I have to say, it is sort of silly that the Tetris company doesn't take a bit of effort and port one of their current Steam, iOS, Switch or XBox games to Mac. I can't imagine that it wouldn't be profitable for them.

TTC doesn't make any games, they just license Tetris to companies for certain platforms and regions. The latest PC release was a port of a game originally released in 2014, the PC port being released only last year.

I've played Tetris everyday for the past 15 years, so I feel John's anxiety on this.

The solution is simple though:

- NES emulator for Mac: https://openemu.org/

- Tetris ROM: https://www.emuparadise.me/Nintendo_Entertainment_System_ROM...

However beware, if you go deep enough down the Tetris rabbit hole then you'll inevitably find yourself buying an original NES and getting a CRT just to play Tetris as God (Alexey Pajitnov) intended.

Alternatively you can buy a USB NES Controller and play with that instead of buying the whole thing.

They also make NES to USB adapters if you happen to have a controller already.

Why not just install a Game Boy emulator and play the (arguably) best version of Tetris? Heck, I think there are web-based JavaScript Game Boy emulators out there.

yeah! here ya go - https://jsnes.org/run/Tetris%20(U)%20[!].nes

NES tetris is not best Nintendo tetris

I remember being a fiend on gameboy Tetris at 6 years old, and later on super Tetris(? -- the one with bomb drops) for MAC.

Tetris for gameboy is probably one of the worst versions imo. Tetris Plus for GB is considerably better.

I used to play Tetrinet, a long time ago, with all of my friends. It was absolutely brilliant.

Anyone else play TetriNET?

I honestly feel like that game mede people smarter, faster... angrier. Ha.

Used to play it all the time. Tried to play it recently and it failed under Windows 10.

Played it back in the days, loved it. There was even a unofficial Linux version I found on Freshmeat.

The linked article is the really interesting gem here.

"The Tragic Story Behind The Man Who Helped Create Tetris" http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/03/feature_the_tragic_...

TLDR (SPOILERS);

He was the co creator and him and the main creator couldn't make money from the title because it was made in Russia on work equipment. They later moved to the US and started a new company. The main creator later got ownership of the Tetris title when the copyright expired and so he started a company with it. The co-creator stayed at the other company, which was eventually floundering. He used a knife and hammer to kill his wife, 12-year old son, then himself. Two weeks later the floundering company was offered an influx of money.

Wow. :(

That's kind of bizarrely motivational, in a weird sort of way.

Here's[0] a game I wrote a while back to learn Elm; it's a mashup of Tetris and Boggle. It's web, but I _think_ it should run on OSX (use full-screen for the best experience).

[0] https://jstaab.itch.io/tetroggle

Edit: linked to the actual game

Bug report: wait for a 4-block line, move it to the far right, and hit Up to rotate. The game first gets the piece stuck then decides that's where the piece is going to sit.

Report 2: the arrow keys control the game _and_ scroll the page.

Edit: My brain isn't fast enough for this D:

Anti-kudos for making pause hide the grid, so I can't spend time staring at it GRR :P

Back in the old days of the Mac, I used to play what I believe to be an "official" Tetris [1] on a Macintosh SE.

Odd that there isn't an official one on Mac today given how just about every other platform has a version.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=2wnhPS5Q78E

That Russian music was so cool

Ah, Spectrum Holobyte. Such a great version of Tetris. Sadly it doesn't run under SheepShaver (hangs SheepShaver), and the music, arguably the most unique part of that version, didn't work under Classic. I downloaded WAVs of it a while back and used them as various ringtones for a long time. Level 2 in particular (Volga Boatman) was really good.

Not Tetris but maybe relevant (my game): https://bobsgame.itch.io/bobs-game-puzzle-game

Source: https://github.com/bobsgame/bobsgame

133 results, no installation necessary :) https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary?and%5B%5D=tetris

Note one result about halfway down has tiny blocky naked women, if your situation makes that inappropriate.

All falling tetromino games not officially endorsed by The Tetris Company infringe on TTC's copyrights and trademarks. Tetris is perhaps one of the world's most valuable software IPs and TTC protects it aggressively. There have been several court cases on this, all ruled in TTC's favor.

Don't clone Tetris, kids.

I ran a webserver that friends could use. I got a CnD because one of them had a php tetris game up.

What year was this?

probably around a decade ago.

The sole purpose of TTC seems to be licensing and protecting Tetris. They don't make any games, but recently have started selling merch online.

There is no copyright on Tetris, the lawsuits were based on "trade dress", which is silly, since nearly every Tetris game looks different.

I actually have my own clone online, and so far haven't heard a peep from TTC. knocks on wood I think maybe it's because they've relaxed a bit in that area, but I could be wrong. You can see it here if you like: https://simon.lc/tetr.js/

The developers of the clone Mino had to pull their game because it was considered "substantially similar" for copyright purposes. In general, game clones that resemble the original, even if they use all-original assets, are potentially infringing; see Atari v. Phillips. TTC asserts copyright over all Tetris-type games, and also has trademarks on the suffix -tris, the Russian folk song Korobeiniki when used in a video game, and the shapes of the tetrominoes themselves. Maybe someone can get a court ruling on whether the abstract concept of a tetromino game is copyrightable (pray it doesn't go before the CAFC), or get the vague trademarks overturned, but most unlicensed clone makers are wisely unwilling to die on the Tetris-clone hill.

Do you have a source for the song being used is part of the trade dress?

> Tetris Holding argues that Mino infringed the following copyrightable elements:

> - Seven Tetrimino playing pieces made up of four equally-sized square joined at their sides;

> - The visual delineation of individual blocks that comprise each Tetrimino piece and the display of their borders;

> - The bright, distinct colors used for each of the Tetrimino pieces;

> - A tall, rectangular playfield (or matrix), 10 blocks wide and 20 blocks tall;

> - The appearance of Tetriminos moving from the top of the playfield to its bottom;

> - The way the Tetrimino pieces appear to move and rotate in the playfield;

> - The small display near the playfield that shows the next playing piece to appear in the playfield;

> - The particular starting orientation of the Tetriminos, both at the top of the screen and as shown in the "next piece" display;

> - The display of a "shadow" piece beneath the Tetriminos as they fall;

> - The color change when the Tetriminos enter lock-down mode;

> - When a horizontal line fills across the playfield with blocks, the line disappears, and the remaining pieces appear to consolidate downward;

> - The appearance of individual blocks automatically filling in the playfield from the bottom to the top when the game is over;

> - The display of "garbage lines" with at least one missing block in random order; and

> - The screen layout in multiplayer versions with the player's matrix appearing most prominently on the screen and the opponents' matrixes appearing smaller than the player's matrix and to the side of the player's matrix.

It's hilarious that they were able to copyright tetrOminos (a mathematical name) and call them Tetriminos(tm).

I honestly think they have greatly relaxed trying to take down clones as long as they are not distributed on any platform like Steam or an app store. There are plenty of clones which copy certain versions of Tetris identically and TTC doesn't seem to care. Games like Tricky Towers are able to go around the trade dress, but sadly Spaera had to make changes.

It's very sad that the spirit of the game is a homebrew personal project that was freely distributed became one of the most controlled games ever. All they do now is make money off the name while release garbage. So people make their own games, not to steal from them, just because their games are so shit and there's a market who wants a better game.

http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77037539&caseType=SERIAL_N...

I see a lot of people here saying something like "Not Tetris, but", BUT, what about "Not Tetris 2"? Its like tetris, but not. http://stabyourself.net/nottetris2/

nullpomino[1] gets the job done for me, contains all of the advanced modes you'd expect from a serious tetris app

https://github.com/nullpomino/nullpomino

Most notably, Nullpomino is the only non web Mac app that offers an interpretation of the Tetris the Grand Master ruleset, which is in my opinion the most interesting variation of Tetris worthy of attention in single player.

There are a few open source projects which also have it and compile on macOS. There was a Texmaster build too, but no one seems to have an archive.

Not Tetris but similar and so fun and addictive - Torus: https://www.benjoffe.com/code/games/torus Play garbage mode...

  brew install netris

Started reading with intent of recommending grey market quinn.

It is a weird deficiency, finding (free or not)tetris without some weird social integration or online play etc.

I guess emulators fall into the same grey market spot.

http://www.victornils.net/tetris/

Literally the first thing I install on a fresh box.

    $ brew install vitetris
    $ brew install caskroom/cask/not-tetris

Those are tetris'y enough for me.

There used to be Quinn, way back when...

This was mentioned in the article and the problem is the developer got a cease and desist order, so they stopped working on it, and now it's only available from shady sites.

I still have and use a copy of Quinn. The fact that it's a 32 Bit app makes me not want to update on the forthcoming 64 Bit only MacOS.