Play Tetris Game Online for Free

Tetris is a puzzle game where the objective is to clear the screen of blocks by destroying rows and columns of them before they reach the top. Each row and column is made up of different shapes that fall vertically down, and the player must ensure that no empty spaces remain by rotating the shapes to fill a line horizontally.

History of the Tetris Game

Tetris was developed in 1984 by Soviet software programmer Alexey Pajitnov and is a puzzle video game. During a legal battle over who should own the rights to publish it in the late 1980s, many firms published versions of the work for different platforms. In 1996, after Nintendo had published the game for a long time, Pajitnov regained ownership of the rights and, with Henk Rogers, established the Tetris Company to handle licencing.

In Tetris, players clear lines by manipulating falling pieces of varying shapes (tetrominoes). After a line is completed, it vanishes and the player receives points; they can then fill in the empty spots. As soon as the uncleared lines reach the board's edge, the game is over. The better the score, the longer the player can put off this happening. To win a multiplayer game, you have to outlast your opponents, and in some variations, you can dish out punishments to them if you complete a particular amount of lines. Depending on the edition, you may be able to reserve pieces in advance or view the board in three dimensions.

Tetris was one of the first great video games and its simple ruleset led to its success. Tetris is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time, with 202 million copies sold as of December 2011. This includes around 70 million physical units and 132 million paid mobile game downloads. Among the best-selling games of all time, the Game Boy version has sold over 35 million copies. Tetris has been ported to more than 65 different systems, making it the most widely available video game of all time. Tetris has permeated many corners of pop culture, from architecture to music to cosplay. Multiple studies have examined the game's theoretical complexity and demonstrated the impact it has on the human brain after a session (the "Tetris effect") in this regard.