Trivia / Tetris

• Dueling Works: An unusual case of two versions of the same IP. Atari Games, through its subsidiary Tengen, released a port of Ed Logg's arcade version of Tetris for the NES in 1989. As with most of Tengen's other NES games, it was produced outside of Nintendo's licensing system for the NES, which had already led to a number of legal battles between Atari Games and Nintendo. This also conflicted with the NES version of Tetris produced by Nintendo's in-house development team in Japan that was released later that year. Nintendo had obtained the legal rights to Tetris on consoles produced outside of Japan. The courts found in favor of Nintendo, and Tengen was forced to recall and destroy all unsold copies of its version of Tetris. The 100,000 or so copies that Tengen managed to sell before the court-ordered recall are among the most sought-after rarities for NES collectors.
• Dummied Out:
  • The NES version has an unfinished versus mode.
  • Tetris DX has a rendition of Korobeiniki hidden in its data, but it goes unused.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The fates of the Tengen version of NES Tetris and the 1989 Genesis/Mega Drive port of Sega's arcade version of Tetris.
  • Beginning in the 2000's with Tetris Worlds, the Tetris Company began enforcing guidelines on what a game carrying the Tetris name should be like, such as exact playfield dimensions, piece colors, and piece behavior, especially piece rotations. This proved to be a problem for developers like Arika that have their own ideas on Tetris games.
    • It also meant the end of the Sega "branch" of Tetris games, though many aspects of Sega Tetris were incorporated into the guidelines (such as standardized piece colors^note In fact, the seven colors of the seven Tetriminoes are the same ones used by Sega, just with colors shuffled around: S's are green rather than purple, Z's are red rather than green, I's are cyan rather than red, and T's are purple rather than cyan; the L, J, and O colors are left unchanged and delays before pieces that have landed lock into place). While Sega does continue to develop and publish Tetris games, they have TTC-mandated mechanics rather than those of pre-guideline Sega Tetris. References to older Sega Tetris games are cosmetic at most, such as music remixes and graphical assets such as the "glass" style of block; this does not include piece colors since that would violate Tetris guidelines. Averted for Puyo Puyo Tetris, at least in the visual sense, as the game contains a Tetris block skin that imitates the style of the 1988 Sega arcade game, including the different colors. It also contains some Tetris block skins whose colors are not seen anywhere else, such as the Sonic the Hedgehog skin, with colors like black (for Shadow) and pink (for Amy). As it seems, alternate colors are allowed as long as the standard colors are the default.
    • The 2019 Genesis Mini version of 1988 Sega Tetris seems to have slipped past the Guideline, being the first new Tetris release in 13 years not to use the Super Rotation System or other Guideline staples. It probably gets away with it by being a faithful emulation of the original Sega arcade version, though, making it grandfathered in.
    • Tetris Effect by default does not use guideline piece colors in most of its game modes, including the main Journey mode, instead using mino models based on the current stage's theme, with no color difference between pieces. However, there is an ingame option that will force the use of 'Traditional' mino colors and a standardized theme which works with all singleplayer modes and the Zone Battle multiplayer mode. With how the same does not apply to Classic/Score Attack and Connected Mode, perhaps the guideline on alternate colors is flexible enough to allow some modes to not have the option to use them at all.
  • A post in this forum thread describes problems caused by Henk Rogers during the development of Tetris Worlds.
  • In 2014, due to the release of Tetris Ultimate granting Ubisoft a Tetris exclusivity contract, ALL other Tetris versions on digital storefronts were discontinued by the end of the year, including the much-acclaimed Game Boy version, which had been re-released on Nintendo 3DS at the time, and almost no other game has been able to get a license to release in the West since.^note The Western release of Puyo Puyo Tetris managed to get 'round the restriction with both a physical-only release on the PlayStation 4 (Ubisoft only holds the cards when it comes to digital Tetris releases) and especially a primary physical/digital release on the Nintendo Switch, a console that wasn't even announced when Ubisoft's exclusivity deal was inked, ergo could not be listed in the contract. Presumably, Tetris 99 got around this the same way. Ultimate has since been delisted from all storefronts as of February 2019. Since Puyo Puyo Tetris and Tetris 99 are both on the Switch, the exclusivity contract is presumed to be dead. Because of this, Puyo Puyo Tetris was able to make it to the PS4 store.
• Follow the Leader:
  • Tetris has innumerable clones, knockoffs, and imitators.
  • Tetris 99 follows in the trend of massively-multiplayer battle royale games set by Player Unknowns Battlegrounds and Fortnite.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Tengen Tetris after it was pulled from sale in June 1989 (it had sold around 100,000 copies by that point). Tellingly, many people who had rented copies at the time decided they'd rather pay the fee for not returning the game. It's a staple of many "Famiclones", that is, bootlegs of the NES that come pre-baked with a few dozen games.
  • Both Ubisoft's Tetris Ultimate and EA's mobile Tetris were pulled from online storefronts when their respective licences expired. Can't even circulate them, either, as they outright ceased to function after the licenses expired.
  • And the ultimate "keep circulating the tapes" example: the Mega Drive version from Sega themselves. While Atari Games had produced the North American arcade version (which also saw release in Europe), they didn't bother exporting it to Japan, instead sub-(sub-sub-)licensing the Japanese arcade rights to Sega, which released their version in 1988, just before BPS released their Famicom version. Their arcade version was a big hit, and Sega planned to release a port of it for their just-released Mega Drive, but after Nintendo locked up exclusive worldwide console rights, Sega cancelled it shortly before release. However, a small number of cartridges had already been manufactured, and perhaps a dozen of those survive, making it the world's rarest Tetris (though Chinese bootleggers somehow managed to get a copy at the time, which led to the game being distributed on bootleg cartridges as well). The game was finally made officially available in 2004 as part of the Sega Ages Tetris Collection for the PlayStation 2, but that was never released outside Japan. While the Genesis Mini does have a Tetris game based on the 1988 Sega version, it's not this particular version, but rather a new port written from whole cloth by M2.
  • Another example: Minuet Tetris, aka version 1.0 of Game Boy Tetris (the version everyone knows about is actually version 1.1). This version only ever sold in Japan for a short period of time due to The Tetris Company having some troubles securing the rights to Korobeiniki.
• God Does Not Own This World:
  • Dozens of companies have all made Tetris games that they cannot rerelease due to violating the current guidelines on Tetris games, among other things. While games can have visual themes styled after these games, they still must use the current mandated game rules. However, Sega did manage to get a port of their 1988 arcade game released on the Genesis Mini in 2019, without having to add anything mandated by TTC (the most it adds is clockwise rotation and hard drop).
  • From 1987 to 1996, Alexey Pajitnov didn't actually own the rights of the game. It wasn't until the founding of the Tetris Company that he got the rights back.
• Killer App: This game made the Game Boy, and it was packed in with the system for years, and even was an early release on the Nintendo 3DS eShop (before it was Screwed by the Lawyers).
• No Export for You:
  • Of the 11 non-handheld console Tetris games released between 1988 and 1995, 7 were originally only released in Japan, while 4 were originally only released outside Japan.
  • Most versions based on Sega's original arcade version (though Bloxeed did get an English release).
  • Both Virtual Boy releases: V-Tetris was released in Japan only, while 3D Tetris was released in North America only.
  • Tetris 64.
  • Subverted by Puyo Puyo Tetris, in one of the most audacious abuses of small print ever as stated above.
• Port Overdosed: Arguably the most widely-ported game in history. It is said that if you can program it, someone has made a version of Tetris for it, up to and including the sides of buildings, while on the other side of the spectrum there's a version for a soldering iron. It is not uncommon for game development classes to have students create a Tetris game as an assignment.
• Promoted Fanboy: Clearing 21 lines during Zone in Tetris Effect is called a Kirbtris, named after high-level Tetris player Kirby703 that first showed clearing more that 20 lines was possible.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• Uncredited Role: Arika, the development team for Tetris 99, is not mentioned anywhere in the game's information or copyright screen. They were credited as developer in the Nintendo's game store website however. And this was eventually averted with the 2.0.0 update, which included "Staff Credits" in the options menu.
• What Could Have Been:
  • An interview with Tetris 99's director, Ryuichi Nakata, reveals that Tetris 99 was originally supposed to have 100 players, but they got rid of the 100th player because the last player would stick out on their own given the display.
  • Many people consider Tengen's NES version of Tetris, a port of an arcade game programmed by longtime Atari engineer Ed Logg, to be superior to the NES version produced by Nintendo. One of the big draws of the Tengen version was head-to-head two-player mode, which Nintendo's version lacked. It also featured nearly arcade-perfect renditions of the four musical tracks used in the arcade version, "Loginska," "Bradinsky," "Troika," and "Kalinka." A court injunction favoring Nintendo forced the recall and destruction of all unsold copies of Tengen's Tetris, but 100,000 copies still managed to be sold before that happened.
  • Tetris was going to have a Game & Watch port. It was touted as "Coming Soon" when Zelda was released but cancelled because Nintendo thought it would hurt sales of the Game Boy version. It was eventually released as part of the Mini Classics line in 1999. Ultimately, Nintendo missed the boat as many fly-by-night Chinese companies started putting out handheld Tetris game systems under the generic brand "Brick Game" which ate what could be further revenue for Nintendo.
  • The Nintendo DS almost got an alternate version of Tetris DS, developed by TOSE and published by THQ, which was originally slated to be released in 2005. Then it was unceremoniously cancelled due to running into legal disputes with The Tetris Company, with the latter arguing that THQ's license to Tetris expired. By the time the case was settled, Nintendo already released their version, while THQ was instead given to rights to Tetris Evolution on the Xbox 360.

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