Nothing was impervious to the Tetris effect. Having escaped its Russian homeland in the late-Eighties, Alexey Pajitnov’s puzzle game and its falling blocks were suddenly everywhere – on computers, consoles, even in our dreams.
Tetris was a huge hit in arcades too, with both Atari and Sega producing coin-op versions thanks to the famously muddled rights process. And with success came the clones, including Block Hole from Konami, Block Out from Technos and Puzzled from SNK. Even (quasi) official rights’ holders Atari and Sega created their own spins on the puzzle genre in Klax and Columns. Taito’s response to the Tetris effect was the three Ps: Plotting, Puzznic and Palamedes.
“PUZZNIC OFFERED A SMARTER, MORE COMPOSED TAKE ON
