Tetris

Tetris (Russian: Тетрис) is a very popular falling blocks puzzle game, released on a large spectrum of platforms. more...

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Alexey Pazhitnov (last name transliterated Pajitnov by The Tetris Company) originally designed and programmed the game in June of 1985, while working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow. Pajitnov has cited pentominoes as a source of inspiration for the game. He derived its name from the Greek numerical prefix "tetra-" meaning four, as all of the pieces contain four segments.

The game (or one of its many variants) is available for nearly every video game console and computer operating system, as well as on devices such as graphing calculators, mobile phones, portable media players, and PDAs. Tetris has even appeared as part of an art exhibition on the side of Brown University's 14-story Sciences Library . The game first gained mainstream exposure and popularity beginning in 1989 when Nintendo released Tetris on its Game Boy system. Tetris consistently appears on lists of the greatest video games of all time.

Gameplay

A random sequence of tetrominoes (sometimes called "tetrads" in older versions) - shapes composed of four square blocks each - fall down the playing field. The object of the game is to manipulate these 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 such a line is created, it disappears, and the blocks above (if any) fall. As the game progresses, the tetrominoes fall faster, and the game ends when the player "tops out", that is, when the stack of tetrominoes reaches the top of the playing field and no new tetrominoes are able to enter. (The exact definition of a top-out varies from version to version.)

Players refer to the seven one-sided tetrominoes in Tetris as I, J, L, O, S, T, and Z. All are capable of single and double clears. I, J, and L are able to clear triples. Only the I tetromino has the capacity to clear four lines simultaneously, and this clear is referred to as a "tetris." (This may vary depending on the rotation and compensation rules of each specific Tetris implementation. For instance, in the Tetris Worlds type rules (see below) used in many recent implementations, certain rare situations allow T, S and Z to 'snap' into tight spots, clearing triples.)

Gravity

Traditional versions of Tetris move the stacks of blocks down by a distance exactly equal to the height of the cleared rows below them. Unlike Newtonian gravity, blocks may be left floating above gaps. This behavior is known as "naïve gravity." Some variants implement a different algorithm that uses a flood fill to segment the playfield into connected regions and then makes each region fall individually, in parallel, until it touches the region at the bottom of the playfield. This opens up additional "chain-reaction" tactics involving blocks cascading to fill additional lines, which may be awarded as more valuable clears.

Read more at Wikipedia.org