Tell us all about your Tetris memories
At last, therapy for those recurring nightmares where you're an I piece about to clear four lines and vanish forever.
The second installment in our upcoming episode recording marathon will turn its focus on Tetris. We've definitely mentioned Tetris from time to time, but to my knowledge we've never given it a proper deep-dive exploration. (If we have, I've forgotten the details, which means you've probably forgotten about it, too, as time marches on and erodes our memories.)
It certainly deserves a proper retrospective! Tetris has been one of the most successful, most popular, and just plain ol' most addictive games ever made, and its fascinating genesis makes it even more remarkable. Created in a Soviet lab! Entangled by legal issues at every turn! A powerful commercial coup for Nintendo! Evolved into completely insane ultra-difficult iterations for experts only!
So we're bringing in the experts: Steve Lin and Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation will be joining us this weekend for an extensive exploration of the game's design and history, from its tenuous days behind the Iron Curtain to the weird (bad?) rules The Tetris Company inflicts on every official release of the game today. And, of course, we'd love to liven up the episode with your expert opinions as well. Do you have Tetris anecdotes? Did you fall in love with it at a Woolworth's display? Did you luck into a copy of Tengen Tetris before it exploded in price? Was it the only game your grandpa ever played, an hour a day, he passed? Can you beat The Grand Master 3 blindfolded? Tell us about it!
As always, drop me an email at jparish [at] retronauts [dot] com by end of day Friday (Dec. 1) and we'll try to include it in the episode. (You can also post a comment here, but I'll be prioritizing email messages since they're easier to sort through during a recording session.) Please try to keep your comments to around 200 words, if you'd be so kind.
Thanks, and look forward to even more listener mail opportunities this week!
