Draft No. 2 · played · desk: Games
Tetris
The lines, in the order they were uncovered
The subject was under black tape (wavy underline); giveaway words were under correction fluid (dotted underline).
- Nevertheless, it _does_ beat ping-pong.
- Or breakout does. Or Elite does...
- This game once was quite popular with 8 bit microcomputers even though it will never thrill anyone the way pacman does.
- A game designed to waste time.
- Stones of different shapes are falling down the screen and one has to direct them so they will fit to the wall on the bottom of the screen.
Then: 66 words calling it a game designed to waste time. Now: one of the best-selling video games ever, and in 2023 a 13-year-old became the first person to 'beat' the NES version by crashing it.
What happened next
The earliest surviving draft of this article, from July 2001, is less an encyclopedia entry than a grumpy review: a time-waster that will never thrill anyone the way Pac-Man does. Tetris was created by Alexey Pajitnov at a Soviet computing centre in Moscow in 1984 and became one of the best-selling video games of all time across nearly every platform. Its classic Game Boy and NES versions still have a busy competitive scene.
The whole first draft
A game designed to waste time.
Stones of different shapes are falling down the screen and one has to direct them so they will fit to the wall on the bottom of the screen.
This game once was quite popular with 8 bit microcomputers even though it will never thrill anyone the way pacman does. Or breakout does. Or Elite does... Nevertheless, it _does_ beat ping-pong.
Quoted from Wikipedia: "Tetris", revision 1359986305 (24 July 2001, by an anonymous contributor) and today's article, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Word counts checked 2026-10-31.
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