Tetris (Game Boy)
From Russia With Fun!
Developer: Nintendo R&D 1
Platforms: Game Boy
First Release Date: June 14, 1989
Tetris for Game Boy is the most famous version of Tetris, packaged with the Game Boy everywhere but Japan (where the Game Boy had already launched). It’s so universally known that writing about it feels a little difficult. Handheld Tetris was always going to be a successful match, so successful that it also drew in people who barely or never played games. Beyond being so popular, it’s quite a good version of the game. In terms of Tetris Firsts: this game introduced counterclockwise rotation, and introduced the type of versus multiplayer gameplay that would become standard. And of course, the A-type theme, an arrangement of “Korobeiniki”, would end up synonymous with Tetris.
Tetris makes a smooth transition to the small screen. The blocks have unique patterns instead of different colors, and the board is a bit shorter to fit, but not too short as to make the game harder. You can choose between A-type, an endless mode, and B-type, a line clear mode. Both let you select your starting level, and B-type also lets you select Height, which determines how many blocks are on the board at the start. If you hold Down on startup, your starting level will be much higher than whatever you pick, and a heart will display on the side of the screen. You can even input a heart in your high score initials only if you do this.
There's some easter eggs if you reach certain score thresholds: In A-type, getting 100,000, 150,000, and 200,000 points show increasingly large rockets being launched. It took me a really long time to get the last one… For B-type, beating level 9 will show you an increasing number of musicians playing, depending on how high you set the height. On max height, you’ll see a shuttle launch in addition.
Connie’s Korobeiniki:
The A-type theme is based on Korobeiniki, a Russian folk song from the later part of the nineteenth century. Here’s a recording I found that I enjoy. Although this arrangement (another Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka contribution) is definitely distinct, Korobeiniki had made a couple Tetris appearances beforehand. There’s a quick version of it in the Spectrum Holobyte release, and it was prominent as the title theme in the BPS computer and Famicom versions.
Another fact about the song: it wasn’t in the game at first! Version 1.1 has Korobeiniki, and a small amount of early Japanese copies contain Version 1.0, featuring a different A-type theme. It’s weird to think how it was such a late addition, and I wonder what prompted the change. Was it direct influence from the BPS versions of the game, maybe? Let’s also think about the alternate world where the B-type theme got all the fame. I think the B-type theme is just as good.
Not to damn C-type with faint praise…!
Multiplayer with the Link Cable reveals the looming presence of Mario and Luigi as the two player characters. This game isn’t the first to feature garbage blocks, but it's the first to feature them in a competitive setting- as in, clearing lines will send lines to your opponent. You can also win by reaching a certain number of lines. Of course poor Luigi would be the first person to ever get buried in garbage blocks...
Connie’s Copyright Circus: There’s a well-known story of how Nintendo acquired the rights to publish Tetris for Game Boy, one that would be adapted into a slightly exaggerated film in 2023. I'd like to summarize it here, but I'll keep it the dropdown below for those who aren't interested. This is largely sourced from 2004 documentary Tetris: From Russia with Love, as well as this very expanded recounting from The Digital Antiquarian, and for the love of god I hope I've got this all accurate.
Click for Tetris legal rights debate summary!!
Henk Rogers, founder of Bullet-Proof Software, already had a good foot in the door with Nintendo, having published a version of Tetris for the Famicom previously. He was shown the Game Boy prior to its release, and Nintendo offered to license Tetris from him, if he could manage to get handheld rights. He reached out to Robert Stein, the man who made the first deal for the Tetris license and had split the rights to several companies through further deals. Stein was the only person who had contact with ELORG, the Soviet government branch in charge of foreign software trade. When it became a matter of international trade, ELORG had asserted their ownership of Tetris over Alexey Pajitnov, the original creator.
Stein, however, was already in hot water with ELORG- he had previously made the bold move to license out Tetris, with only a single fax from Pajitnov expressing interest in working together. ELORG caught on, and Stein quickly made a deal with them to genuinely get the rights, and keep himself out of trouble. However, whether of his own fault, or of the companies he had licensed to and expected royalties from, he'd been unable to pay ELORG. It would have been unlikely for him to make any successful deals with that over his head. Rogers, needing to meet the deadline of the Game Boy's international launch, couldn't wait for Stein anymore. He booked a flight to Moscow, walked directly into ELORG, with no appointment, and asked to talk about Tetris.
It went surprisingly well, but not without some hiccups. Rogers' initial pitch, showing the Famicom Tetris he had successfully sold, was met with confusion by ELORG's Nikolai Belikov. No deal had been made to make console Tetris games, at least to his knowledge. Rogers explained the chain of licensing deals that led to him having it, and it become apparent that Stein had been selling rights far beyond the scope of what ELORG was aware of. By incredible chance, Stein was in Moscow that very same day to negotiate with ELORG, as well as Kevin Maxwell, son of the incredibly wealthy Robert Maxwell. Robert Maxwell owned Mirrorsoft, one of the companies Stein first licensed Tetris to.
Belikov handled the negotiations, and kept the three parties from realizing each other's presence. Presumably at the end of his rope with Stein, he told him to come back the next day, where he presented him with an amendment to his contract with an intentionally distracting rise in fees. But on the same amendment, a clause stating what systems Stein had rights to had subtly changed. The previous text could be stretched to encompass anything that ran video games; the new text only included computers. Stein signed, and was screwed over without realizing.
It would be decided over the next few days whether to license to Rogers or Maxwell. Maxwell had been grilled with the convenient Famicom Tetris cartridge Rogers left, which he insisted was unlicensed, unaware of Mirrorsoft being listed on the long licensing credits on the back. Meanwhile, Rogers had met Pajitnov and struck up a good rapport with him (which would pay off very well for Pajitnov down the line). Maxwell offered more upfront, but the longterm success through Rogers and Nintendo must have been apparent to Belikov. He went with Rogers, and the handheld rights were sold.
Rogers walked away with a ticket to fortune for him and Nintendo. But it was a disaster for Stein, and everyone who had licensed from him. The fallout of this would result in some cancelled ports, Robert Maxwell trying and failing to throw around some political connections to pressure ELORG, and Nintendo, BPS, and ELORG making a very large amount of money. Did you read all this? Thank you! Maybe you just skimmed to the end, that's fine too. I struggled to get all this straight in my head, and I worry it may have come off a bit dry, but I hope it was interesting. Anyway, I made a page for the movie about all this as well. You can just click here. Not all secret pages need to be that hidden...
Game Boy Tetris is a big deal- its impact on Tetris, on puzzle games, on handhelds, on the concept of casual gaming markets, is hard to overstate. I'm not sure how to close this one, so I'll give a personal anecdote. This is one of two games that my father will play on a regular basis on the Nintendo Switch Console. It's usually just the game he plays if Fortnite has to do another unfortunate update, but he has fun with it. He doesn't ever try to go for multiple line clears or points, he solely plays to survive. Seeing how much he enjoyed it, I've tried to introduce him to some other puzzle games. I was playing Tetris 99, and he asked if he could play a round. It made him so red in the face furious every time he tried it, and it had a iron grip on him for a week. I felt terrible about it. He's gone back to this Tetris now and I'm really relieved. It's a good, simple game, and I think there's a lot of worth in that.
Thank you for reading!
