{"id":501,"date":"2009-01-20T00:55:01","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T05:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/501"},"modified":"2016-08-21T13:08:24","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T20:08:24","slug":"the-next-tetris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wurb.com\/stack\/archives\/501","title":{"rendered":"The Next Tetris"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nexttetris\"<\/a>What an terrible title! Not only is it far from distinctive — a completely different Tetris<\/em> variant called The New Tetris<\/em> was released around the same time — it’s also quite arrogant. Or at least it is if you interpret it as “The thing that will be as significant to game culture as Tetris<\/em> was”, as in “Every game designer hopes that their creation will be the next Tetris<\/em>“. If you interpret it as “One more Tetris<\/em> among many”, it’s a bit less so. Under that view, it even implies that the gameplay is so generic that they couldn’t come up with a descriptive title. Which isn’t really true: The Next Tetris<\/em> delivered some genuine innovation within the Tetris<\/em> format, subsequently reused in other titles. Instead of making every block completely static once it’s finished falling, staying with its row even when isolated and unsupported, TNT<\/em> makes blocks only stick together if they’re the same color and fall otherwise. Delete a row, and bits of the row above have the potential to fill in gaps in the row below, potentially making Bejewelled<\/em>-like cascades. To promote this kind of behavior, the designers decided to make two-color pieces that have the potential to split apart immediately on placement, if placed right.<\/p>\n

Doesn’t this all make it easier? Well, yes. Yes it does. Even ignoring the potential for cascades, the frangibility of the pieces means that you don’t need to spend so much time waiting for the straight piece to come up. The designers compensate for the increased ease with horrible, horrible time limits.<\/p>\n

But that’s not what I want to talk about. The main game here is, for me, a sideline. The real reason I picked this game up is that I learned Scott Kim was involved in its creation. Although he’s probably still best-known for his invertable calligraphy<\/a>, Kim is also an accomplished puzzlesmith with about a dozen games under his belt. Among them is Obsidian<\/em>, which provided me with one of the most beautifully transcendent moments of realization I’ve experienced in a lifetime of gaming. 1<\/sup><\/a>Figuring out the override for the non-regulation flight, in case you’ve played it and were wondering.<\/span><\/span>