Although floating somewhere in the gaming background and overshadowed by other new titles, the month of September saw Tetris being pulled back into the forefront. We had reported that the puzzle video game has positive impact on the brain. Later that month saw the likes of Tetris and Pong merging together to form Tetripong.
For all those gamers who fathomed that Tetris won’t really get any better than what they persevered, well they may just have to give it a second thought. The creator of the game, Alexey Pajitnov has been working on a multiplayer Tetris for over a decade now. Pajitnov reveals to Gamasutra, “We are working on multiplayer versions for more than 10 years — I’ve been trying to design it. I should admit that we are not quite there yet.”
He further added, “It was quite a problem with Tetris that… the game is very intense, you know? If you play on the high level — and that’s where you want to play usually. So, you play on the edge of your abilities, in terms of the speed and reaction, and everything. So, you kind of have no brain resources to observe what the other people are doing.”
These are the theoretical problems that have to be met in order to make multiplayer Tetris a success according to Pajitnov. If slowed down a notch, it may take the fun away from Tetris but on the other hand, if mechanics and speed are left intact then this concept just won’t materialize.
With the 25th anniversary of Tetris quickly approaching, Alexey Pajitnov leaves us with a slight hint of hope saying, “But there are still very promising ways to do it, so the version we have now is pretty good. I mean, when you send the garbage in the multiplayer to the other player, it kind of works.”