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Tetris was created in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, a researcher at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Seven shapes, each made of four squares, fall one at a time, and the player turns and fits them into rows that vanish when complete. The rules take seconds to learn, and the game needs no words at all.

Moscow, 1984

TechnologyHistory

The story behind the card

Pajitnov wrote the first version on an Elektronika 60, a Soviet computer with a text-only screen, at the Academy's Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre. He was inspired by pentominoes, a puzzle of twelve shapes made of five squares, and simplified it to seven four-square pieces, called tetrominoes. The name joins tetra, Greek for four, with tennis, his favourite sport. Floppy-disk copies spread freely around Moscow and then abroad, and in 1989 Nintendo bundled Tetris with the Game Boy in the United States; that version alone sold 35 million copies. Because Pajitnov worked for a state institute, the rights belonged to the Soviet state and he received no royalties. That changed only after the rights returned to him at the end of 1995; in 1996 he and the Dutch-born game designer Henk Rogers set up The Tetris Company. Counting all versions and mobile downloads, Tetris has sold over 500 million copies.

Türkçe oku
Tetris'i 1984'te Moskova'da, Sovyet Bilimler Akademisi'nde araştırmacı olan Aleksey Pajitnov yarattı. Her biri dört kareden oluşan yedi parça birer birer düşer; oyuncu onları döndürüp yerleştirir, dolan sıralar silinir. Kuralları birkaç saniyede öğrenilir; oynamak için tek kelime bilmek gerekmez.
Moskova, 1984

Pajitnov ilk sürümü, Akademi'ye bağlı Dorodnitsyn Hesaplama Merkezi'nde, ekranında yalnızca yazı gösterebilen Sovyet yapımı Elektronika 60 bilgisayarında yazdı. Beşer kareden oluşan on iki parçalı pentomino bulmacasından esinlendi ve onu dörder karelik yedi parçaya, yani tetrominolara indirdi. Oyunun adı, Yunancada dört anlamına gelen tetra ile Pajitnov'un en sevdiği spor olan tenisin birleşiminden doğdu. Disketlere kopyalanan oyun önce Moskova'da elden ele dolaştı, sonra yurt dışına yayıldı. 1989'da Nintendo, ABD'de Tetris'i Game Boy'la birlikte satmaya başladı; yalnızca bu sürüm 35 milyon adet satıldı. Pajitnov bir devlet kurumunda çalıştığı için haklar Sovyet devletine aitti ve kendisi hiç telif almadı. Bu ancak 1995'in sonunda haklar kendisine geri dönünce değişti; 1996'da Hollanda doğumlu oyun tasarımcısı Henk Rogers'la birlikte The Tetris Company'yi kurdu. Bütün sürümleri ve mobil indirmeleriyle Tetris 500 milyonu aşkın satışa ulaştı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Tetris
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