computer in the class to play a different channel (instrument) of the tetris theme.
All computers are linked with the upd protocol, so not all the computers are synchronised, but for now it will be good!

It’s maddening! There must be some copyright issue, but still, come on. Can they really have a trademark on L-shaped blocks?

[via Make]

You can choose seven different colors, one for each of the Tetriminoes shapes. The colors are taken from Pantone colors and all orders come with an installation manual and grout spacers.

At first you might wonder why you would want to be reminded of painfully incongruous shapes and colors falling from the sky, but for all those who claim Tetris makes you smarter, you’re right. Various studies show Tetris increases the size of your cortex and, as a result, critical thinking, reason and language and processing all increase in activity. Three to four week shipping time for a larger cortex? I’m in.

Piggy banks are boring. Tetris is not boring! Ergo, someone should make a Tetris piggy bank. Ah, there we go. If you don’t mind some of the most ear-piercing, agitating game music in the history of sound, then you might enjoy either the Breakout! or Tetris piggy banks being sold from Japan for about $40.

A penny’s all you need to get a game up and running. You’ll have fun AND you’ll learn about saving! Check out the above video for an in-depth look at the games in action. Also, pay special attention to the loud, loud music and at how agitated the guy gets while playing. Both are equally unpleasant. Enjoy!

[via DVICE]

It takes a special person to rock one the Tetris bracelet above. The bracelet is made with resin and painstakingly detailed with the Tetris blocks and the Game Over lettering. If you think you’re cool ‘nough to sport one of these, it’s available now here.

via technabob

EA Games pushes out an iPhone port Tetris, and sells it for $9.99. An independent developer goes and makes his own Tetris clone (as has been done on just about every single electronic device ever created since the dawn of man) called Tris and offers it for the world for free. This is all going to go perfectly smooth, right?

Of course not. Tris’ developer Noah Witherspoon has received word from Apple legal that owners of the Tetris trademark, The Tetris® Company, have started to throw around legal jargon. As a result, Noah has pulled Tris from the App Store while figuring out where he stands legally.

Screw it, Noah. It’s Tetris. It’s the most heavily cloned game in the history of ever, and one with a long history of legal controversy. If you’re able to make a free alternative for something which would otherwise cost a Hamilton, more power to you. Rename it as “LOL FALLING SHAPES!”, and you’re good to go.

You may be familiar with the Tetris Effect: after playing Tetris (or Bejeweled, or Solitaire) for a while, you can’t get those pieces/gems/cards out of your head, and as you lay in bed they float in front of your eyes like ghosts of wasted time past. Well, some researchers were studying this effect (I know not why) and discovered that people with severe amnesia would also experience the Tetris effect — despite not remembering they’d ever played the game. I don’t think these findings are quite as applicable to something like World of Warcraft (it’s more the systematic and pattern-based nature of Tetris that makes it persist as a mental image), but just to be safe, no one tell Jack Thompson about it.

Tresling is the combination of one of the most beloved video games ever made, Tetris, and one of the fiercest sports around, arm wrestling. The idea is that you move your arm to move your piece and tap a button to rotate it, however, you do that while locking arms with an opponent. So, the loser not only sucks at Tetris, but he/she also is physically weak.

I’d like to think I’m pretty easygoing most of the time but when it comes to Tetris, something inside me goes haywire about trying to make sure all the blocks fit together perfectly. As such, I’m probably just a candidate for regular wall tiles because they’re arranged in what I’d consider to be the perfect Tetris conglomeration.

However, if you can stand looking at that gaping hole between those two red pieces every morning when you wake up, then have at it. It’s your funeral. You can get a set of Tetris blocks for $42 over on Etsy.com — you get two of each type of block and, of course, you can arrange them any way you see fit. I suggest that you arrange them perfectly with a four-block-long opening and the tall green piece about to fall into it.

via technabob

Watch the trailer here.
[via Kotaku]

Tetrice

It’s part watch, part Tetris and *all entertainment*. It’s a Nixon-inspired watch with a built-in version of Tetris and Pong. (Funny, that’s the second Tetris post today… there must be some sort of conspiracy. Or maybe I’m just a tool. It could well be that.) It’s designed by this lass and I wish I had one right now.

Tetris & Pong Forever [Yanko Design]

Just watch and try not to smile.

What happens when two dudes dressed as Tetris pieces get drunk and try to fight each other? This.

At least it’s in Tijuana where shit like this is the least of everyone’s worries.

Tetris cosplayers in parking-lot brawl [BoingBoing]

Ah Tetris, a favorite pastime from my irie eyed college days. I spent countless days skipping my morning classes to play Tetris with my roommates and be the top dog in the house. Sadly it never happened. All the adrenaline would get me flustered as the levels got faster and I’d just crash and burn. Eh, it happens.

Tetris will always be a favorite of mine, so I’m on the fence about this new creation that Frozen North Productions game studio has coming out for Windows PCs. BioBlox as it’s being called will adjust the speed of the game according to your adrenaline level, which is measured by some pulse rate monitor. It would be extremely boring wouldn’t it? Who wants the game’s speed to crawl just so you can get a high score?

Modified Tetris has calming effect [New Scientist]

Digg just found this great 60 minute documentary on Tetris. I’d suggest saving this link and heading home for a good viewing because it’s really an amazing documentary. They literally make the story of a simple Russian puzzle game into a fascinating thriller. Way to go, loyal subjects of the Queen.