Beating Nintendo to the Punch, Developing Tetris

Lin Lixin sat in front of his Commodore 64, gazing at the color CRT monitor with its pitiful 320x200 resolution. He already had an idea.

Super Mario was only a year away from being born. Once Shigeru Miyamoto arrived in North America with his plumber and the Famicom, Lin Lixin would have missed this crucial opportunity.

Looking back over the long river of gaming history, Lin Lixin had already found the perfect title for this moment.

A program born in an academy of sciences.

But before that, he had something else to do.

"Well, damn. I almost forgot about you."

Lin Lixin opened the system panel. Right at the bottom, a line clearly read [Beginner gift pack x1].

Sam's interruption earlier had made him forget all about it.

[Ding!]

[Congratulations! You received]: [Unallocated attribute points x5]

[Skills acquired]:

[A Young Man Has Entered the Coding World]: [Computer language learning efficiency ↑↑]

[This Guy Is No Longer Like a Human]: [Graphics programming learning efficiency ↑↑]

In an instant, Lin Lixin felt as though his brain had been submerged in medicated oil. Now that was clarity.

Material he had only half understood in class that day suddenly clicked into place, as though he were an old hand who had spent years immersed in the industry.

This feeling...

What a rush!

Riding that fresh surge, Lin Lixin felt so pumped that he dumped all five of his newly acquired attribute points into programming.

Video game development in this era belonged to programmers!

What followed flowed as smoothly as his bowels would after two days of celery and wood ear mushrooms.

With the skills boosting him, Lin Lixin felt as though his hands had come down with diarrhea. The code simply sprayed out naturally.

In less than three hours, the game's early form had already appeared on the CRT television in front of him.

The game was extremely simple, consisting of a rectangular, two-dimensional playing field ten cells wide and twenty cells tall.

As time passed in the game, a random, regular shape made up of four 1x1 squares would spawn at the top of the field.

There were seven configurations in total: a long bar of four connected blocks, an L and a reversed L, a Z and a reversed Z, a T, and an O.

Filename: Tetris.

Later generations also called it-Tetris.

Lin Lixin had thought for a long time about which title to copy so he could overtake the competition on a bend and make a name for himself before Nintendo.

The name Tetris had naturally come to mind.

According to the original course of history, Tetris would actually be born at the Computer Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and only in 1985 would it be ported to the PC and begin spreading.

Most importantly, however, its rights would later fall into Nintendo's hands, and paired with the Game Boy, it would become a legendary, era-defining phenomenon.

"Heh heh..."

At the thought, Lin Lixin let out a few odd chuckles.

Without Nintendo noticing a thing, he had torn a hefty chunk of flesh off it.

After finally getting the chance to transmigrate into the past, if he didn't make a killing by copying existing works and instead ran off to create something original with uncertain prospects, wouldn't that be like breaking four threes into two pairs?

Sam strolled down the street, humming a little tune.

He carried a plastic bag containing two videotapes.

Ever since video games had died, Sam's greatest pleasure in life had become renting a couple of tapes from the video rental store, stocking up on snacks, and watching to his heart's content in his apartment.

Today was naturally no different.

With a rare afternoon free of classes, he had rushed to the store early. Even so, he hadn't managed to snag Indiana Jones. Fortunately, there had still been one copy of Star Wars left.

Back at the apartment, Sam glanced toward Lin Lixin's room.

Ever since his startling declaration that afternoon, he hadn't left his room again. Who knew what he was up to?

Sam's desk was rather cluttered. An Atari 2600 sat at one corner, while the bookshelf was piled high with cartridges.

From genuine foundational titles like Space Invaders and Adventure to the accursed E.T., Sam had bought practically every cartridge available on the market.

After digging a large bottle of soda out of the fridge, Sam pushed open Lin Lixin's door with his arms full of bags and packages.

"Hey, Jesse, I rented Star Wars. Want to watch it together?"

Before he had finished speaking, the C64 on the desk caught his eye.

More precisely, what was displayed on its screen caught his eye.

Brightly colored blocks moved back and forth under Lin Lixin's control, landing on the little mountain of blocks already piled below.

"What game is this? How have I never seen it before?"

Lin Lixin stopped what he was doing and looked up at Sam.

"A game I made. Didn't I tell you?"

"WTF? That fast?"

Sam felt a little dizzy. For a moment, he wondered whether he had misheard.

"Jesse, I know you're eager to revive the gaming industry, but didn't you say it yourself? Quality is king when it comes to games. Making them fast doesn't mean much."

He offered his earnest advice, set the soda on Lin Lixin's desk with a thump, and waved the videotape in his hand.

"This is Star Wars, you know. I stood in line all afternoon to get it."

"You're not going to give it a try? I thought a guy like you wouldn't be able to resist."

Without standing on ceremony, Lin Lixin unscrewed the soda, poured himself a full glass, and drained it in one go, dispelling some of the scorching California summer heat.

Sam glanced at the screen again. Admittedly, it really had caught his attention at first sight.

But on closer inspection, it was just a huge jumble of colored blocks, with neither scenery nor story to speak of.

"Jesse, Atari spent six weeks developing E.T., and look at the mess it turned into. I'm not looking down on you, but..."

E.T.'s designer was Howard, the man behind Yars' Revenge, which had sold a whopping million copies. Even a genuine industry heavyweight like him hadn't managed to save Atari.

Lin Lixin was just a college student in the same year as Sam, a raw recruit who knew nothing. Could something he had put together in one afternoon really count as a "work"?

The guy had still been checking programming textbook answers with him that morning!

Lin Lixin wore an "I knew it" expression and snapped his fingers.

"How about a bet? We'll bet on whether you'll like this game. The winner has to treat the other guy to cheese pizza for a month, with sausage on top."

Sam raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued by Lin Lixin's attitude.

"Now I have to see just what you've made that's got you so confident."

He put the videotapes aside and sat on the chair Jesse had just vacated, looking at the screen before him.

"How do you play?"

"Why not try it and find out?"

Tetris's controls were so simple that Lin Lixin didn't even need to explain much.