Soviets Play Capitalist Game With New Computer Puzzle

The Soviet Union is launching its first commercial computer game in the West, an abstract puzzle called Tetris that a software specialists calls “horribly gripping” and predict will be a major success.

Tetris is played by one person who must quickly arrange a series of falling blocks into a horizontal line. The player loses if the blocks fill the screen before being rearranged.

“The idea of commercializing (Tetris) in the West only came recently when the game became quite popular, first of all in the Soviet Union and then in the East Bloc,” Victor Biryabrin said.

Biryabrin, who is responsible for bringing the game to the West, spoke to Reuters by telephone from the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where he heads the computer software department.

Tetris, which has nine difficulty levels, will be published in nine different computer systems worldwide within the next three weeks, starting with the IBM Personal Computer version that went on sale in Britain on Wednesday.

It will cost $14 to $35, and the Soviet Union will receive most of the profits in royalties.