Tetrisphere

About Tetrisphere

Tetrisphere (1997) is H2O Entertainment's Nintendo 64 Tetris variant in which players drop and slide shapes onto a wrapped 3D sphere, chaining combos to dig through to its core.

Tetrisphere in Depth

Rather than completing lines on a flat field, players remove bricks on a three-dimensional grid wrapped around a sphere, generally aiming to dig through the layers to reach its core. Bricks are cleared when three pieces of the same shape touch as the result of a "drop", either when the player releases the held brick or when the brick beneath another is removed. This triggers a combo: the three bricks glow and implode, and any matching pieces in contact with them are removed in a chain reaction. Stacked pieces must sit exactly on top of each other, and O and I pieces must share a full side to count as touching, while other shapes only need to make contact.

Pieces already on the sphere can be moved by "sliding", lining up the shadow of the held piece with a matching shape; slid pieces can smash through crystal pieces but not other bricks. After a combo, random pieces begin to glow in proportion to its size, becoming power pieces, and a combo started with one lasts longer, letting the player start further combos while it runs. Its several modes and selectable funky soundtrack by Neil Voss were widely praised. GameSpot's Jer Horwitz called it "precisely the sort of game that the Nintendo 64 really needs", with "revolutionary gameplay, impressive long-term value" and effects beyond the PlayStation.

Making Tetrisphere

H2O Entertainment, founded by Steve Shatford, Christopher Bailey and Michael Tam, originally developed Phear for the Jaguar, whose levels required clearing a hole of a set size at the sphere's core. Nintendo, a Tetris Company licensee, reportedly acquired the rights after seeing it at the 1995 Winter CES, and H2O, which completed a reverse takeover with Entech Resources, then worked exclusively for Nintendo to rework it as a Tetris game. Released in North America in August 1997 and PAL regions in February 1998, it received generally favourable reviews for its originality, modes and music, and Horwitz noted big improvements over the Jaguar demo, though critics' experiences of the gameplay varied.