Tetris History: From a Soviet Computer to Game Boy

Tetris did not begin as a Nintendo game. Alexey Pajitnov created it in 1984, five years before its Game Boy release. The early story connects a computer programmer in Moscow, a familiar shape puzzle, and the licensing agreement that brought the game to Nintendo’s handheld.

A shape puzzle becomes a computer game

Pajitnov worked as a programmer at the Moscow Academy of Sciences. His biography dates the game’s creation to June 1984, when he developed it in his spare time.

The first version ran on an Electronika 60 computer. According to the official timeline, an IBM PC version followed in 1985, helping the game spread through the Soviet Union.

The idea grew from pentominoes, a puzzle where you fit shapes into a rectangle. The Strong’s Tetris history explains how Pajitnov adapted that idea into seven falling shapes made from four squares each. The name combines “tetra,” Greek for four, with “tennis.”

Players move and rotate the pieces to complete horizontal rows, which disappear. The pieces fall faster as play continues. The goal is easy to understand, but each placement changes the space available for the next piece.

The route to Nintendo

The official history records PC releases in North America and Europe in 1987. Henk Rogers discovered it at a Las Vegas trade show in 1988. His company, Bullet-Proof Software, then released versions for PCs and Nintendo’s Famicom in Japan. Those releases came before the Game Boy edition.

In 1989, Rogers met Pajitnov and secured the handheld rights. He licensed those rights to Nintendo, leading to the Game Boy version. The official history credits that edition with more than 35 million copies sold.

Nintendo helped take Tetris to a much larger audience, but Pajitnov created the original game. Separating those roles makes the history clearer: the design came first, followed by new computer versions, international distribution, and the handheld agreement.

Pajitnov and Rogers later became business partners. In 1996, The Tetris Company formed as the source for Tetris licenses, carrying their partnership beyond the original handheld deal.

A way to revisit the original design

If you want to see the starting point, Tetris Forever includes a recreation of the 1984 Electronika 60 version. Developer Digital Eclipse also says the collection contains more than 15 classic games and over 90 minutes of documentary footage about Pajitnov and Rogers.

The collection pairs playable history with the people behind it, giving you a way to see how Tetris looked before its familiar Game Boy edition.

Image Credit: Digital Eclipse