Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Tetris for the Original GameBoy

I want to play this drawing.
Apparently way back in the summer of 1989 the original GameBoy came with a packed in Tetris cartridge.  I was 9 months old when this game was released.  For two decades it's been following a strange path in the world until I found it in my sister's abandoned pink game boy color in my mother's garage.  The game was probably mine at some point in my childhood but I was too busy at the time catching them all to be bothered with the amazing stacking puzzle game that is Tetris.
  
What it looks like on th GB Color
J.S. Bach - French Suite no. 3 in B minor (BWV 814) ?
The game features three different music "types". The music consists of Type A the same as everyone's heard and  knows from the arcade cabinets.  Type B consists of a more native Russian sound.  The best bleeps and bloops to listen to while stacking though is hidden the obscure and rarely chosen Type C.  Type C is apparently some classical Bach and I wasn't aware I was a fan until Tetris for GB.  I wonder if they had to licence Bach's music.  I wonder if people still care about licencing today's music in a couple centuries.  Does someone own the right's to Bach's music?  Can they?  When Paul McCartney finally dies along with Ringo and maybe Yoko along  with them will I finally be able to play "Hey Jude" in a game I'm developing? without paying royalties?  Or will someone else own that?

What my Top-Scores always looks like.
Then there are two different Game play "Types".  Classic or "game type A" is where you choose a starting speed, getting more  points for starting at a higher speed, and then struggle to survive as long as possible in order to write your name on the high-score board.  I'm not sure if it was because the game was 20+ years old or if it's just a ridiculously not well made game but it wouldn't save my high-scores.  I know playing Tetris without hichscores seems a lot like pooping without toilet paper, disappointing at the end, but Tetris had a saving grace.
Alexey Pajitnov

Game Type B consists of choosing a "Level" or speed and a "High" which chooses the amount of screen already  taken up by a amalgamated clod of bricks you have to puzzle your way through.  I'm very proud to declare that after thousands of restarts I was able to defeat Level: 9 High: 5 which randomly took me to a cut-scene of a rocket ship taking off.  Pretty cool I must say.

Apparently this guy named Alexey Pajitnov is the original creator of Tetris but his evil communist government technically owned it so he didn't get any money until recently.  His most recent release was a game called Hexic 2 for XBLA which I don't have, making Dwice, his newest PC game, earn a spot on my wish list.  

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