A belt with Tetris bits stuck to it

Tetris Forever... so umm about that games list?

I think I am reasonably consistent in saying that I am a fan of the sorts of good presentations of older games on modern systems that we get from like the works of Digital Eclipse or M2 or the like. So I was definitely intrigued when Digital Eclipse announced that the next instalment in their so-far excellent Gold Master Series was a Tetris compilation. This is kind of their "digital museum" type presentation, where as well as the games we have like a ton of historical context and timeline stuff. The Karateka one was excellent as was the Jeff Minter one. And we've had a game list released for their Tetris one, Tetris Forever. Let's take a look

(shamelessly copy-pasted from a game news site)

  • Tetris – Originally released by Pajitnov in 1984 on the Electronika 60
  • Tetris – Originally released by Spectrum Holobyte in 1988 on the Apple II
  • Tetris – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1988 on the Famicom
  • Hatris – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1990 on the Famicom
  • Tetris 2 + Bombliss – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1990 on the Famicom
  • Hatris – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1991 on the Game Boy
  • Hatris – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1992 on the Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1992 on the Super Famicom
  • Tetris Battle Gaiden – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1993 on the Super Famicom
  • Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss Genteiban – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1993 on the Super Famicom
  • Super Tetris 3 – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1994 on the Super Famicom
  • Super Bombliss – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1995 on the Game Boy
  • Super Bombliss – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1995 on the Super Famicom
  • Super Bombliss DX – Originally released by Bullet-Proof Software in 1998 on the Game Boy

(and finally, a newly developed version called Tetris Time Warp)

So, about that list... it sure is mostly a bunch of Bullet-Proof Software versions. Which on the one hand is cool, like if you sell something as "here's a Bullet-Proof Software Versions Of Tetris Compilation" I am probably here for that. With a lot of these being Japan-only releases there's definitely a certain allure to them.

But this is not billed as "Tetris: The Bullet-Proof Software Collection". This is an interactive documentary type thing covering the history of Tetris. Which, to be honest, these games are a fairly small part of. I think the best way I can discuss this is to just talk about what is and isn't here, so let's do that.

First off, obviously we do not have the original Game Boy or NES Tetris games developed by Nintendo. This is kind of to be expected - Nintendo is not exactly the kind of company who'd want to let any of the games they own show up on other platforms. But they're a pretty big part of the story, to be honest. And it's a part that you'll have to subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online to see, I guess.

We also don't have the Sega version of Tetris. Or Tetris TGM, or any of the other arcade variants. TGM is presumably not entirely impossible to license, seeing as there's been an Arcade Archives version of it already. Maybe it's more of a case of it's already covered by that?

One thing that occurred to me is there's also none of the Atari versions of Tetris, either the arcade version or the briefly-released Tengen version for NES. If that were included it sure would be an interesting curio. And I was thinking "wait, doesn't Atari own Digital Eclipse? Couldn't they include those", but then it occurred to me that that's a different Atari. The Atari we know today is of course just Infogrames wearing Atari's skin, but the question is which skin! Basically, in the mid-80s Atari split into the Atari that was owned by former Commodore boss Jack Tramiel, who kept making home consoles and computers and such, and eventually ended up owned by a hard disk company who sold all the Atari related assets off to Hasbro, who then sold them to Infogrames who wore them like a creepy flesh skin. But the Tetris arcade game and the Tengen version were the OTHER Atari, who kept on making arcade games, ended up being bought by Midway, who ended up themselves being bought by Warner. Or close enough. Either way, that's another complicated licensing web.

But you know what modern-day Atari do own? The remaining assets of Spectrum Holobyte, who'd also got eaten by Hasbro at some point I guess. Hence we've got the solitary Apple II port of Tetris included. Why just the Apple II version? Spectrum Holobyte also released ports on other systems, like the IBM PC. Is this just a question of what Digital Eclipse has on-hand in terms of emulators? On the subject of early home computer versions, we also don't have any of the UK releases from Mirrorsoft, although considering that company's corporate history god knows what licensing unpicking that would entail.

The other non-Bullet-Proof version we have is of course the original Electronika-60 version by Alexey Pajitnov himself. Or, based on reports, a recreation of it. I'm guessing it's easier to just rewrite the game for a modern system rather than building an emulator for a relatively obscure Russian computer. But once again I am going to point out an omission. The version of Tetris that was spreading slowly around the world and eventually getting noticed by western publishers was not this version, running on a relatively primitive Soviet computer (although wiki tells me it was actually a PDP-11 clone, which is interesting), but it was the MS-DOS port by Vadim Gerasimov. As to why this version isn't included, I'm guessing it's either Digital Eclipse not really having an MS-DOS emulator setup (based on their choice of Spectrum Holobyte ports) or leftover remnants of bad blood between Pajitnov and Gerasimov. There's a bit of detail on Vadim Gerasimov's website about what happened between them, as well as a download of the MS-DOS version.

And of course the bulk of the versions included are various Bullet-Point Software versions. The reason presumably being that Bullet-Point Software was a game studio run by Henk Rogers, who is also one of the owners of the Tetris Company along with Alexey Pajitnov. As such, there's presumably minimal or no licensing issues with these, since they're owned by the same guy who owns Tetris itself.

Which essentially means this is a compilation purporting to show the history of Tetris, where the criterion for inclusion was "what versions are easy to license".

But maybe the included games aren't going to be too strongly tied to the documentary side of things. Hopefully there'll be discussion of versions and aspects that they couldn't include here. Hard to tell until we see it. Although one concern of the documentary side is that it'll almost certainly be the "approved Tetris Company" version of events. If the PC port by Vadim Gerasimov is mentioned, there's unlikely to be any mention of his beef that I alluded to above. Will there be any mention from the people who argue that Tengen's NES Tetris was superior to Nintendo's? Also unlikely.

This is kind of a flaw of the documentary video game collection type presentation. In order to actually include the game, you need to play by the rules of the rights owner. And they're generally going to only want positive things said. I suspect this happens a bit with like boutique home video releases, although the booklet included with Phenomena does open with the writer kinda trashing the film a bit, so I suspect film companies may vary a bit more.

But look. I'm interested to get a collection of Tetris variants I don't know much about. And maybe they'll pull off the presentation and not try too hard to present it as something it isn't. I still kinda wish it could be more, but I'm probably going to get it and devour its contents regardless.

(Microsoft is surprisingly chill these days - what if they could get the Windows 3.1 version of Tetris? That my childhood Tetris experience after all)