I recently (and finally) became acquainted with Tetris—the Classic version from the video game granddaddy, Nintendo.
I never played as a child. Shocker as that may seem for an ’80s baby, my parents simply did not invest in any video games for us kids. Not that they couldn’t afford it, but we had a bit of a traditionalist upbringing; we were perfectly content to play in the mud with our Tonka trucks and pop wheelies on our dirt bikes and build forts in trees. Thus, my parents were satisfied with giving us more of an outdoor childhood and stealthily managed to avoid the “all-my-kids-want-are-video-games” 18-year financial fiasco. That being said, I somehow managed to stay up-to-par with most of the popular video games and technological trends, often playing games at friends’ houses, or checking out my peers’ new gadgets they brought with them to school.
But the mighty Tetris evaded me. It was like the Rubik’s Cube of the video game world; everyone is impressed by it, enraptured by it, and jealous of the warriors who’ve conquered it. Maybe I sold myself short, simply assuming I could never master it (or get past Level 1 for that matter) due to my over-reactive thumbs. Or maybe I was just too lazy to try the darn thing. Either way, I never touched the Godfather of video game puzzles.