Tetris marks 25 years of haunting gamers' dreams

Tetris, the classic computer game in which players rotate a series of falling block shapes to make them interlock at the bottom of the screen, celebrates its 25th anniversary this week. The game was created by a 29-year-old Russian programmer called Alexey Pajitnov, who said he knew he had devised a hit game when he could not stop playing it.

Tetris, one of the most renowned and addictive creations in the brief history of video games, turns 25 this week. Creator Alexey Pajitnov at the Moscow Academy of Science programmed the iconic falling-block game in June 1984 for a Soviet computer system called Electronika, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The Reuters news agency cites June 6 as the date that the first playable version of the game was born. "The program wasn't complicated," Pajitnov told the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper. "There was no scoring, no levels. But I started playing and I couldn't stop. That was it."

Hunkered in his Moscow apartment 25 years ago this week, computer engineer Alexey Pajitnov worked into the wee hours finishing a trifling game that fused his love of puzzles with his computer training. Pajitnov later entered the game into a computer competition in a nearby city, where it placed second. There was no first place, he was told. "I didn't understand it either," said Pajitnov, 60, chalking it up as a vagary of the communist system. "I was just informed my game got a very good score."

This week Tetris, the world’s most addictive video game turns 25. The puzzle video game was designed June, 1985 by Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov. Pajitnov designed the game in his spare time on a Soviet built Elektronika 60 while working at the Academy of Science in the USSR. Tetris has not merely survived the past 25 years, it has become one of the most successful video games of all time. The game was launched in North America on the NES in 1987 and became an instant hit. Kids would play the game for so long some speculated that Tetris was a Soviet plot created to take over the minds of American youth forcing them to perform meaningless tasks.

Twenty five years ago, a 29-year-old Russian mathematician loosed Tetris upon the world. Now the game has sold more than 125 million copies — an astounding average of 5 million per year. Now the two men who are responsible for turning it into a worldwide phenomenon are trying to take it to even higher sales through online tournaments and matches.

The first game I play when I get bored.

Like Solitaire, it remains one of those games that's great for killing five minutes when you're waiting and have nothing else to do (or should be doing something you really don't want to). To say its popularity has endured would be an understatement.

I never knew this game originally was made by Russian. No wonder in old tetris, the music was Russian and the background pics as well.
I had tetris music for my ringtone and everytime phone rang, people came and shared a few thought. ; )

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I wouldn't be surprised if that music plays while the apocalypse is upon us.

I wouldn't be surprised if that music plays while the apocalypse is upon us.

Congratulations, you just made the Tetris music terrifying.

Sort of like "Vanilla Sky" did to 'Good Vibrations'.

I just re-discovered Tetris for myself. Played it on some old game, which you hooked up to your TV and the games were on cassettes.

www.freetetris.org <- My record is 495 lines. I guess I don't have a life.

I wouldn't be surprised if that music plays while the apocalypse is upon us.

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The game is essential for 2+ hour long lectures. I've actually only started playing the game this year after practically every one that lived in my dorm played it.

I play tetris sometimes when i have nothing to do. It's quite addictive at times.

Played it on some old game, which you hooked up to your TV and the games were on cassettes.

Kids these days.

Played it on some old game, which you hooked up to your TV and the games were on cassettes.

Kids these days.

I seriously don't remember what it's called. We just called it the "TV-Game" if translated straight to English. I was 8, I didn't read it off the box or the console either.