Tetris, came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System from their parent company in 1989, along side the Game Boy release as a pack-in cartridge that was a "killer app" (term for MUST-have software of the time), and was an instant smash hit. It was one thing propelling the sales of the Game Boy, and it was also very popular on the NES as well. The draw was it was a simple game that was fun to play for people of all ages and genders and creeds, but could be challenging. It has since joined Solitaire and Pac-Man as a universal figure in the world of gaming to the point almost everyone has some variation of it.

In Tetris, it's basically a digital version of the game "Pentamanos" - a puzzle game involving shapes of 5 blocks. Tetris uses 4 blocks instead, and you have to fill up a "line" horizontally to make it dissappear using those blocks. If you clear 4 blocks at a time you get a "tetris" and thusly bonuses added to your score. The game had 2 modes - a Type A where you could play and progress through the levels (increasing the speed and changing the color pallet) as you play, and a Type-B where you have a set number of lines to clear and are trying to get the highest score clearing those lines.

But what I remember the most from childhood was my mom talking about getting the "Taj Mahal" building on screen when you got to level 15 or something like that. LOL. Looking back, I understand this was pre-internet, but I would have thought, coming from such a College-happy Education Elitist family (to put it bluntly, I'm a black sheep), that they would at least know the difference between a Masoleum in India (Taj Mahal), and a well known Russian Landmark (Saint Basil's Cathedral) - which is what it really is! It also makes zero sense that Taj Mahal would be in Tetris and full sense that St. Basil's would be - because the Taj Mahal is NOT from Russia, but the Cathedral is. But anyway....