A conversation with Nintendo about Tetris clones

"Why can’t you make a new game Nintendo?"

“What you talking about? Mario Party, Smash Bros, Zelda, Super Mario Bros. etc”

“Yeah but they’re a little bit similar to the previous games, no?”

“Didn’t you play Mario Maker? Now you can make your own new games based on old Nintendo franchises, we’re tired now.”

“But Nintendo, we worship you! You must have a new idea to wow us all and change the face of gaming like you did that one time with Donkey Kong arcade in 1981. We don't know what our Switch is for...”

“…oh, err yeah! Of course! It’s Battle Royale…! You kids like that right? It’s competitive… Tetris!”

“My god. You’ve done it again.”

“Once again Nintendo have proved they are the best game designers in the entire world and have improved upon the perfect game.” - critics etc

“It also has”

“Whoa, slow down Nintendo. I’m still getting over multiplayer?! Tetris?! Just let me catch my breath... OK go.”

“OK, so now you can play the mechanic introduced in Puyo Puyo by Compile in the 1991 but watered down so it’s not too difficult."

"OK that sounds exciting."

"Yes, and you can pretend playing against 98 other strangers is different to playing against one other player. Because 99 is more! Thats 99x the fun!”

“So now I can rank my Tetris abilities to a degree of 99 and finally know how good I am compared to 98 strangers?!”

“You sure can! It won't change how you play in any way but if your really good you can feel good to the exact degree of your success against 98 strangers.”

“This. Game. Deserves. Game of the year. They have improved upon perfection.” - Completely level headed game critic

I will say that at least Tetris 99 has a new gameplay mechanic, unlike Tetris Effect, which is, as the name suggests, is Tetris, with some special effects in the background. Wow.

I’m personally not sure how you can improve on 1984 ascii Tetris. But it can be changed around and spruced up a bit. So here are some other Tetris gimmicks from through the ages I’ve dug up.

Puyo Puyo - Compile - 1991

Beans with eyes. It’s darling. They stick together and 3 or more make them explode. Oh yeah, also it is competitive. Get combos to crap all over your opponent’s day. See also Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, Dr Mario, Baku Baku Animal and many, many more.

Blockout - California Dreams - 1991

It’s a version of Tetris that would have suited VR more than the Tetris Effect game, which was being used to push the VR hardware. There is also an unofficial NES version of this game.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo - Capcom - 1996

OK it’s Puyo Puyo again but it is different because Capcom's gems can get gigantic until you get the trigger tile and boom! A bit like Baku Baku’s animal tiles eating their respective food types. You do ten hadoken’s into your opponents face and they get a load of grey tiles to clear. Bonus.

Columns - Sega - 1989

Three coloured gems. Always horizontal. You cycle them. Match diagonals, horizontal or vertical sets of three. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.

Sega Sonic Bros - Sega - 1992

Puzo Puyo again. Maybe this was just an logical extension of Tetris but here it is again but this time diagonals can combine with vertices and horizontals to make chains.

Pac Attack - Namco - 1993

Make a chain of ghosts and then drop the pacman block and watch him gobble them all up.

Wetrix - Zed Two, Warthog Games - 1998

OK, this is not a tile matching game but I will always try and cram Dreamcast games in where they don’t belong. Try to make big pools of water for some reason. It’s weird, but it’s good. First came out on N64.

The Next Tetris - Blue Planet Software, The Tetris Company - 1999

Features online mode for 1v1 play. Some shapes have two colours, which lock when land but loose colours will fall down.

Tetris 4D - Bullet Proof Software - 1998

4 Player Tetris on Dreamcast. Just convince three other people you are not an immediate threat to their safety and coax them back to your house and play 4 player vs Tetris against people you can actually see and hate on a personal level for beating you! That is the true multiplayer experience.

Here are some more Tetris games I remembereed on the 15th March 2019....

Lumines - Q Entertainment, Resonair - 2004

A line scans from left to right, clearing matching blocks of 4 or more from two potential block types.

Welltris - Alexey Pajitnov / Spectrum HoloByte (et al) - 1989

Alexey has another go and it's ok. Like Blockout, you look down on the play field but tiles slide in from the sides. Weird.

You can even play this on the ZX Spectrum.

Can anyone think of any more takes on the core Tetris gameplay?

Tetris is a simple, fun, timeless concept. That is why nearly every game system has some form of Tetris on it. You don't have to buy it, the last one I picked up myself was Tetris Blast on the Game Boy, but apparently there are many who do.

Bitter and Jealous Sega fan left's out Doctor Mario, Wario Woods, and Yoshi as legit good puzzle games.

A lot of effort went into this post, bravo OP. Think you've covered all the ones I can think of anyway. There was also the Puyo puyo Tetris crossover game that came out in 2014, the one where you can switch between the two mid game.

Mean Bean Machine is my favourite Puyo puyo game though, if only for the henchmen's facial expressions alone. The Game Gear port was pretty good.

@FireEmblem_Man: Ah yeah, Wario Woods is awesome. Dr. Mario was one of the best GB games too.

Puyo Puyo and similar gem/colour-matching games are not Tetris clones, but are actually clones of SameGame, a.k.a. Chain Shot, which released around the same time as Tetris in the mid-80s.

Gem/colour-matching games like Puyo Puyo, Puzzle Fighter, Columns, Bejeweled, Candy Crush, etc. are all ultimately descended from SameGame. Some of them also borrow elements from Tetris, like falling blocks and time limits, but the core gameplay is based on SameGame. Ultimately, most tile-matching puzzle games combine elements of SameGame and Tetris in various different ways.

You forgot Tetrisphere on the N64...which, admittedly, doesn't play a lot like Tetris.

@Jag85:Same Game is a weird one. It seems to be using a mouse. But you can't argue it's the first colour-matching-tile-game.

But I wouldn't put Candy Crush in with Tetris and Puyo as there is no build up of tension as far as I know. I'd just shove it into the casual puzzle category. Maybe I'm wrong though.

@FireEmblem_Man: Wario Woods looks good, it's the only one of these games where you control a character and not the falling blocks. Yoshi was confusing but looked fun.

@Planeforger: Tetrisphere looks nuts! N64 games may be ugly but the library has been unfairly judged I think and has a good few decent games in there.

I think the next progression of the genre is Tetris Missile Defence. You have to blast the shapes to fit. Oh yeah. Game design guru, right here.

Tetris created the only BR worth playing.

Tetris 99 reminds me of Bomberman. That was technically the first ever battle royale game, since it's a last-man standing game in a shrinking playfield. And it predates even the movie Battle Royale (which all BR games obviously spawned from). It seems like Tetris 99 is a throwback to the Bomberman style of battle royale.

Speaking of Bomberman, I'd love to see a Bomberman 99, with 100 players trying to bomb the shit out of each other on a large playfield that gradually shrinks. That would be insane... Hudson/Nintendo, make it happen!

@Jag85: You can play with 10.

getyeryayasout One of my all time favourite games. Had it on SMS and SMD. Which version is that though?

Nintendo ported Tetris DS to the switch except instead of 4 players at the same time, they bumped it to 99.

They are literally identical. Nintendo once again is being overrated by fanboy critics. Their fanboys are claiming another PORT as GOTY. This is sad.

Hope you fanboys enjoy losing every match to the hardcore Japanese gamers who have superhuman reflexes.

OMG.....

That is all, lol

Tetris Attack, Pokemon Puzzle League

Next up for Bait & Switch.... Space Invaders and Pac Man...

How embarrassing, serially. lol :P

@jackamomo: I know. Saturn Bomberman is one of the GOATs of gaming. But it would be awesome with 100 players.

As for Candy Crush, that was clearly inspired by Bejeweled, which in turn is a variation of the SameGame puzzle genre (which includes the likes of Puyo Puyo and Puzzle Bobble).

What the hell is this thread ???

@madsnakehhh:we're thinking of Tetris games which are more inventive than Tetris 99.

It's all of them.

@ajstyles you are right. It is exactly 99 player Tetris DS.

So much for the call for originality in new game titles then?

https://www.wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/2006/01/joy_tetris_ds.html

Having said that. Dreamcast ChuChu Rocket was a direct port (but online) of an older game which I can't find again.

Sega Swirl is another colour matcher... Set inside an etch-a-sketch.

Nintendo just needs to grab TetriNET and throw it up on the Switch with some dedicated servers.. I'd buy it.

It's an interesting point that the creators of Tetris were in fact researching human behaviour and addictive tendencies in the human brain. The game is a result of the theories being tested within their research. As a result the game was the property of the Soviet Union until it's collapse.

So a game designed to be addictive. Is this ethical? Probably not. But all games seek to replicate this effect.