Tetris, an Exhibit

Twenty-five years ago, the video game Tetris launched and began a new age in puzzle gaming. Millions of people stacked their way through the levels of falling geometric shapes, arranging the blocks to fit perfectly in a line. This simple, yet surprisingly addictive gameplay had caused Tetris to be a household name. Its rudimentary mechanics make the game accessible to all types of gamers, hardcore and casual alike. The franchise has dozens of spin-offs, amusing generations since the eighties. Yet recently, people have discovered that the popular game has done more than just entertain the masses – Tetris has a huge psychological effect on its players.

When analyzing a game as basic as Tetris, it’s not difficult to see why the game becomes so mesmerizing. The colorful tetrominoes dropping, its iconic music, the rapidly increasing speed – all these elements hook the players, leading many to play hours on end. Unfortunately, gamers that play the puzzle game in massive amounts are likely to succumb to the cybersickness, the “Tetris Effect”. This unusual side effect causes the player to see objects in the world as those familiar tetrominal blocks, hoping to reorganize them all to align in just the right way. This adverse effect is more common than one would expect: