Tetris, a classic in any sense of the word, has been the subject of “games on buildings” before but it has never been played on MIT’s Green Building, home of the MIT Earth and Planetary Sciences Department.  Until now.  This has been made possible via multi-colored LED lights placed in the windowsill of the offices on the river facing side of the building and controlled through a special console.  How the challenge increases as play continues is the most interesting part of this hack is.

The building is laid out in a 9×17 grid which is pretty close to what the original Tetris offered players.  As play continues the hues of the blocks becomes more similar so it is tougher to tell what block is coming next based on just a square or two at the top of the screen.  When the game is lost all of the blocks will fall to the bottom of the building creating a dramatic effect.

This is not the first time that Tetris has been played on the Green building though.  In 1993 the Hacking Series Committee Calendar group accomplished this feat.  Over on the Brown University campus in Providence Rhode Island there has been a playable Tetris game created also.  The Brown University event took place in 2000 on the 10 story Sciences Library.

The team behind this latest building Tetris have released the source code to do something similar over on Github, for those interested doing this in their city.

Do you have an interesting hack making use of Tetris and want us to cover it in the future?  Just let us know in the comments or via the contact link at the top of the page here on Retro Gaming Magazine.

Previously we featured Tetris in our 10 Awesome Minimalist Game Boy Games – Puzzle Edition.

Source: Hacks.MIT.edu via Unbelievablefactsblog.com and Gamnesia’s Facebook page

Carl Williams

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