The band.
Video game publisher, Electronic Arts (EA), yesterday celebrated Tetris’ 29th birthday with the launch of its ‘Tetris Blitz’ mobile phone game.
It hosted a street event in Sydney CBD’s Pitt Street Mall, where musicians were accompanied by advertising staff distributing flyers and Chupa-Chups to the public.
Tetris Blitz is similar to Bejewelled Blitz in that it unites the arcade puzzle concept of the tradition game, and combines it with a timer for fast-paced and ‘quick fix’ entertainment; users are given two minutes to get the highest score they can.
Therefore, instead of carefully planning the positioning of each tile, users are forced to make quick decisions in order to complete lines.
Like in Bejewelled Blitz, users cannot ‘die’; if tiles reach the top, the game wipes the top six lines for extra space. This is also a key difference between the original game.
EA has included a range of power-ups in the game for slightly personalised play. These power-ups can be purchased by using coins won by playing. There are some ‘limited edition’ power-ups, too; these must be used a large number of times during the week in order to be stored rather than disappearing.
As expected, Tetris Blitz integrates with Facebook to add a competitive element. The leaderboard is reset every week.
Tetris Blitz is available as a free download for both iOS and Android users via the Apple App Store and Google Play, respectively.
