List of curiosities

Poor known facts

• The number of board states in Tetris can have is 2²⁰⁰ = 1 606 938 044 258 990 275 541 962 092 341 162 602 522 202 993 782 792 835 301 376 ≈ 1.6 x 10⁶⁰.
• The number of stable ("with non-filled line") board states is 1022¹⁹ x 1023 = 154 683 024 033 958 394 196 8754 047 234 064 022 827 366 713 230 467 631 939 584 ≈ 1.54 x 10⁶⁰
• Nowadays Tetris logo was drawn by Roger Dean

Also, according to RealTechnews:

• The game inspired a terrible single in 1992 by Dr Spin, featuring samples of music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber
• In September 2002, Faiz Chopdat, 23, of Blackburn, was jailed for four months after refusing to turn off his mobile on a flight from Egypt to Manchester. The crew asked him three times to switch off the phone, which was interfering with the plane’s communications system, but each time Chopdat turned it on again. He was playing Tetris.
• The world’s smallest game of Tetris took place under an electron microscope using 42 glass ‘microspheres’ at the Department of Physics of Complex Systems in Amsterdam
• Yuri Yevushenko, director of the Russian Academy in the 1980s, claims Tetris is so successful because "unlike American games it is not about murder, shooting or chasing; it is about building and order."
• In a recent US study at the Harvard Medical School’s department of psychiatry, 27 Tetris players spent seven hours a day, for three days, playing the game. Many had ‘Tetris dreams’.

Unusual Tetris

• Tetris played on Brown's University Science Library Building (RI, USA)
• Blinkenlights Arcade: Tetris and other things played on Bibliothèque nationale de France's T2 Tower] (see also [Blinkenlights website)
• Tetris played on CHIP & PIN terminal
• Tetris-themed lotto
• Tetris weightlifting
• Tetris used in a computer virus
• Absolutris screensaver
• Tiny Tetris (PC program ; last link)
• Tiny Tetris (Ti-89 calc version)
• VMU (Dreamcast Memorycard) Tetris
• PIC Tetris

Tetris Objects

• Pillows
• Kidroom furniture
• "Tetris 3D cube" tangram-ish puzzle (also, iPhone related news)
• Necklace
• Mangnets
• Shelves (more shelves from the same company)
• Tetris Tower 3D board game (doesn't use the third dimension as a game feature though)
• Fighting Tetris board game video (another one)
• Alarm clock
• Icecubes !
• Cookies !

Tetris apparel

• Nintendo official, limited and surely out of stock Tetris T-shirt
• "Put pieces Together to Make a Peace" (Threadless ; out of stock)
• "Never mind" (Way of the Rodent's Tee-total shop)
• "Tetris the Soviet Challenge" (comboutique)
• "Tetris addict" on T-shirts, messenger bags... (comboutique)

Art and Culture

• Human Tetris
• Tiny tiny tiny Tetris GIF
• Tetris Crate
• Tetris vandalism
• Virtual Valentine's Day card
• Sugar stop-motion Tetris
• Various Tetris commercials
• Life of a Lonely L piece in the real world (12MB mpeg video)
• Lady Sovereign "Love me or Hate me (explicit version)" clip (Tetris at the beginning and the end)
• Another stop-motion video (tetris at 02:34)
• German Honda Commercial
• The Simpsons Tetris
• Futurama Tetris
• Family Guy Tetris
• The Perry Bible Fellowship Tetris Strip
• Mailiki strip about Tetris (and cashier and supermarket) (french comic)
• Tetris DS Japanese 24h marathon

People

Utada Hikaru, japanese pop idol

• can play a vs match while laughing
• hit 99999999 on Tetris DS
• participated in a Tetris DS event organized by Nintendo
• (is cute when she plays)

Alexey Pajitnov, the man behind Tetris

• won a GDC game design challenge
• (has an admirable russian accent)