Tetris Forever makes the case that video game history is best told in playable form
Game-documentary hybrid includes playable versions of the best-selling game through its 40-year history
The story of Tetris, one of the most popular video games of all time, has been told by many over the years including in books, documentaries and a recent semi-biographical movie. But to Chris Kohler, the best way to truly tell its story is to let people play it.
That's the philosophy behind Tetris Forever, a documentary that blends archival footage and original interviews with the people responsible for the game — including creator Alexey Pajitnov — and playable versions of the game that have been released over the last 40 years.
"The best way to tell the stories of video game history is through the interactive medium of the video game itself," Kohler, editorial director at the video game company Digital Eclipse, told Day 6 host Brent Bambury.
"You know when Willy Wonka beams the chocolate bar through the TV and it's like, 'Just reach out and grab it?' That's what we want to do."
Digital Eclipse's documentary, split into five chapters, starts with Pajitnov programming the game in 1985 in his free time while working as a Soviet researcher.
It then follows the game's explosion in popularity, thanks to figures such as Henk Rogers, who brought it from behind the Iron Curtain to the West and Nintendo, whose versions for the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Game Boy portable were played by millions.
Along the way, players are dropped into older versions of the game including some obscure variations such as Hatris, where players stack falling hats instead of blocks.
It even includes a recreation of Pajitnov's first iteration of the game he built on the Russian Electronika 60, with the green-and-black text graphics in lieu of modern graphics.
It notably does not include the NES or Game Boy versions, presumably because of licensing restrictions, or newer incarnations currently for sale like Tetris Effect.
Digital Eclipse released a similar game-documentary hybrid last year called Atari 50, that chronicled the rise and decline of the iconic American gaming company to commemorate its 50th anniversary.
Kohler says work like Digital Eclipse's is becoming increasingly important as some of the people responsible for gaming's earliest milestones age out. Plus, it's a way for new gamers to discover the stories behind classic games they may have never heard of.
"We're going to introduce you to games that maybe you don't even remember from the past. And hopefully we're going to make brand new fans of them," he said.
Simple design and mass appeal
Kohler said his first memory of Tetris is likely the same as many others in North America; playing it on the Game Boy, which has sold more than 35 million copies since its launch in 1989.
"Everybody has a very similar story of the kids wanting to buy the Game Boy because the kids had a Nintendo entertainment system," he said. But "their mom took over the Game Boy and just would just play Tetris for hours and hours and hours," said Kohler.
The mass appeal of Tetris came from its simplicity, which Kohler described as "pure geometry."
"You do not need to be told how to play it ... because you see the pieces and you immediately feel that sense of, I have to fit these together. And when you see that you didn't fit it together properly, it irks you," he said.
"You see your failure on the screen and you're like, okay, let me try again."
Unlike some games with a reliance on plot or narratives, Tetris "doesn't require language in the sense that you need to speak English or Russian, in the case of its origins, to play it," said Chris Young, head of collections and digital scholarship at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
Recognition for game creators
That simplicity and accessibility was key to making it one of the inaugural inductees in the Strong National Museum of Play's Video Game Hall of Fame in Rochester, N.Y.
Jon-Paul Dyson is senior VP for exhibits and interpretive resources and one of the people who decides which games are inducted into the hall every year.
He says releases like Tetris Forever are important because they tell the stories of the people behind the games, like Pajitonov or Rogers who are not as front-and-centre as in other media.
"With a movie or with television shows, we get to know the actors and they become celebrities. Game creators [and] game designers have never really experienced that level of public accolades and appreciation of their work," he said.
"Probably the most well-known creator of all time is Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Mario and Zelda and a lot of other games. But even he, while a celebrity within gaming circles, is probably not someone whose name is familiar to the average person on the street."
Young says Tetris Forever can spread awareness of the game's history for players who might otherwise only have access to the most recent or most popular versions.
"Having companies like Digital Eclipse ... find ways to make those historical games accessible again is important because Tetris is arguably one of the most important games made. And providing some of the different versions of that game for people to access is critical," said Young.
Early reviews of Tetris Forever — out now on gaming consoles and PC — have been mostly positive, with an 85 out of 100 average on gaming review aggregation site Metacritic.
Kohler says it's been gratifying to hear players' appreciation for making more chapters of the game's history available to a wider audience.
"There's video game geeks out there who have like, marinated in video game history since they were children and who have seen other retellings of this saying, you know, I learned something new from this that I did not know. And that's always great," he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Interview with Chris Kohler produced by Samraweet Yohannes
