HansDampf
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2015
- Messages
- 1,471
Well, a strong argument could be made that Tetris is the closest thing to the "perfect game".
The most subjective aspect about Tetris, it's is music. But then again the music is clearly not integral to the game experience and supposed to serve as a backing music (the fact the original GameBoy music is catchy did help in this regard)
- It's concept and appeal are universal: the extremely simple premise and presentation of the game, means anyone can understand and play it; there's no barrier of any kind to this game, because there's simply no human element to it - no story, no cultural references or concepts, just blocks falling down (even a game like pac-man has a human layer to it, the ghosts/fruits, which means if the player comes from a civilization that has no notion about these ideas, he won't recognize the ghosts as threats and the fruits nourishment) - so for example, if aliens were to land on Earth after humankind disappeared, Tetris would be the videogame they would have the easiest time understanding.
- It's the one of the few videogames (if not the only one) where you can't modify it's fundamental gameplay mechanics and still have a interesting and functional game, because the mechanics are just that tightly designed: if you take out the ability to rotate the pieces, then the game won't work; if you remove the piece randomizer, then the players can learn a pattern and break the game; if you remove the scoring system then there's no reason for people to continue to play and coming and coming back to it after a few rounds; if the gravity acted independently for each piece, then it would be very difficult for the player to loose; if the game doesn't speed up with each level then there's nothing to challenge the players;
- The 4 blocks pieces are a perfect set: if the pieces had only 3 blocks the game would be to simple to be satisfying, as there's only 2 possible combinations; if the pieces had 5 blocks the game would be to complex, as there would be too many combinations, the way the pieces are set would result in a lot of horizontal sliding (which the game isn't aiming at) and finally it would be unnecessarily off-putting with all the irregular shapes.
- Guarranted to be challenging: the inevitable failure means any player, no matter how good he/she is, will always be pushed to a challenging situation.