Tetris craze reemerges

Sophomore Cullen McCabe plays Tetris in the gym foyer. “It’s pretty simple, there’s not a lot of keys that you have to hit,” McCabe said. “The more you play it, the faster you can go… You always want to get a higher score.” The game was originally released in 1984 and is often highly ranked on lists of best games.

Photo Illustration: Lucy Li

Sophomore Cullen McCabe plays Tetris in the gym foyer. “It’s pretty simple, there’s not a lot of keys that you have to hit,” McCabe said. “The more you play it, the faster you can go… You always want to get a higher score.” The game was originally released in 1984 and is often highly ranked on lists of best games.

When one thinks of classic games, one can’t forget Tetris and its colorful falling blocks.

Released in 1984, this game has had a recent revival among some students at St. Paul Academy and Summit School.

The objective involves rotating arrangements of 4 squares so that they fall to create continuous layers of squares at the bottom of the screen.

“It’s pretty fun,” sophomore Cullen McCabe said. He and his friends became addicted to the game before winter break, and they sometimes play against each other.

Tetris often makes the top of the list for best games of all time, having ranked #1 by Electronic Gaming

Monthly and #2 by Imagine Games Network. The game has been played on the side of buildings and even used for thermodynamics research.

“It kills time and compared to [the message in senior Jack] Reich’s senior speech, it allows you to get rid of stress,” sophomore Evan Dahlseide said.

“It’s pretty simple, there’s not a lot of keys that you have to hit,” McCabe said. “The more you play it, the faster you can go… You always want to get a higher score.”