I think it’s the strictly enforced minimalism. It translates across time and across cultures. Feels almost Apple-like in a way.

It’s always the evil z-shaped ones! In fact, in the chapter on the math of Tetris, and the extended discussion of if you could indeed have an infinite game, it’s the probability of Z-shaped pieces showing up as a one-in-seven probability that points to game that has end eventually — probably at around 70,000 pieces.

Ha — no! But that sounds awesome.

I think you gotta go with this classic version...

Oh yeah, I’ve seen a few video clips, etc. Have not tried it...let’s get *that* on VR!

Even better, last I read, it’s going to be a trilogy! ;)

Have you tried introducing her to Pokemon Go?

Thanks! I was hoping it would read like a cold-war business/tech thriller, and hopefully I succeeded.

Other games and activities, yes — Bloodborne specifically, I doubt it. For scientists, Tetris is closer to a non-verbal intelligence test or a finger movement exercise than to another video game. There are two long chapters in the book specifically about that topic if you’re interested. Great story in there about a…

I’m sure he has — he stays pretty involved and makes a few public appearances every year. Fun Alexey fact — did you know (well, I’m sure Evan knows...) that he designed Hexic, that little pre-installed game that came with every original Xbox 360?

Only a handful of people had computer access, and most in scientific, military or research labs. Most of the people behind the iron curtain with personal computers at home got them as black market systems. And, of course, there was no internet, so to share a program — as happened with Tetris — you literally had to…

Always play with the sound off...

So many cool versions over the past 30 years. Some are great, some are just curios. I kinda have a soft spot for some of the goofy attempts to expand into stuff like Hatris, Facetris, etc.

The real Da Vinci, or the Assassin’s Creed version?

I like ‘em long and straight.

You definitely can’t discount the idea of creating order from chaos. There’s a lot in the book about the brain science of games, and Tetris in particular, and there’s something about how this particular game affects the brain by using certain cognitive pathways (for shapes and time) but not others (language) that…

Only if all eight are purchased at the full retail price from your favorite online or brick-and-mortar bookseller. Then, you should experiment and report the results back here.

And if things had worked out a little differently, Gorbachev might have been able to put a finger on the scale for the Maxwell family — but the timing wasn’t ideal. A lot of that part of the story has been told before, but one interesting new detail I got from Phil Adam, one of the heads of Spectrum Holobyte — the US…

Nice — the idea goes well back, and for a long time, puzzle fans, math people, etc. used five-segment shapes called pentominoes in various ways. That was too complex for early computers, so Alexey Pajitnov cut them down to four-segment shapes.

There’s actually a big section in the book, in the chapter on the math of Tetris, about if a t-spin move, or any move that violates the basic physics of the space, is legit. My take for this, or any game issue is — if the game code allows it, then it’s legit...