Mirrorsoft

A 16-year-old called Vadim Gerasimov ported it to, um, the, uh, IBM PC, copies spread round Eastern Europe, and a British-based company called Andromeda Software went after the rights.

In the end, Mirrorsoft, uh, which was part of, uh, Robert Maxwell's publishing empire, released it in the UK, uh, on the 27th of January, 1988.

Within about three weeks, it was out on the, uh, Commodore 64, the Spectrum, the Amstrad, uh, the BBC, the Atari ST, and the Amiga.

The Spectrum tape was $7.99 and the 64 tape was $8.95 or $12.95 on disk.

Hearing them back-to-back like that, I'd put the 64 first for atmosphere, but the Amiga wins for pure polish.

Let's talk about looks because Tetris is one game where the graphics barely matter, and that's a bit of a weird thing to say, uh, on a retro show.

Mirrorsoft's versions put, uh, busy backgrounds behind the well to make them feel special.

And on the, uh, Amiga, there's a fuzzy animated static that you can actually freeze if it gets in the way.