About Tetris

Tetris is widely regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made. Seven distinct geometric pieces — collectively called Tetriminoes — fall from the top of the playfield, and your task is to rotate and position them so that they form complete horizontal lines. A completed line disappears, earning points and making room for more pieces. As the game progresses, the pieces fall faster, demanding quicker decisions and tighter placement. The game ends when pieces stack to the top of the board.

How to Play

Use the left and right arrow keys to move the falling piece horizontally. Press up or X to rotate clockwise; Z rotates counter-clockwise. Press down to soft-drop (speed up the fall), or Space to hard-drop the piece instantly to its lowest possible position. The C key activates the Hold function — storing the current piece for later use. The ghost piece shown at the bottom of the board indicates exactly where the current piece will land, making precise placement much easier.

Scoring System

Points are awarded for each line cleared. Clearing one line at a time scores the baseline; clearing two lines simultaneously doubles the reward; three lines triples it. Clearing four lines at once — a Tetris — is the highest-scoring single move in the game and gives four times the single-line score. Level increases every ten lines cleared, speeding up the drop rate and multiplying the points value of each subsequent clear. Experienced players chase Tetris clears rather than clearing lines one at a time to maximise their score.

Strategy & Tips

The most important habit to build is keeping the stack flat and low. Irregular stacks with deep wells create positions that only a specific piece can fill, and waiting for that piece while others pile up is a reliable path to game over. Experienced players prioritise flat, even placement over aggressive scoring attempts. Leave a single-column gap on the right or left edge as a consistent I-piece slot, and resist the urge to move pieces there until the I-piece arrives.

The Hold piece is often underused by beginners. Use it to store an inconvenient piece when the board is in a difficult state, or to keep the I-piece in reserve for a Tetris opportunity. Rotating pieces before they reach the stack — rather than at the last moment — gives you more time to plan placement and reduces input errors at higher speeds.

History & Context

Tetris was created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984 while working at the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre in Moscow. The name combines the Greek prefix tetra (meaning four, for the four-cell Tetriminoes) with Pajitnov's favourite sport, tennis. The game spread rapidly through the Soviet Union and reached the West in 1986. Its inclusion as a pack-in game with the original Game Boy in 1989 made it the best-selling handheld game of all time. Today, Tetris has been ported to more platforms than any other video game in history and remains a subject of academic research in cognitive science, studying topics including pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, and the cognitive benefits of puzzle gameplay.