New York : First Second, 2016.
253 p. : chiefly ill. ; 22 cm.
Is there anyone who has never seen or played Tetris? I'm sure there are, but for the rest of us this book is a fascinating retelling of the story of Tetris' creation and eventual conquest of the world of handheld game devices.
Things that surprised me were the fact that the game was developed in the Soviet Union by a programmer who was especially interested in human behavior around gaming, that the inventor of Tetris never realized the income he deserved, and how corrupt and complicated the development and acquisition of rights to the game were in the West (including Japan).
The convoluted and competing and high stakes plays and theft of the game by the big game companies of the time is interesting. Involved were Sega, Nintendo and Atari.
It was a fun book to read since I so vividly remember the first time I played Tetris was in the late 1980s and it was on a Gameboy device that a coworker had. I recall that because, as this graphic novel so truthfully conveys - the game was irresistible once you started playing it.
It's a fun, fast read that I would definitely recommend to students, especially those interested in computer gaming and in programming.
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