Ka Leo O Hawaii

Issue date: 11/15/07 Section: Mixed Plate

Media Credit: Courtesy of Tetris Holding, LLC Video game programmer and creator of Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov , will be flying into Hawai‘i to make a special appearance at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa's Tetris Cup final round.

Media Credit: Courtesy of Tetris Holding, LLC Manager Henk Rogers of Tetris Company LLC (based in Hawai‘i), which manages the rights to the game Tetris.

For the past 20 years, Tetris has been a cultural and pop phenomenon all over the world. Recently, the Tetris craze has hit the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa campus in the form of the first annual "Tetris Cup Challenge."

The tournament is a two-week long event that began on Nov. 5, in which registered players compete for prizes valued at over $5,000.

"I think the Tetris Cup is a good way to have people come together and play the classic game which we all enjoy," said Eric Ingersoll, a UH student and avid Tetris player.

All the Tetris craze is thanks to Russian game programmer Alexey Pajitnov, who will be making a special appearance at the Tetris Cup finals this Friday.

Pajitnov developed the idea for the game back in 1985 while working at the Russian Academy of Sciences. His inspiration for came from his fondness for the classic puzzle game Pentominos, a math game of polygons made of five squares that are connected perpendicularly.

He was inspired and created his own video game, which involved the placing of four intricately shaped building blocks or "tetrinos" to form a line, or "tetris." Thus, the game Tetris was created.

The game became a huge success and spread all over Moscow and eventually the whole of Russia. In 1988, the first personal computer-compatible release of Tetris came out in Europe and the U.S. and garnered much acclaim. In 1989, the game was released for the Nintendo Game Boy and broke all sales records at the time, selling more than 32 million copies.

Pajitnov eventually left Russia in 1991 and moved to the U.S., where he began working for Microsoft in 1996. During his time with Microsoft, Pajitnov helped create other well-known games, such as Hexic 3D and Pandora's Box. He also helped design puzzles for the Super NES version of Yoshi's Cookie.

In 1991, Pajitnov founded the Tetris Company LLC with his friends Vladimir Pokhilko and Henk Rogers. The company is based right out of Honolulu and currently owns the trademark for the popular video game.

Since its creation, Tetris Company LLC has licensed the trademark to video game development companies and has a set of guidelines that they must follow. Most recently, the company has been part of a promotional campaign for the Tetris Cup Challenge, which UH students have been competing in since last week.

Pajitnov will make a special appearance at the Tetris Cup finals this Friday, Nov. 16. This will be his first public appearance in Hawai‘i, where he will personally present the awards to the Tetris Cup Challenge winners.

"I think it's pretty cool that we're going to have the inventor of Tetris come to our school," said UH student and Tetris Cup competitor Andrew Coon. "He pretty much made the way for more inventive games after Tetris."

Alexey Pajitnov will be available for autographs and interviews tomorrow at the Campus Center Ballroom from 3 to 7 p.m.

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