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60 free Tetris trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Tetris trivia quiz covers the whole story of the world's best-selling video game: how Alexey Pajitnov built it in his spare time at a Moscow computing centre in the mid-1980s, how a floppy disk found its way to Hungary and London, and how Henk Rogers walked uninvited into a Soviet ministry to win the Game Boy rights from under Robert Maxwell's nose. There are questions on the music (why a Russian folk song became the theme, and what Bach is doing on the Game Boy), the maths (why a game must eventually end), the lawsuits, and the modern era of Tetris Effect, Tetris 99, the Classic Tetris World Championship and the 13-year-old who finally crashed the NES version. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has cleared a few lines, a third are medium, and the rest are for people who know their Elorg from their Elektronika. It works as a solo quiz, a retro-gaming pub round or a warm-up before a Tetris night. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Center of which Soviet institution?
The Academy of Sciences
His day job was speech recognition and artificial intelligence research; the game was a spare-time project, one of more than twenty he wrote on the office computer.
Q 02The very first version of Tetris was written for which Soviet computer, a clone of the PDP-11?
Elektronika 60
The machine had no graphics, so the falling pieces were drawn out of spaces and square brackets.
Q 03In which programming language did Pajitnov write the original game?
Pascal
The IBM PC port that spread across Moscow was done in Turbo Pascal by Pajitnov, Dmitry Pavlovsky and a teenage prodigy over about two months.
Q 04The name Tetris combines the Greek 'tetra' with which sport, Pajitnov's favourite?
Tennis
'Tetra' means four, for the four blocks in every piece.
Q 05Pajitnov scaled the game down from which twelve-shape puzzle he had bought in a shop?
Pentominoes
Twelve five-block shapes felt needlessly complicated, so he dropped to four-block pieces, of which there are only seven.
Q 06How many different tetromino shapes are there in the game?
7
Modern versions use a 'bag' randomiser that guarantees each shape appears exactly once in every set of seven pieces.
Q 07How old was Vadim Gerasimov, the 'computer prodigy' who ported the game to the IBM PC?
16
Colleague Dmitry Pavlovsky added the scoreboard, and floppy copies then spread through Moscow's computer circles for free.
Q 08Robert Stein first encountered the game at a computing institute in which country?
Hungary
A researcher there had already ported it to the Commodore 64, and Stein bought that version too.
Q 09Stein sold the Western rights to Mirrorsoft, a UK publisher co-founded by which media magnate?
Robert Maxwell
Stein took the deal on the strength of a single noncommittal telex from Moscow, so he sold a licence he did not yet own.
Q 10Which company released the first US version in January 1988, playing up its Soviet origins?
Spectrum HoloByte
CEO Gilman Louie marketed it as the first Soviet product sold in North America, complete with folk music and Cyrillic-flavoured packaging.
Q 11The red US box art for the 1988 PC release featured which Moscow landmark?
Saint Basil's Cathedral
The soundtrack matched: Tchaikovsky's 'Trepak' from The Nutcracker and Glière's 'Russian Sailor Dance'.
Q 12Henk Rogers first saw the game on public display at which 1988 trade fair?
The Winter CES
He was scouting games to sell in Japan and ended up in the middle of the most tangled licensing fight in video game history.
Q 13Rogers published the game for Japanese computers and the Famicom in 1988 through which company of his?
Bullet-Proof Software
Q 21The Game Boy version was the first title compatible with which two-console accessory?
The Link Cable
Two-player mode was a race to survive or clear 30 lines first, with doubles, triples and four-line clears dumping rows on your opponent.
Q 22The Game Boy playfield is 10 blocks wide and how many blocks high?
18
The level rises every ten lines cleared, and you can pre-fill the well with junk rows for a harder start.
Q 23On the Game Boy, high levels earn rocket cutscenes ending with which Soviet spacecraft?
The Buran shuttle
The finale also features dancing Russians, keeping up the Soviet theme Nintendo inherited from the US PC release.
The Famicom version sold two million copies in Japan while the Soviet rights holders had no idea it existed.
Q 14Which Soviet software-export monopoly ended up negotiating the Tetris rights?
Elorg
Its full name was Elektronorgtechnica; it later became a private company and, in 1996, half-owner of The Tetris Company.
Q 15Accused in Moscow over Famicom Tetris, Rogers wrote the Soviet agency an on-the-spot cheque for over how much?
$40,000
The gesture won over the agency's director, who then quietly outmanoeuvred Stein and Kevin Maxwell in the following days.
Q 16Mirrorsoft's owner personally complained about the Nintendo deal to which Soviet leader?
Mikhail Gorbachev
He was told he 'should no longer worry about the Japanese company', but the Soviet agency's director refused to back down anyway.
Q 17Which Atari Games subsidiary released an unlicensed NES version in May 1989, then pulled it?
Tengen
Thousands of cartridges sat unsold in warehouses; many reviewers thought it the better game, and copies later fetched up to $300 second-hand.
Q 18Which federal judge granted Nintendo the console rights by summary judgment in November 1989?
Fern M. Smith
Atari argued the NES was a 'computer' under the original contract; the judge found Mirrorsoft had never been authorised to sell on consoles at all.
Q 19Clearing four lines at once needs the straight, four-long tetromino, named after which letter?
I
Most versions award their highest line-clear score for that four-row clear, and modern 'bag' randomisers guarantee you get one every seven pieces.
Q 20The Game Boy version, the best-selling edition of the game, had sold roughly how many copies by 2024?
35 million
It generated $80 million in revenue and is credited alongside Pokémon with keeping the Game Boy alive until 2003.
Q 24Game Boy 'Music A', later the series' official theme, is which 1860s Russian folk song?
Korobeiniki
The Tetris Company's guidelines require it in most major versions; Pajitnov's original lab version had no music at all.
Q 25'Music C' on the Game Boy is a minuet from a French Suite by which composer?
Johann Sebastian Bach
Music B was an original by Nintendo composer Hirokazu Tanaka, best known for Metroid and Kid Icarus.
Q 26'Music A' on Nintendo's NES version is which piece from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker?
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
The origins of the NES version's Music B and Music C have never been clearly established.
Q 27A 1992 Eurodance version of the theme by Doctor Spin reached what peak on the UK singles chart?
Number 6
Doctor Spin was a pseudonym for a duo that included Andrew Lloyd Webber's producer Nigel Wright.
Q 28The 'Tetris effect', seeing falling blocks after you stop playing, was coined in a 1994 article in which magazine?
Wired
Writer Jeffrey Goldsmith compared the game to an 'electronic drug'; the phrase later became the title of a 2018 game.
Q 29With Rogers' help, Pajitnov and his family emigrated in 1991 to which US city?
Seattle
He worked there as a freelance designer on sequels such as Welltris, and later helped design puzzles for Yoshi's Cookie.
Q 30Which 1990 Pajitnov follow-up replaced the falling tetrominoes with hats?
Hatris
Welltris dropped pieces down the walls of a 3D well, and Faces...tris III stacked slices of faces; none came close to the original's success.