Android Tetris Game Project with Source Code

Tetris is a puzzle game in which geometric shapes called "tetrominoes" fall down onto a playing field, and the player has to arrange them to form gapless lines. Pajitnov took inspiration from pentomino, a classic puzzle game consisting of all the different shapes that can be made by combining five squares -- 12 in total -- with the goal of arranging them in a wooden box like a jigsaw puzzle.

To simplify things, he knocked that down to four squares, thus reducing the number of shapes from 12 to seven. He called the game Tetris, combining the Greek numeral "tetra" (meaning four) and tennis, his favorite sport.

Pajitnov himself was immediately hooked. "I couldn't stop myself from playing this prototype version, because it was very addictive to put the shapes together," he said on the phone from Seattle, where he now lives.