It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you'll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. You'll see them in your dreams.
Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega--game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft.
In this graphic novel, New York Times-bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world's most popular video game.
Description
Tetris is as ubiquitous as blue jeans and as addictive as jelly beans. But did you ever wonder where it came from? Probably not: Most computer programs have fairly undramatic origin stories. Not Tetris.
In 1984, Alexey Pajitnov, a computer scientist working for the USSR government, created a fun little game that became a smash hit among the computer literate population of Moscow. Before long, it was discovered by a British software firm. The rest, as they say, is history...But it's a history full of high stakes business shenanigans and some fundamental questions about the nature of play.
Box Brown, author of Andre the Giant: Life and Legend, blows open the secret history of the game that saved Nintendo and delves into what makes puzzles and games so irresistible to human beings.
