Articles

Everything worth knowing about stacking blocks: where the genre came from, exactly how the rules work, the technique that separates a good run from a great one, and how TETERI itself is put together.

114 articles across 7 sections

History of the genre

From a Soviet research computer in 1984 to a courtroom in California and a thirteen-year-old crashing an NES on stream — how block stacking became the most-ported game idea ever written.

• Who Invented Tetris?Alexey Pajitnov wrote the original in 1984 at a Soviet research institute, on a computer that could not draw graphics.
• Where the Name "Tetris" Comes FromA Greek numeral prefix welded to the name of a racquet sport, because the author liked both.
• The First Version Ran on a Computer That Could Not DrawThe Elektronika 60 had no graphics mode, so the original pieces were built out of punctuation marks.
• How the Game Escaped the Soviet UnionIt spread by informal copying, reached Hungary, and was picked up by a Western agent before anyone had signed anything.
• ELORG and the Most Confusing Licence in GamesA Soviet state agency, a chain of Western sublicences, and a fight over what the word "computer" means.
• The Trip to Moscow That Decided the Handheld MarketHenk Rogers arrived at ELORG without an appointment, and left with the rights that made the Game Boy.

All 21 history of the genre articles →

Rules and mechanics

What the game is actually doing under the hood: rotation systems, wall kicks, lock delay, the seven-bag, and precisely how every point is scored.

• How the Seven-Bag Randomiser WorksPieces are not drawn at random. Every group of seven contains each shape exactly once, which makes the queue countable.
• The Super Rotation System, ExplainedFour defined states per piece and a table of fallback offsets, which is what lets a piece spin into a gap it should not fit.
• Wall Kicks: Why Your Piece Moved When You Rotated ItA blocked rotation tries a list of nudges before giving up. Knowing that list turns a quirk into a tool.
• Lock Delay: The Half-Second That Saves Your RunA landed piece does not lock immediately, and nudging it restarts the clock, up to a limit.
• The Ghost Piece and Why It Is Not CheatingThe outline showing where a piece will land removes arithmetic, not difficulty.
• How the Hold Slot WorksPark one piece for later, but only once per piece, which is what makes it a decision rather than an undo button.

All 18 rules and mechanics articles →

Technique and strategy

How to stop topping out at level six. Stacking shapes, T-spin setups, openers, finesse, and the habits that quietly cost you every run.

• Keep the Stack Flat: The One Habit That Matters MostA flat surface accepts every piece. A jagged one accepts a few. Most runs end because the board stopped accepting what the bag offered.
• Never Bury a HoleA covered gap costs you every row above it. Taking a worse placement to avoid one is nearly always correct.
• Downstacking: How to Dig Yourself OutClearing your way down to a buried hole is a distinct skill, and it is the one that turns bad runs into recovered ones.
• The Nine-Column Stack and the Open WellFill nine columns flat, leave one open, and wait for the long piece. The standard shape for a high score.
• Six-Three Stacking and Why Some Players Prefer ItSplitting the board into two flat regions instead of one gives you somewhere to put the awkward pieces.
• Read the Queue, Not the Falling PieceIf you are deciding where the current piece goes while it falls, you are already too slow for level ten.

All 25 technique and strategy articles →

Versus play

Garbage, cancelling, attack tables and pressure. Everything that changes when there is someone on the other side of the screen.

• How Garbage WorksYour clears become rows in your opponent's well, rising from the floor with a single gap in them.
• Cancelling: Why Attacking Is How You DefendYour outgoing attack eats incoming garbage before any of it lands. There is no defensive option.
• The Attack Table: What Each Clear SendsEvery clear type converted into rows of garbage, plus the bonuses that stack on top.
• Combo Pressure: Why Small Attacks Can Beat Big OnesContinuous garbage denies your opponent the quiet piece they need to survive.
• How to Open a DuelThe first twenty pieces decide more duels than anything that follows.
• Reading Your Opponent's BoardTheir well depth, their stack height and the shared queue tell you when their attack is coming.

All 12 versus play articles →

Playing TETERI

What this particular game does: its modes, its controls, how it runs offline, and why it asks nothing of you before you can play.

• Why Play TETERIFree, instant, offline-capable, and it asks nothing of you before you can start. A straight account of what it offers.
• The Four Game ModesMarathon, versus CPU, split-screen and online duels, and what each is actually for.
• Every Control in TETERIThe complete list for keyboard, touch and gamepad, including the ones that are not obvious.
• Playing on a PhoneTwo layouts, two control schemes, and the specific problems that had to be solved to make touch work properly.
• Playing Offline and Installing ItA service worker caches the whole game, so it runs with no connection and can be added to your home screen.
• How Online Duels WorkA room code, a direct browser-to-browser connection, and no account at either end.

All 14 playing teteri articles →

How TETERI is built

A browser game with no engine, no libraries and no asset files. How the rendering, the synthesised audio, the peer-to-peer netcode and the CPU opponent actually work.

• Building a Game With No Dependencies At AllNo engine, no framework, no library, no build step for the game itself. What that costs and what it buys.
• Rendering: Sprite Caches and Layer BakingDrawing four hundred glowing blocks per frame is slow. Drawing four hundred cached bitmaps is not.
• Every Sound Is Generated, Not RecordedOscillators, filtered noise and a reverb impulse built from decaying random numbers. No audio files anywhere.
• The Soundtrack Is a Sequencer, Not a FileA four-bar progression with drums, bass, arpeggio and a lead, whose tempo and arrangement climb with your level.
• Online Play With No Server At AllWebRTC connects the two browsers directly; a public relay handles only the introduction.
• Seeded Randomness: Why Both Players Get the Same PiecesA small deterministic generator, one shared number, and two identical bags on different machines.

All 12 how teteri is built articles →

Culture and science

The Tetris effect, the sleep-lab studies, the folk song everybody knows, and why a game about falling rectangles has outlived nearly everything released alongside it.

• The Tetris Effect: Seeing Blocks With Your Eyes ClosedPlay long enough and the shapes follow you into sleep. It has a name, a literature, and a fairly mundane explanation.
• The Research on Blocks and Intrusive MemoriesSeveral groups have tested whether playing a visuospatial game after a distressing event reduces later flashbacks. The findings are interesting and preliminary.
• The Song Everyone Associates With Falling BlocksA nineteenth-century Russian folk tune about a pedlar, and how it became the most recognisable video game music ever written.
• Why This Particular Puzzle Is So Hard to Put DownClear feedback, a failure you can always attribute to yourself, and no ending. A design that keeps offering one more attempt.
• Does Playing Improve Spatial Reasoning?Some evidence, some overstatement, and a reasonable position between the two.
• The Mathematics Behind the Seven ShapesWhy exactly seven, what happens with five squares, and the tiling problems that follow.

All 12 culture and science articles →