Tetris

A remaster, Tetris DX, was released on the Game Boy Color in 1998. It was released for the Nintendo 3DS' Virtual Console in December 2011 without multiplayer functionality. The game was released on the Nintendo Classics service in February 2023.

• Title — Tetris • Developer — Nintendo R&D1 • Publisher — Nintendo • Director — Satoru Okada • Producer — Gunpei Yokoi • Designer — * Alexey Pajitnov • Hirofumi Matsuoka • Programmer — Masao Yamamoto • Composer — Hirokazu Tanaka • Series — Tetris • Platforms — Game Boy • Genre — Puzzle • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer

• Illustration — Tetris gameplay • Illustration — Naïve gravity in action In terms of gameplay, the Game Boy version of Tetris is similar to the versions that were released on other platforms at the time. A pseudorandom sequence of tetromino shapes, composed of four square blocks each, fall down the playing field, which is 10 blocks wide by 18 blocks high. The object of the game is to manipulate the tetrominoes by moving each one sideways and rotating it by 90-degree units with the aim of creating a horizontal line of blocks without gaps. When one or more such lines are created, they disappear, and the blocks above (if any) move down by the number of lines cleared. As in most standard versions of Tetris, blocks do not automatically fall into open gaps when lines are cleared. As the game progresses, the tetrominoes fall faster. The game ends when at least part of a tetromino extends beyond the top of the playfield when setting in place. The player can normally see which block will appear next in a window off to the side of the playing field, but this feature can be toggled during the game. Points are awarded based on the current level and number of lines cleared. The level increases each time the player clears ten lines, as does the speed of falling tetrominoes. The player may adjust the difficulty before beginning a game by selecting a starting level or choosing to pre-fill the play area with a given number of lines of randomly placed blocks. After completing a particular height, the player is treated to a cutscene of a rocket of various types being launched, eventually capping off with Russians dancing and the Buran shuttle being launched. This version of Tetris includes a two-player mode, in which each player's objective is to remain in play for longer than their opponent, or clear 30 lines first. Each player plays with a separate Game Boy and Tetris Game Pak, with the two consoles connected via the Game Link Cable. When a player scores a Double, Triple, or Tetris, incomplete rows of blocks are added to the bottom of the opponent's stack, causing it to rise.

• Illustration — Alexey Pajitnov, the designer of the original Tetris, called the Game Boy version his favorite. Tetris was first created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov. In 1988, Pajitnov teamed with fellow Soviet Academy of Sciences researchers Dmitry Pavlovsky, and Vadim Gerasimov to create a new two-player version of Tetris that ran on PCs. The game was soon licensed by Andromeda Software executive Robert Stein, who sublicensed the game to multiple publishers in different territories. In 1988, Henk Rogers of Bullet-Proof Software noticed the US home computer version at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in a Spectrum HoloByte booth. Finding himself hooked to the game, he pursued the rights to publish Tetris in Japan, and secured licenses from both Spectrum HoloByte, who held the North American computer license, and Atari Games, which had produced the American arcade version under a sublicense from Mirrorsoft, which had the rights for the European computer market. Knowing Nintendo was planning to release the Game Boy, Rogers approached Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa to suggest Tetris as the perfect bundled launch game. Arakawa questioned the idea, having planned to bundle Super Mario Land, but Rogers countered by stating that though a Mario game would promote the Game Boy to young boys, Tetris would promote it to everyone. Rogers was told to pursue the rights; he approached Stein to seek rights for it to be distributed with the Game Boy. However, after several months passed, Stein had not signed to contract for the rights for the Game Boy, and Rogers learned that another person had approached Nintendo with the idea of a Game Boy Tetris. Requesting more time from Arakawa, he traveled to Moscow to speak with the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations's bureau for computer hardware and software export, called Elektronorgtechnica or ELORG, and Pajitnov. During this time, Nintendo approached Spectrum HoloByte on the prospect of a Game Boy Tetris, causing Mirrorsoft to send a representative, Kevin Maxwell, to Moscow to secure rights for the Game Boy version. Meanwhile, Rogers negotiated for the rights for Tetris on the Game Boy, noting in a later interview that the government officials did not understand the concept of intellectual property, and were looking for greater payment than Rogers or Nintendo could afford. However, it was revealed that the Tetris property had not actually been licensed to anyone because Stein had secured the rights from Pajitnov directly and not from the Russian authority. Russia sent a fax to Maxwell in England with 48 hours to respond, but due to being in Russia at the time Maxwell did not receive the fax, and the handheld rights were given to Rogers. Rogers licensed the handheld rights to Nintendo. During this time Rogers discovered that the home console rights were actually not properly licensed, and in March 1989, Arakawa, and Nintendo vice president Howard Lincoln, working with Rogers, secured exclusive rights for console distribution of Tetris. However, Tetriss production was delayed due to an ongoing legal battle with Atari Games over their home publishing subsidiary Tengen's version of Tetris for the NES and the game was released in Japan two months after the Game Boy's release there. Bullet-Proof Software is mentioned as a copyright holder and the sub-licensor of the Tetris handheld rights to Nintendo on the game's startup screen.

Tetris for the Game Boy was developed by Nintendo R&D1 after Henk Rogers of Bullet-Proof Software secured the handheld rights and licensed them to Nintendo. The game was directed by Satoru Okada and produced by Gunpei Yokoi. It was programmed by Masao Yamamoto, with graphics design by Hirofumi Matsuoka and original concept credit to Alexey Pajitnov. The soundtrack was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka. During development Henk Rogers contacted Nintendo because something was wrong with the distribution of pieces in Tetris. The tetromino randomizer initially exhibited a noticeable bias, with certain pieces (particularly S or Z) appearing far more frequently than others. Rogers identified the problem through piece-counting tests and reported it to Nintendo. On Saturday, Rogers and a Nintendo programmer worked at Rogers' office in Yokohama to fix the issue. They implemented a solution that cycled through offset values: the first random number call received +0, the second +1, the third +2, the fourth +3, spreading the statistical anomaly across all pieces rather than concentrating it on any one single piece. The result was randomness being corrected.

The Game Boy version stays close to Pajitnov's original pure mechanics while adapting them to the handheld's constraints and new capabilities. It includes two single-player modes (A-Type endless marathon with level progression and B-Type 25-line challenges with selectable starting height) and was the first Game Boy title to support the Game Link Cable for two-player competitive play, in which cleared lines send garbage to the opponent. Pajitnov has repeatedly described the Game Boy version as his favorite and the one closest to his original design.

The main soundtrack for Tetris was created by Nintendo's accomplished composer Hirokazu Tanaka. The player can select one of three types of background music during the game or play with sound effects only. Two of the songs are arrangements of works from other composers: "Type A" is based on the Russian folk song "Korobeiniki" (also known as "Korobushka"), and "Type C" is an arranged version of "French Suite No. 3 in B minor, BWV 814: Menuet" (transposed to F♯ minor) by Johann Sebastian Bach. In an early version that was only released in Japan with an estimated 25,000 copies sold, the "Type A" song is "Minuet". The compositions "Type A" and "Type B" can be unlocked in the Super Smash Bros. series, where "Type A" can be played on the stage, "Luigi's Mansion" in Brawl and for Wii U, and "Type B" can be played on the stage, "Luigi's Mansion" in Brawl, and "Wuhu Island" in for Wii U, both can be played on any miscellaneous Nintendo series stage in Ultimate. The victory fanfares played after completing levels are different arrangements of "Trepak", from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker.