Matt, if you want to put the whole thing in some sort of political perspective I recommend you read up a little more. If you do want to take a political perspective please note that the break down of the communist regime and the effects it had on regular people calls for a more complex description of the situation than what your friend told you in college. Like Calibrator will probably know from the 'joining of the two Germanies' - the removal of the iron curtain didn't provide instant an instant sense of relief and people are still struggling with their 'freedom'. A lot of folk have not learned how to restrain themselves from indulgence because the lack of goods and services made that unnecessary. Now money can be borrowed, food and good can be acquired - the sky is the limit.... There's a lot of socioeconomic problems going on, still today. But I think that is outside the realm of the book.
The fact that Tetris was programmed by a Russian - who actually went on to produce the great Quircks (Windows 95 PC game) that is actually a Puyo Puyo game - is perhaps not so coincidental as it would seem. The level of innovation - getting limited hardware beyond its apparent capabilities - and love for hard-core programming that you find in Tetris is something you'll still find in Russia, Eastern European countries and Scandinavia. There's a lot of Polish demo groups still producing high-tech demos for the low-spec ZX Spectrum: featuring bump mapping, > 7 colours, 3d animation etc etc. So that a game like tetris actually originated in Russia - where with limited resources a great game was produced - might not be that coincidental.
A lot of clones where produced and it is fairly easy to program your own versions. I actually did some myself for the c64 and the pc way back (GW Basic, Qbasic - compiled and Turbo Pascal). At University it actually was a programming assignment - make your own Tetris game.
Tetris is a game you can play in instinct, reflexes at first. When it becomes faster it takes more planning and strategy. Because the game play is so easy to grasp it is an excellent introduction to video games - just like it has been for many many gamers in the world.
Matt, if you want to put the whole thing in some sort of political perspective I recommend you read up a little more. If you do want to take a political perspective please note that the break down of the communist regime and the effects it had on regular people calls for a more complex description of the situation than what your friend told you in college. Like Calibrator will probably know from the 'joining of the two Germanies' - the removal of the iron curtain didn't provide instant an instant sense of relief and people are still struggling with their 'freedom'. A lot of folk have not learned how to restrain themselves from indulgence because the lack of goods and services made that unnecessary. Now money can be borrowed, food and good can be acquired - the sky is the limit.... There's a lot of socioeconomic problems going on, still today. But I think that is outside the realm of the book.
The fact that Tetris was programmed by a Russian - who actually went on to produce the great Quircks (Windows 95 PC game) that is actually a Puyo Puyo game - is perhaps not so coincidental as it would seem. The level of innovation - getting limited hardware beyond its apparent capabilities - and love for hard-core programming that you find in Tetris is something you'll still find in Russia, Eastern European countries and Scandinavia. There's a lot of Polish demo groups still producing high-tech demos for the low-spec ZX Spectrum: featuring bump mapping, > 7 colours, 3d animation etc etc. So that a game like tetris actually originated in Russia - where with limited resources a great game was produced - might not be that coincidental.
A lot of clones where produced and it is fairly easy to program your own versions. I actually did some myself for the c64 and the pc way back (GW Basic, Qbasic - compiled and Turbo Pascal). At University it actually was a programming assignment - make your own Tetris game.
Tetris is a game you can play in instinct, reflexes at first. When it becomes faster it takes more planning and strategy. Because the game play is so easy to grasp it is an excellent introduction to video games - just like it has been for many many gamers in the world.
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