slot with only two blocks from an upside-down “L”-shaped piece? Or should they hold
out, waiting for that desperately needed “I”-shaped piece? The “L” will not fill the slot
completely, but no one knows how long it will be until the “I” piece arrives. In other
cases players may have a number of different positions in which to put a piece, and must
think ahead, figuring out if they put a piece in a given slot what sort of slots that will
leave available for later pieces. Players constantly have to consider where future blocks
will or will not be able to fit. Players may learn to recognize certain piece configura-
tions, but every game is sufficiently unique that no players can be completely prepared
for the challenges they may face.
Tetris as a Classic Arcade Game ......................
There are many indications thatTetrisis an example of what I call the “classic
arcade game” form. This is despite the fact that it was not originally conceived for
gameplay in the arcades (though its rampant popularity eventually led to its arrival
there), and that it was created years after the classic arcade game form had stopped
being used by professional arcade game developers. Looking over the list of classic
arcade game qualities described in theCentipedeanalysis in Chapter 4, we can see just
how Tetris fits the guiding principles of the form.
- Single Screen Play: Of course,Tetristakes place on only one screen. Players are
able to view the entire game-world at one time and make informed decisions about
what they want to do with a given piece based on that. There is no exploration
component to the game, no way to really surprise players (beyond what piece
appears next), so players have all the information they need to be successful at the
game, and have nothing to blame but themselves for failure.
144 Chapter 8: Game Analysis:Tetris
Despite being developed
years after classic arcade
games had fallen out of
style,Tetris’s gameplay
embodies many of the
design principles of that
genre of games.