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Full disclosure: Tetris Link and Tetris: The Card Game were provided to me free for this article.
I always thought I was good at Tetris.
No, that doesn’t properly capture my arrogance. I always thought I was amazing at it.
At least until I started dating a girl named Samantha…who is better at it than I am. I don’t want anyone to think this is one of those stupid “let the girl win” situations, either. As much as we may like each other, we get mean when we play Tetris. We yell, we swear, we cheat, and she always beats me.
Anyway, I came up with a plan. She is (sort of not really) better than me at video-game Tetris, but maybe I can beat her if we play something slightly different, like, say, card-game Tetris or some kind of Connect Four-esque real-life version of it. If only such things existed….
How serendipitous then, that not only do these games exist, but I had a chance to play them against her!
Let’s take a look at Tetris: The Card Game and Tetris Link — and see if I was finally able to dethrone my evil nemesis lovely girlfriend.
Tetris: The Card Game
How does it work?
Despite the name, Tetris: The Card Game doesn’t actually play a whole lot like the original. Your ultimate goal is the same, in that you’re trying to complete lines of blocks, but the way you go about it is completely different (and much less exciting). One side of each card has a Tetris piece (or “Tetrimino”) on it, and on the other side is a picture of a random arrangement of them, like you’d see in the normal game. You lay 10 cards down in front of you with the random-arrangement side facing up, and then match them with a Tetrimino card in your hand that would complete a line in the picture. When you complete a line on one of the cards, you flip it over. Whoever flips over their 10 first is the winner. Throw in some wacky bonus cards, and that’s basically it.
Is the game any good?
Imagine if Tetris were turn-based and had no time limit or high scores, and you’ll understand the biggest problem with this. I know card games aren’t known for how exciting they are, but there’s at least some strategy involved in your average solitaire game. It's too straightforward to really be much fun.
One good thing is that the game is actually so simple that we were able to come up with some fun variants that used the cards in different ways. For example, I invented a game that was like Texas Hold ‘Em but with Tetris nonsense grafted on. I called it…get this…Tetris Hold ‘Em. How clever is that?
Who won?
Well, the rounds we played of Tetris: The Card Game were certainly a lot less cutthroat than we’re used to. This is probably because the game was kinda boring, which also explains why I don’t think I was playing at my full potential. Without the vicious competition, mean-spirited insults, and violent shoving, my heart just wasn’t in it. This was a peaceful card game against my girlfriend, someone I deeply care about, not a fight to the death with a hated rival that I wanted to completely destroy. So I didn’t really play my best.
What I’m stepping around is the fact that she won…but, you know, barely. I’m not even sure I’d count it, since the game wasn’t that good, so maybe I’ll call it a draw. Yeah, that seems fair.
Tetris Link
How does it work?
Like I mentioned up above, this game is what you would get if you put Tetris and Connect Four into a pair of Jeff Goldblum’s mutant-creating transporter pods. Each person gets a stack of Tetriminos, a la the former, and then takes turns dropping them into slots, a la the latter. Your goal is to connect (or “link”) as many of your pieces together as you can (by making them touch) in order to earn points. The twist is that you only get points for links of three or more, so sometimes it’s a better strategy to block your opponent from getting points than it is to try and make some for yourself…but that would be kinda mean, and I don’t know who would want to play like that. I certainly wouldn’t.
Is the game any good?
Actually, yes! Not only is it more similar to the game it’s based on than The Card Game, it even sort of works as a real-world approximation of it. You are playing a reasonably recognizable version of Tetris with real pieces on a real board, and that’s pretty darn cool. Plus, you get infinite spins, if that’s your sort of thing.
I do have one big criticism, though: The greatest innovation by the good people at Hasbro in terms of their Connect Four game is the sliding bar on the bottom that allows you to dump all of the pieces out. It makes cleanup easier, and it lets you end every match with a cacophonous clatter that is guaranteed to annoy everyone else in the room for the second or so that it lasts. It’s brilliant, and of all things the Link people chose to steal for their game, it’s very surprising that they didn’t steal it. When you’re done playing Tetris Link, you have to physically lift up the game and dump the pieces out.
Like a caveman would.
Who won?
The first game we played was actually very amicable. If somebody had thought to film it, we probably could’ve made a couple of extra bucks appearing in a Tetris Link commercial.
"Whoa, nice move! Family-friendly fun!"
She won (I say through gritted teeth), but we decided to go best two out of three since Link was so much more interesting than The Card Game. Things got more heated in the second round. It was my fault, of course, because I thought it would be a good idea to make a big move and stop her from getting points. Remember that mean thing I said you could do that I wouldn’t do? That’s totally what I did. It worked, and I won the second round.
By the third we were both ready for the kill. She glared at me as if to say, "I’m going to start kicking you under the table." And I stuck out my tongue as if to tell her, "I’m going to be very mature about this and beat you fair and square."
I grabbed my first piece, and she grabbed hers, then…Rocky 3-style freeze. Cue "Eye of the Tiger." You don’t need to know who wins, because it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that we were two masters of the game, competing at the highest level. We may not have been holding controllers, but we were actually having a lot of fun with this weird real-life version of the greatest puzzle game of all time. If Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov weren’t still alive, he probably would’ve been looking down at us from heaven with a smile on his face.
This is what Tetris is all about, not who won or lost. So stop asking. It’s irrelevant.