Growing up, I didn't realize just how much Tetris meant to me. It was just a game, something I played nonstop without a second thought. But looking back, it was more than that—it was comfort, escape, and a constant presence in my life.
I have my father to thank for introducing me to Tetris. He liked the idea of me spending my time on something that made me think, something that challenged me in a way that felt worth it. He'd watch as I played, amused by how focused I was, sometimes giving advice on where to place a piece—even if he wasn't any more of an expert than I was. He just liked seeing me figure things out, having fun with something small but interesting.
Childhood in the Philippines is often painted with vivid memories of kids running outside and playing traditional games like patintero, tumbang preso, and sipa. The streets would be alive with laughter as kids dashed around barefoot, their only break being a trip to a neighborhood store for ice candy or a bottle of RC Cola. It was a social childhood, one where friendships were built on scraped knees and sweaty afternoons.
But that wasn't entirely my world. I had my moments playing outside, but I wasn't like the other kids who lived for it. I spent more time in front of a screen, something that most people around me didn't understand. While the neighborhood was a playground for some, my playground was my PSP, my computer, and the endless game of Tetris.
My family wasn't well-off, but thanks to my parents' computer business, I had access to tech that many kids my age didn't. While they were out playing tag, I was pressing buttons, clearing lines, lost in a world where I had control over every piece that dropped.
Tetris is simple—almost deceptively so. Pieces fall, you arrange them, and you clear lines. But behind that simplicity is an addictive puzzle that has kept players hooked for decades. It taps into something deep, something primal. The brain loves order, and Tetris gives us a problem that always needs solving. The Zeigarnik effect, a psychological phenomenon, suggests that our minds fixate on unfinished tasks. Tetris owes its success to that. Every cleared line creates a new challenge. It's like a never-ending loop, where chaos and resolution constantly balance each other out.
Others were right there with me in that addiction. Tetris has been played by over a billion people. It's a game that transcends age, culture, and language. No matter where you're from, you understand it. Like every revolution, it started with one person and an idea. Back in 1984, Alexey Pajitnov, a researcher at the Moscow Academy of Sciences, spent his free time working on computer puzzles. He'd always been intrigued by games that challenged his logic and spatial skills, so one day, inspired by the classic board game Pentominoes, he decided to create a digital version featuring falling blocks.
The goal was simple: fit them together, clear lines, and keep going. What Pajitnov didn't realize at the time was that he had just created something that would outlive entire generations of gaming trends. It was just a little side project to fill the gap at first. But as the news got out, it soon turned into something bigger. His colleagues couldn't stop playing it. It didn't stay in his office for long.
Before he knew it, it was all over the Soviet Union, passed around on floppy disks like an underground phenomenon. Before long, Tetris made its way to Hungary and caught the eye of Western companies eager to get their hands on it. That's when it all went sideways. The rights were still under Soviet control, and Atari, Nintendo, and Mirrorsoft were all in a tussle to secure distribution. Then came one heck of a legal battle, with Nintendo eventually taking the win and locking in Tetris for the Game Boy in 1989.
In retrospect, Tetris was more than just a fun game to me—it was my way of processing things that I didn't even realize needed processing. Childhood in the Philippines wasn't all fun and games. Many kids were expected to grow up fast, to help around the house, to take care of younger siblings, to get good grades, to be obedient, and to meet the expectations set for them.
Adults can also sometimes spill their frustration from work or arguments onto kids without meaning to. This just ends up stressing kids out, making them feel like they're handling way more than they should. Mental health wasn't something people talked about much. Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or emotionally drained? That was just life. No one really saw it as something serious, and kids were often told to just shake it off and move on.
But that doesn't mean those feelings weren't real. And when you're young, you don't always have the words to express what you're going through. You just know that sometimes you need something to make it all feel less heavy. That's what Tetris did for me. It was my escape, my little moment of control in a world that often felt like it had too many expectations and too little room to breathe.
My parents worked long hours, often leaving early in the morning and coming home late at night. They had a business to run, and that meant days that started before the sun came up and ended long after it had set. I always knew, even when I was little, that they were doing everything they could for us. But that didn't stop the house from feeling empty, nor did it make the hours fly by. Tetris, though, did. I spent so many evenings curled up with my PSP, playing Tetris while waiting for my parents to come home. Some nights, I'd challenge myself to beat my high score, pretending that if I played just one more round, my parents would walk through the door.
And then there were times when the house didn't feel empty at all—quite the opposite, in fact. Family fights happened all the time, and I wasn't the only kid who went through it. A lot of houses have something like that going on, even if no one talks about it. But as a kid, you don't always realize it's happening everywhere. You think your house is the only one with that kind of noise. I'd sometimes run into my closet, hiding with my PSP in hand, turning it on just to block out the noise. It wasn't like I understood everything, but I didn't need to. I just needed something familiar, something that wasn't unpredictable, something I could control. The moment the screen lit up and the first piece started to fall, I focused on that instead. It was like the noise of everything else faded away, and all that mattered was the game in front of me.
Loving Tetris was one thing. Needing it was another. Fast forward to one of the most painful realities of my childhood: losing my father at a young age. Grief is something that doesn't come with instructions. It was hard to explain, even harder to make sense of. I remember just waiting for things to go back to normal, not understanding that nothing would ever be the same again.
The first thing that brought me even a little peace was my PSP. Playing Tetris on it felt like regaining a sense of normalcy. It was a gift from him, and in some way, it felt like he was still there. As if he was watching me get lost in a game he knew I'd love, except tears I hadn't noticed before slipped from that little girl's eyes.
But come to think of it, I realize I had already been using Tetris as a form of escape long before that. My father's passing only made that need harder to ignore. So when I heard about the 13-year-old who broke the Tetris world record, it was like déjà vu.
Sometime last year, I heard about a 13-year-old kid breaking a world record in Tetris. The child version of me? Oh, she would've hated that. She would've crossed her arms, frowned, and said, No way. No kid should be able to out-Tetris me. That younger version of me was obsessed, convinced that Tetris belonged to her, that no one could love it as much as she did.
But if she had the chance to hear his story—how he lost his father just a week before his record-breaking moment, how he immersed himself in Tetris, playing for hours on end to escape the weight of his grief, how at first it was just a way to keep his mind occupied but gradually became something deeper, something that gave him purpose when everything else felt too overwhelming, how each cleared line felt like regaining a small sense of control, and how he ultimately dedicated his victory to his dad, knowing that somewhere, somehow, he would be proud—I know she'd soften.
I'm sure she'd sit next to him, though at first, she'd probably still be stubborn, arms crossed, acting like she's not having any of it. But deep down, I think she'd understand. She'd see herself in him, in the way he clung to Tetris, not just as a game, but as something to hold onto. Tetris was never just a game to me.
It was my comfort, my escape, my link to the past. It was there when I needed it the most. And even now, as I look back, I realize that the little girl stacking blocks in front of a screen wasn't wasting time. She was finding something that mattered. Maybe I'm giving Tetris too much credit, but I'm pretty sure little me would've doubled down on the sentiment. People will always have their own ideas about what a real childhood looks like, but I wouldn't trade mine for anything.