Tetris turns 35. Celebrate it with these open source versions

Linux versions of Tetris in the Ubuntu Software Center

In the Software Center of your preferred distribution you can find many linux versions of Tetris

Linux versions of Tetris there are many. Almost as many as notepads with Markdown support or media players. The thing is This puzzle game is addictive. It is a puzzle game in which you have to accommodate pentaminos without leaving a free space.

In this article we are going to analyze some of the Tetris clones for Linux that we can find in the repositories and application stores.

Perhaps much of the popularity of the game has to do with the era in which it appeared. If you grew up in the 80s in the West, Russia was a mystery. They had the Bolshoi, the vodka, outstanding Olympians, and the ability to destroy half the planet. But, in video games they were only like the enemies that you had to kill.

In 1984, the USSR lost its second leader in 5 years. Trying to delay the reformist wing led by Gorbachev, they name another who is going to die a year later. Oblivious to this, a worker at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Center created a game that would become famous. His name was Alekséi Pazhitnov.
The name of the game is a combination between Tetra (four) the segments that make up the game pieces and Tennis, the creator's favorite sport.

How Tetris comes to the West

The original version It was created on a Russian tech machine that was not marketed in the West. It was necessary that a partner of Pazhitnov will port it to the IBM PC to start your international journey. The IBM version reached Hungary (a country a little more open than the former USSR) and there versions for Commodore 64 and Apple II appeared.

In Hungary, a western citizen discovers the potential of the game and tries to acquire the rights. It fails, but this does not prevent you from selling it to software companies in the United States and Great Britain. It is so comes to Atari and Spectrum. Later, as video game consoles become popular, they will also have their variants.

The story has a happy ending. Alekséi Pazhitnov emigrates to the West and manages to regain his rights.

Some linux versions of Tetris

Like what happens on other platforms, there are linux versions of Tetris for all tastes. You can play it in the terminal, with a graphical interface or even online.

Let's review a few:

Quadra Passel

Quadrapassel is a Tetris clone for Linux

Quadrapassel is a Tetris clone for Linux. It is available in the repositories of the main Linux distributions and in Snap and Flatpak format

In this Tetris clone, we can move and rotate the pieces to accommodate them as they fall. By completing a row of the same color we make them disappear. Keep the columns from touching the top of the screen because that will end the game.

As our score increases, so does the rate of fall.

We can find Quadrapassel in the repositories, in Snapcraft y Flatub.

vitetris

Vitetris, a Tetris clone for the terminal

Vitetris is a version of tetris that is played in the terminal.

Offered as a clone of the Nintendo version of Tetris. As it is intended to be played from the terminal, its graphics are not a big deal.

Vitetris offers several levels of difficulty and we can play it individually, with another player or network.

We can download it from the repositories and from the Snap store.

Hexex

Hextris can't be considered exactly a Tetris clone

Hextris is not exactly a Tetris clone

In fact, Hextris can hardly be considered a Tetris clone. In the first place, it is not the pieces that rotate, it is the board. The board is hexagonal in shape, and our goal is to prevent the pieces from entering it.. For this we have to stack 3 blocks of the same color on one of the sides.

We can install Hextris from Snapcraft and from the Software Center. The version in Snap format does not support integration with the Internet, so you will not be able to share your score on social networks.

If you liked these recommendations, remember that in Linux there are many other options to play.


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