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Before the latter gave the OXO Legends award to the former, we got to sit down with both the creator of Tetris and the chairman of the Tetris Company to talk about the Hollywood movie, Henk's book, the origins and legacy of the game, and even its upcoming evolution.
"Hi, Gamereactor friends. I'm in Málaga.
This has been organized by the OXO Video Game Museum.
As tomorrow, the OXO Legends Awards, the first ones, are going to be delivered to these guys who are joining me here today."
"Henk and Alexey, creator of Tetris.
We could say Mr. Tetris and Dr. Tetris.
I love that because one created the creature, the other one kept it alive.
So, thank you so much for joining us."
"First of all, I wanted to ask you, Alexey, you know, last year I went to your 40th anniversary party, that was fantastic, in LA, and you said something beautiful.
You said that the glory is not yours anymore, that you relieved that glory, and that you have a very modest position regarding the game."
"How do you feel nowadays?
How do you feel about this creature, as we said, and what it became?
And the phenomenon that millions around the globe still enjoy 41 years later.
Well, what can I say?
Computer game is a very complicated kind of social phenomenon with the technical kind of problem and advantages with the social stuff and whatever."
"So, basically, now I feel that the new stage of Tetris life starts, because the generation changed, and the people's attitude to the game changed, and the general attitude of people changed."
"So, new generation is not very well fit to the game I designed 40 years ago.
The player become less patient, less responsible, absolutely unable to read any manuals or instructions, and so on.
So, they need very, very, very simple stuff, and they are not very persistent."
"From the other hand, we have lots of changes in user interface of new device and platforms.
We need to...
Well, the phone are controlled by just a finger, and that gives very specific to the dynamic of gameplay."
"So, new interfaces should be worked out and whatever.
So, lots of technical and social issues with the game, and we need to update, to refresh the version all the time.
And I'm old enough, and nobody listens to me, so..."
"We all listen to you. I love listening.
So, basically...
Poor baby, nobody listens to you.
I really rely on the team who helped me to maintain the brand and to keep the game alive."
"And I think that Hank has his own opinion about all this stuff.
We always love to listen to you, Alexey.
And we also love to read what you write, Hank, because you published this book which is called From Russia With Love, The Perfect Game, Tetris."
"It released in the US in April, if I'm correct.
April Fool's Day.
April Fool's Day, but I think it's very real, it's not a joke.
And we're getting a localized version here in Spain as well, so..."
"We love the movie as well.
Now, which would you say is the main fact you're checking, you're correcting here, or the story that you're telling, slightly different in the book this time around?
Yeah, so, the movie..."
"The beginning of the script is pretty much what happened.
You know, the negotiation, and the back and forth, and the intrigue in the Soviet Union.
But then it goes Hollywood.
It goes major Hollywood."
"A lot of things happened that never happened in real life.
And, you know, to make it into a movie, to get the feeling of what happened to us in a two-year period, in two hours, they had to do a lot of things very quickly to get the emotion and the feeling across."
"And they did that.
To exaggerate something, to make metaphors.
Yeah, so, I mean, as far as that's concerned, I think the feeling got across.
But what actually happened is actually just as interesting, but in a different way."
"So, the book is like the movie, except the movie is fast forward, past all the interesting bits, and none of the details.
And the book basically is the book about my game career.
So, the book is called The Perfect Game, Tetris from Russia with Love."
"I will ask you about your game career as well.
But you mentioned something very interesting, which is how you guys want to transform Tetris for the modern audiences.
And I know you guys agree on a lot of things, and on other things you sort of bring to the table your own vision, right?
Which is normal."
"And you said something interesting, which is team play.
This is an idea of yours.
I don't know if you've fiddled with it, if you've tried it out.
And if you have a solid concept of how Tetris could work with cooperative play."
"Well, I worked on this idea a long time ago.
And nobody really appreciated it, because it's really hard to literally organize this stuff.
It's not very complicated to understand, but it's hard to organize all this stuff."
"To make versus Tetris, competitive Tetris, to work in a team with the different asymmetric roles of several players.
So that one player kind of is a driver, who really plays Tetris on the field and whatever."
"And the other one is navigator, who can kind of navigate your Tetris game through the opponent and give them harm or support alliance or whatever.
So do the organizational stuff."
"Both function at one player, it's too much, because Tetris is a very, very big, mind-consuming game.
And I shared this version, and people say that probably it's a big reason, but nobody really started doing this stuff so far."
"But you know, the experience of Tetris 99, one more time convinced me that that's the right way.
That's the way to do it, because the best Tetris 99 games are the guys who are able to shoot the very right opponents on the field."
"On the field, yes.
But you guys have other ideas in order to modernize and to decide which could be the main version going forward in the future.
You mentioned Tetris Olympics."
"What sort of features do you have to keep?
What features do you have to remove?
You have the T-spin, you have the hold piece, you have a lot of things to think about and to make a pure version that can be competitive and work with new audiences also as spectators."
"So what's your take on all this?
Yeah, so there are several versions of Tetris out there which can show people what can be done at a very high level.
I mean, the ARIKA Grandmaster, when you watch the video, it's like, are you kidding me?
How can a human do that?
It even goes to the point where you can't see the pieces, which, by the way, is very interesting, but it's not a spectator sport."
"So for a spectator sport, you have to be able to see everything all the time and understand what's going on.
And then you can have spectators argue about what actually happened, like, this is what happened or that's what happened, it was actually a goal."
"No, it was actually offsides, and they can argue about this.
But I want them to be able to see everything.
That's first of all.
There are some... how can I say?
In order to make Tetris a little bit easier over time, we've added some things that, in fact, make Tetris easier."
"For example, the hold piece, or, for example, the bag system, which is where we, instead of giving you completely random pieces, we take seven pieces, we shuffle them, give them to you, and then we shuffle them again and give them again."
"So every 13th is guaranteed to be an "I" piece.
So it kind of takes the tension away a little bit.
I like to get rid of that as well.
But, I mean, a lot of the things that we've added to the game I think should stay."
"Certainly single, double, triple Tetris has become part of the game, that should stay.
The T-spin has become... and the combos, I think those are...
But here's the way the rotation works, just quickly."
"If you have a Z or an S piece and you take it to one side, in the Game Boy, on one side it'll turn, but on the other side it won't.
I understand, yeah."
"And so when people push the button expecting something to happen, something should happen.
And so basically what super rotation does is when people expect something to happen, it happens."
"And that makes the game a little bit more easy, but it also enables the game to be played much faster.
I'm looking forward to what you guys do next with Tetris and with spectators and replays and the ideas you guys have."
"Something we expect from Tetris is the music.
I don't know if you're asked a lot about this, but we have been hearing and listening to Tetris music for as long as the game exists, but I guess you didn't picture the game with that music at first."
"So which would you say is the more relatable track that you feel works with Tetris from all these years?
You can sing it if you want.
Well, the most popular melody for Tetris is always Korobéiniki."
"Okay, there's a but.
Yeah, it's not my favorite.
I was very fascinated with the Tchaikovsky dance from Nutcracker.
Frankly, I would prefer something really classic like that."
"But that is just my humble opinion.
Can you hum that one?
Yes, hum that one.
Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut."
"I see, I see.
I love classical music to Tetris as well.
Also, Henk, you were a game designer.
I think this helped how you guys connected."
"And you brought to Japan the first RPG in Japan, which was The Black Onyx.
would you say it shaped you as a publisher? You know, being a developer and a designer, to then understand which games could work with gamers in different generations. Well, you make me sound like I knew what I was doing back then, but I didn't. All I knew is that I wanted to make a game. You know, before I made The Black Onyx, all I'd ever done was homework assignments, and so I really didn't know how to make a game. I didn't know how, I had no idea, and I didn't know what 64K was. I'd never had 64K before, and I was picturing this game, you know, this big game, but I only could fit this, and so the magic of Black Onyx is the parts of the game that I said, no, I'm not gonna develop that, I'm not gonna develop that. So, I mean, I was thinking something like World of Warcraft, and here I am with an 8-bit computer that can barely, you know, do what it does. So, I think that's the miracle. I got the essence of role-playing game, going up levels, and adventuring. So, those are the two things that I managed to capture, and that captured people all over Japan. It was the number one game in Japan in 1984, and as a result, because I published it myself, I ended up with a publishing company, and well, then I started looking for games, and eventually I found Tetris. And you found Alexey. And then something you said, Henk, last year at the 40th anniversary, was that you thought you were being brave or stupid. You didn't know if you were being stupid, as in doing illegal things in the Soviet [Union], or if you were being brave, or you didn't know if you were breaking the law. So, after all these years, Alexey, what do you think? Was he being more stupid or more brave? And are you proud of his being stupid back then? No, we don't talk about stupidity, it's his kind of mannerism, I would put it that way. But it was a really brave, and very good, and very, very right movement to come to Russia, and to handle the problem himself. So, that's how the really serious and dedicated business should work."
"And the final one for Henk, you gave me a beautiful anecdote that is in your book, so we can tell viewers, so that they look forward to reading your book, about the Go Yamauchi-san anecdote, and how you published this game for the NES.
I know it's a longer story, so just a teaser for fans to look forward to reading your full book. Yeah, so the teaser is this. Five companies went to Nintendo in 1985-6, and asked Nintendo, we're personal computer publishers, can we publish Nintendo games? And Nintendo said, no. And the companies were T&E, Falcom, Bullet-Proof Software (my company), Square, and Enix. Can you imagine? Nintendo said no to Square and Enix. So, you know, you guys don't know anything about how to make Nintendo games. Go on, go home. And we're all disappointed. Well, fast forward, I found a Go game on Commodore 64, and I talked Yamauchi into letting me publish it. And if you want to know the rest of the story, please read my book. It's called The Perfect Game, Tetris from Russia with Love. That's the perfect way to wrap this. You read the full book, because that the story, and all the stories are fantastic. And I thank you once again for joining us, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow on stage for the ceremony. Again, congratulations on the OXO Legends Award. Thank you."
"Gracias."
