Electronic Arts has released its next iteration of the Tetris franchise, the fast-paced Tetris Blitz. The app is free with optional in-app purchases, but the core game mechanics will be familiar to anyone who has played the game on a Gameboy all the way up to the latest mobile version.
The goal of the game is simple: blocks of varying shapes drop from the ceiling and must be aligned to form lines. The major difference between Blitz and traditional Tetris is that you don’t have to physically move the blocks around; they fall at a standard rate, increasing as you level up, and you merely tap on the “ghost” areas where you would like the Tetronimo to fall.
So, it feels like Tetris but you don’t actually move the blocks around; like any attention-deficit-supporting game, you do as little as possible to proceed through the game. And, furthering the play-while-waiting-in-line motif, each game is only two minutes long. You can use powerups to increase your time play and score, and playing longer will accrue points that can be used to buy powerups to get, you guessed it, more points.
To cheat get further in the game, you have the option of buying in-app currency that can used towards buying power-ups. Because the game has a huge social aspect, EA is encouraging the use of power-ups to clear more lines and play for longer periods, which will lead to higher scores. And so the cycle of in-app purchases continues.
To be fair, Tetris Blitz is pretty fun on its own, and there is no need to spend actual money on the game, at least not in the early stages that I’ve played through. It’s currently available for Android but will arrive on iOS in the coming weeks.
Download Tetris Blitz for Android.
