A story of Miyamoto, murder, and millionaires
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For years, there has been murmurs about a Tetris film. However, the critical flops of movies like Pixels and Battleship seemingly dampened Hollywood’s eagerness to adapt toys and games lacking inherent narratives. Regrettably, this is a pity, as the tale of the development and localization of Tetris is truly captivating. With Tetris: The Games People Play, writer and artist Box Brown recently transformed this story into comics, presenting one of the finest novels, whether graphic or otherwise, that I’ve encountered in years. If you’re returning to school this month, you should inquire of your teachers if they could incorporate it into their curriculum. It could fit seamlessly in art, history, sociology, computer science, or even psychology courses, contingent on the instructor’s adept handling of the challenge.
What contributes to the success of the book is its seamless connection of numerous disparate elements to form a unified whole. True, a similar phenomenon occurs in a game of Tetris, but Box Brown is not overtly obvious to spell this out in the comic itself. Instead, he delicately positions each seemingly random aspect of the Tetris saga beside its appropriate counterpart as it naturally emerges in the equation.
In chronological order, it all commences with the creation of Senet, an ancient Egyptian strategic game. We then progress to the establishment of Nintendo, the competitive card-playing company founded by artist Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889. From there, Shigero Miyamoto, the Sega Master System, Ronald Reagan, Blasteroids, Gunpei Yoko, Kurt Lewin, the Atari 7800, Mikhail Gorbachev, Judge Fern M. Smith, and of course, Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov, all converge in a chain of events as improbable as they come. All of them aligning in just the right sequence ultimately led to the release of Tetris for the original Game Boy, an event that forever transformed the world of art and technology.
The book initiates with a subtle introduction to lay the foundation for why we should be concerned about Tetris. The game’s creator is depicted in an enchanting and sympathetic manner, all through the utilization of just black, white, and yellow. It’s a comic that would feel right at home on the original Gameboy.
Subsequently, we are provided with the explanation for why he, and so many of us, have such a profound love for video games. Although this isn’t the first time such a definition has been presented, the comic humbly presents an argument for games as the fusion of competition and play that “imitates the mind and informs life”, with the ability to activate our frontal lobe like few other things can. Tetris stands out among its peers because, as Art Hawk once stated, it mirrors our experience of traversing time as we weigh short-term and long-term goals against each other, integrating who we are and what is happening in our lives now with who we were and the collective experiences of our past.
Alexey was a computer scientist at the Moscow Academy of Science when he initially made this realization, but given his circumstances, he felt limited in what he could do with it. The situation changed in 1984 when he embarked on creating Tetris. It was originally an adaptation of Pentominoes, a game about fitting wooden blocks together. He made a few alterations to the shapes, introduced the falling mechanics, and the objective of erasing lines as you progress. This was not part of his regular job. Communist Russia tasked him with creating artificial intelligence and voice recognition software, a pursuit that the country’s current government still holds in high regard. Alexey knew that his employers had no interest in the project. Even if they did, he would never earn a cent from his work. It would all be claimed by the government. Nevertheless, he persisted in the creation of Tetris and was elated when it gained popularity among his friends and acquaintances.
The game eventually reached Hungary via floppy disk and managed to surface at a trade show, all unbeknownst to Alexey. Robert Stein of Andromeda Software took notice, leading to a tangle of legal confusion involving no fewer than three different game publishers. At various points, they all had valid reasons to believe they held the rights to publish Tetris. This legal battle eventually resulted in at least one fatality, a twist I never anticipated in this story. While it’s largely a straightforward character study of the diverse parties within the game industry, there are distinct peaks and troughs along the way. The murder/suicide committed by Alexey’s former colleague and confidant was particularly shocking.
Thankfully, it concludes on a positive note, with Alexey liberated from the constraints that once hindered him from dictating the future course of Tetris. That being said, the story of Tetris is far from over. Even today, he’s still devising new methods to reintroduce us to his life’s work. Though Tetris: The Games People Play isn’t an official Tetris Company product, I have to imagine that Alexey would endorse how it manages to achieve this. Regardless of the extent of your fondness for the game, this comic will enable you to contemplate it from an entirely fresh perspective.
Summarizing the conflicts between Art vs. Business, Luck vs. Fate, Love vs. Greed, and of course, Atari vs. Nintendo must have been a challenge, but with this book, Box Brown and Tetris manage to piece them all together with simplicity, clarity, and usefulness. It’s not precisely the Understanding Comics of video games that I’ve been awaiting for two decades for someone to pen, but it comes closer than anything else thus far.
