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Breaking Tetris
How a 13-year-old reached the final level
Tetris is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. It is only beaten by Mario games in terms of sales. Tetris was first invented by Alexey Pajitnov in the 1980s. Since then, it has been re-released over 200 times! This cultural icon has also had its fair share of interest from the math community due to its geometric nature.
I have played Tetris mostly in the form of Tetris 99, a battle-royale version on the Nintendo Switch. You are competing against 99 players to be the last one standing in your game of Tetris. I like this version because you can “attack” other players by adding extra blocks to their screen as you clear your own. It’s free if you own a Switch and subscribe to Nintendo Online!
Chances are, you have seen Tetris before. In case you are a bit rusty on the specifics, let’s go over the rules. You begin with a blank screen. A new randomly selected shape will appear at the top and slowly fall downwards. As it falls, you have the option to rotate and shift it to the side. Eventually, it will hit the bottom and become locked in, after which you will no longer be able to move it.
