Level 62 - Not Your Dad's Tetris

Hello everyone, just giving you
a bit of a heads up of something new that I'm trying for.
Remember 64 Another way to hear from you, the listener and
viewer of the show.

Voice cast dot app slash
Remember 64 voice cast is a cool new thing that I found from a
couple other creators that have been using them.
This is a great way to send a audio message to the show.
It's something that you can share about episodes, games,
things you want us to cover, you know, any of the games that we
have upcoming or have, and you have some thoughts about what
you experienced playing the game.
I always ask guests and me and

Jiggy look back, always talk
about it.

But what do you think?
Sure, social media is a way to do it, but this is a way to
actually have your voice on the show.
It is completely free voice cast dot app slash remember 64.
Just make it, you know, anywhere between 30 seconds to two
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It could be very brief.

No problem.
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You can just say bye, you know,
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Voice cast dot app slash
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Like Calgary company is looking to hit it big with Nintendo.
It's the only Canadian company to develop games for Nintendo,
and they're available at a store shelf near you.
Cody and Aaron just can't get enough of Nintendo, so they're
pretty pumped to be among the first to try the brand new game.
Cal.

How's our website coming?
And this is where the new game was born, an office in a
downtown high.

Rise.
These are our characters from the Tetris FEAR game.
It's the first time Nintendo has hired a Canadian company to
design one of these games.

It could mean millions for this
small Calgary company.

It's a very big deal.
Nintendo is the world's largest video game manufacturer, so for
a little start up company like ourselves that's been able to
line up the world's biggest player is just a tremendous
coup.

I don't.
Know if you're going to win this time.
Welcome to Remember 64, where this week we break blocks in a
whole new way.

Hello, everyone, welcome to the
show, and hi again for returning listeners and viewers.
And welcome if this is your first time here on Remember 64,
we play and discuss the good, the bad, the ugly, and
everything in between throughout the Nintendo 64's library.
My name, of course, is David

Ptrangelo, and I spin this game
round, baby, right round.

When I drop blocks, things will
go down, down.

That's right.
I'm not going to sing that because that would hurt
everybody's ears even more than my voice already does anyways.
Jiggy, look back with me again.

How are you, Sir?
Like, do we have to say that every time?
Like with you again?

Like, yeah, I'm here.
I'm here all the time.

Hey, I'm always here.
Hey, life happens man, life happens as everybody knows life
happens.

I was gone for like 6-7 months.
Oh, that's true.

That's true.
Oh yeah, remember when I wasn't when we weren't doing this for a
bit, Jiggy?

Yeah, there, there was a time
there I forgot.

I felt like we've been doing
this for like ever, like once a week, every week since the
beginning of time.

The beginning of our time,
there's there's remember 64 time and then there's the before
time.

That's pretty much it, which is
kind of like the pandemic roughly when that anyways, how
you doing Jiggy?

How's it going?
How's things?

Oh, I'm doing great.
I'll be honest, I had no idea what I was doing with this game,
but that's OK.

OK.
All right.

We'll get into it.
Before we get into exactly what we're talking about, even though
you probably saw it in the title as already, but this time we are
joined by a couple of guests.

This is very exciting.
A a unofficial sister, brother, cousin at the show.
Flashback 64 is with us.

We have both Gooey and McKenna
here.

Welcome to Remember 64.
Hello.

Thank you.
Yeah.

Thank you for having us.
I'll ask you guys as well, how's things, how you doing?
Yeah, pretty good.

We are you know, to be honest,
we're we're moving soon.

So we're kind of just like in a
we have that sort of like at least I do.
I have sort of that pre moving anxiety where like everything's
fine, but you're I'm just like,

I'm the type of person that's
like, what if everything goes wrong and it's.
Horrible.

That is kind of in limbo, you
know, like it's sort of a weird state to be in kind of thing.
Yeah, I hear ya.

We're.
We're packing stuff up, but I'm leaving out the N64 and the CRT
'cause I'm like we got, we got business to.
Take care of you.

Got some?
Tetris to play.

What a great game to play as
you're packing up stuff.

It's perfect.
You get some practice and yeah, we are really.
It is, yeah.

Yeah, it's it's a good little
pick up and play kind of thing.

I think you can do that with a
lot of the a lot of the the styles of games here.
But yeah, like I said, you may have seen it or if you're
watching, you have the little title beside us right here.
We are playing and talking about

Tetrasphere this week.
Tetrasphere is a new 3D version of Tetris ish.
We will we'll get into all the details of that, but before we
do really quickly, let's talk a little bit about flashback 64.
If anyone has not heard or found you guys out there, what's we're
sort of covering similar things, but you guys do it in a lot
different way.

It's not, you know, we're just
going through titles and titles, but you guys do a lot of in
between sort of types of episodes and a lot of great
guests and stuff.

Let's let's chat a little bit
about that.

Yeah, Yeah.
First of all, thank.

Thank you again for having us on
and thank you for accepting us.

Because I, you know, when we
started, I did the thing where I was like, I googled like, OK,
there's nothing called flashback.
Like I guess there's like Atari

Flashback 64 gotcha thing.
But I was like, OK, we're not.

And then and then like right
after we launched, I discovered your podcast and it was like
we're similarly named similar topics.
And I was like.

Oh no, I hope I'm not.
Cramping this.

Guy's style.
What have we done?

But you basically were like
instantly really nice to us and it's been really cool to know
you.

So I just wanted to say thank
you.

I'm glad I could publicly on the
record.

Thank you.
Happy to, happy to be able to be, to be chatting and stuff.
No, no need to, no need to thank me.
It's just just good times.

That's it.
Just.

Oh no, we're gonna.
He's Canadian.

I'm Canadian.
I'll, I'm just, what can I say?

Well, those guys are getting
serious now.

Yeah, Yeah, that's right.
That's right.

We, yeah, yeah, in the last last
couple months, we've turned the page.
Yeah.

But yeah, we cover similar
things.

So yeah, we're, we cover the
Nintendo 64 library as well.

We, we do a new like main
episode once a month mainly 'cause, you know, we got, we
have like day jobs and stuff and so we don't want to overwhelm
our stuff and we want to take our time with the game.
So we're like one a month.

But we do find, you know, there
are times where we have more time.
And so in the intervening weeks, we still, you know, podcast and
stuff and we try to, you know, touch upon other things from the
time period.

We're, we're traveling
chronologically through the library.
So we're like, what?

What else is going on in 1996?
We're in 1997 right now.

So we talk about what, what,
what are some things we've done?

Movies.
Movies, shows, games on other consoles.
Yeah, and we also will take the opportunity like like we've done
episodes on older Mario games and Kirby and stuff.
We we're like, we're kind of filling in, you know, some of
the, the back story.

Of these that's I was just gonna
the back story's the first word that came to mind too.
And you're about to say that yeah.
The back story the story it it like that time of of gaming and
media and stuff is is right in the heart of a lot of people in
our generation grew up in the mid late 90s and early 2000s of
it being like that's like

Seminole years of all that.
So filling in those gaps and that back story like you said is
is fun.

I mean, like it's just cool to
to be going that far back and kind of comparing notes and
things with, with what would what's on the 64 and what's not.
Like it's it's all related, I find.
Yeah, yeah, we're trying to do that too, like play some of the,
you know, PlayStation games or, you know, we've covered Tomb
Raider and yeah, we're trying to hit on like, stuff like that too
'cause, you know, we, I think we both grew up like, as like
Nintendo kids, you know?

And so we're, we're, yeah, we're
just trying to like, fill in the blind spots and explore the
wider culture and stuff.

Nice, nice.
And do you guys have, I mean, are you like me where your story
of getting in an N64 as a kid or when you're a little bit older
is not very exciting?

Or do you guys have like a
story?

How'd you guys get into it or,
or, or was it, was it when you were a kid?
Was it later 'cause everyone's got a a different way of getting
their console regardless of which one it is?
For, for me, I got it.

I it's like I got it when I was
like 6 or 7 and I like, I have gaming memories before that,
like I had an NES and then we just, I was so young that it was
like that, that wasn't enough, you know, like, like Super Mario
Brothers 1 was like the perfect game.
And then, but I don't remember like exactly.
It was probably a Christmas gift or something like that.
But I don't have that like, oh,

I, I waited all all night for
Santa and I came down and I, you know, screaming N64 kid.
I just, you know, it just like became part of my life.
Yeah, it just happened.

And I think you're Mckenna's a
little bit younger, so I feel like it was kind of one.
Where you grew.

Up we we got it.
And before I started having memories, so I remember having
it, but I don't remember getting it.
And yeah, I didn't play a ton on it as a kid.
So I was like, you know, five years old.
Hard, hard to wrap your head around Mario Kart.
Yeah, hard to wrap your head around some of the games because
it's just.

Anything more complex than Mario
Kart.

Like I think I was just running
around in the game.

Yeah, I that that'd be, I think
that was probably me with.

I mean, for me it would be
probably the Superintendent with that sort of thing.
Like I got it.

I never, I have a story of how I
got the Super Nintendo.

It was like a whole thing, but
like, did I have more than a couple games for the first
couple years that I knew what I was doing?
Probably not.

That's you know, and that's
fine.

And I still have it.
It's in the other room beside me and it still works.
It's the original 1 from I think

I got it 94 or 93 so like.
No, that's amazing.

Yeah, but it's still running.
I have one working controller, not the second one.
Decided to not not work for some reason.
Or maybe it was the first.

No, I.
Don't know.

It's OK.
I'll find another.

I also have the Mini 1, so it's
fine.

I'll survive.
There you go.

Where's the Mini 64?
That's what everyone wants to know, right?
That would, right?

Yeah.
Yeah, that would be nice.

OK, so we're going to talk some
what?

Yeah.
I want to ask because I'm dying to know, what are your favorite
each of you?

What's your favorite N64 game
there?

We go.
Oh well, OK, the reason the way we know each other the way well
we're married first of all, I'll say, but the the way we met was
through.

We are also both contributors to
the Zelda fan site zeldadungeon.net.
And we?

We we met through that and we're
both massive Zelda fans.

So for starters, I don't know
well what's what's.

Your answer I I'll say right now
we still have a Zelda game we haven't covered yet.
You're still not just saying.

Oh, interesting.
I had a feeling you were going to say Zelda because I saw the
post, the edge of the poster behind you.
Oh yeah.

Like, oh, I just see Gannon
looking at me.

I'm like.
Yeah, yeah.

Wow.
You know, it's hard to choose between Ocarina of Time and
Majora's Mask.

I I.
No, it ain't.

Hey, yeah, that's right.
I definitely play Ocarina more just cause Majora's mask give me
gives me more anxiety playing.

Yeah, I like Majora's Mask it
for it.

It fluctuates, obviously, but
like Majora's Mask is like one of my favorite games of all
time.

But I do probably, I feel like
Ocarina of Time is like a little bit easier to just kind of like
go back and like, yeah, you don't have to like, like do time
management and stuff like that.

But I do, I do think Majora's
Mask is better, if that makes sense.
One's more like of a chill game and one's more of like like an
experience.

Like I I gotta be in the right
mood to play it.

Yeah, that's fair.
I think I said when we, when we covered Majora's Mask, it was
like I, I played that on the

Switch online when I had it at
that time.

And because of all the time
management and stuff, and because life's just busy and all
that kind of shit that comes along with it.
Like without the safe states, I think it would have like torn
some of my hair out 'cause it was just like just like the time
management part.

I just like, I can't, you know,
and I I, I don't, I had very little experience playing it
before that.

I thought it was great.
I loved it.

But you know, the the modern way
of playing it, I think gave it a little extra bump in my mind.
But it's still a fantastic game.

So fair enough.
Yeah.

I mean, hey, can't go wrong with
two.

Very, very, very good Zelda
games, of course.

Yeah, big yeah, big fan.
Yeah, exactly.

OK, we're gonna touch Talk
Tetrisphere in just a second.

I just wanna let everybody know
that of course you can support the show at patreon.com/remember
64 Show.

Jiggy's pointing and give me a
thumbs up because I remembered for as little as just just a
buck a month, you can support the show.
You can get episodes early, you can get pre show chats, you can
get some posts that I put up early as well.
Be involved with polls, all this kind of fun stuff that I'm going
to throw up and yeah, I can.

I just keep sort of going
through new ideas and trying to add more and more things in
there for everybody to to enjoy.

You can also join for free if
you want to free.

There are posts that go up every
once in a while as well and also free polls and gives you a
notification of when things are posted as well.
And if you want to join after being free for as many months as
you want to, I often throw up a couple of like promotions that
come up on Patreon as well, which lets you pick a tear for
50% off for the first month that you joined as well.
So those types of things are all part of the process as well.
You can find us across all your podcast platforms, of course,
and on YouTube, Remember 64 as well, Jiggy, what do people do
on YouTube?

I don't really know what the
cool kids do to sort of say like, follow this, do that.
What was that?

How's that work?
Mr. YouTube himself over here.

The the cool kids like the
videos, the cooler kids subscribe to the videos, and the
coolest kids to the notification bell so they always get the
updates.

And even cooler kids go harass
Dave when he's streaming on the

Remember 60. 4 channel, yes, I
have I have some plans to do that a little bit more.
I know it's it's very inconsistent timing.
So just try to get those notifications like Jiggy said, I
think that's a really good way to do it.
If you if you subscribe to the page, it'll give you a heads up
when I'm going live and then on social media, pretty much
Instagram and blue sky at this point.
And that's probably it right now.
And I'll just say like, hey, if you're around in six hours, Hey,
if you're around in 24 hours,

I'll be streaming and it's
usually a little bit of time playing a random game in my
backlog or it's going to be an upcoming episode and doing some
of my quote UN quote homework.

So that's usually the plan here
and there, but just keep an eye out.
Always fun to have more people join and just sort of shoot the
shit while I play some games.

OK, let's let's finally get to
the game, everybody.

Let's get to it.
I want to try and get to the beginning of this so we can
hear.

Tell me if you guys can hear
this.

I want to listen to the opening
of this game because this music is bang.
It's fire.

Oh yeah.
It's a vibe.

It's the.
Right, like.

Yeah, there it is.
It's it lets you know.

This can be intense.
This isn't your dad's Tetris.

That's what it's there on me or
I don't know, I was going to say grandfathers, but that makes us
seem younger than we probably.

Are just when you thought it
would slow down, no.

All right, yeah, that's the
awesome music.

Tetrisphere has a pretty sick
soundtrack, just so everybody knows.
And it goes non-stop.

It is constantly playing as you
play this game.

Jiggy, I'm gonna start with you.
One, had you played this game before?
And two, what'd you think about it and what was the experience
like this time?

Nope, never play this game.
Never played this game growing up.
I saw it.

I would never be interested in
this game growing up.

This is one of those that I
would instantly look at and be like no, not for me.
Are are you a have you ever been or are you a Tetris guy person?
I was never a Tetris person.

I don't know why.
I don't know why 'cause I actually like, like Doctor
Mario.

And what's the other one that
like?

There's a billion games of it.
The different versions that I've played, like Doctor Robotnik's
Mean Being Machine, is one of my favorite games.
Oh, puyo puyo.

Yes, thank you.
Yeah, those, those I've never played, it's weirdly enough.
Yeah, like Doctor Robotnik's mean being machine.
I know.

I've mentioned that before.
Yeah, you.

I don't know what.
Yeah.

I don't really like Tetris is
fine to me.

Doctor Robotnik's mean being
machine, though, I can get behind that.
But yeah, playing this game, I I had fun going in and kind of
clicking through all the different modes.
Rescue puzzle, puzzle was really interesting.
Actually, I think I could get behind the puzzle mode more than
anything else, to be honest with you.
I liked I liked all the little little robots.
I thought that was cool.

Trippy backdrops it, it's a
pretty simple game at its core, but like, I will be honest, like
I, I think I teased at the beginning, I was like, I have no
idea what I'm doing.

I did figure it out.
Like Full disclosure, I did figure it out, but it did take
me a minute because you have that's a.
Shame.

I really, I was really hoping
you're going to be like, guys, I still have no idea what I'm
doing.

No, I did figure it out, but it
it definitely was more complicated.
Like it took me a while of trial and error of going through
realizing, oh, hey, those purple circular blocks I can break by
sliding.

I did not do any training,
though, because that's that's me as a kid.
If I can't get into this game and play it within like, you
know, 20 minutes, I'm not.

I'm not gonna do.
It.

That's so, yeah.
I try to embody my me as a kid, you know, that's I always want
to play RPGs.

Like this is just a side
tangent.

I always want to play RPGs, but
I get overwhelmed with how many dialogue boxes pop up, like
explaining everything about the game to you.
And it's very rare that I can find an RPG that doesn't do
that.

Yeah, it just, it's a turn off
to me.

I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I
just want to play the game.

You know what?
Does a good job of that is Sea of Stars is pretty good.
It's not a like, yeah, it's not an insanely deep game, but like
for an RPG that's, you know, trying to kind of emulate what
it was in like the mid 90s or so for the for the two DRP, it's
got a great story.

It's a good game, But like, it
doesn't, you don't, it doesn't take 3 hours to get going.
Like you're off to the races pretty quickly and it doesn't
overwhelm me, kind of.

Or at least that's what it was
like for me anyways, Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What was I talking about?

Tetrisphere.
I don't know, it was great.

Tetris.
Tetris fun.

It was fun Tetris.
I had to look up though.

I was like, is this actually
like Tetris?

Like it like, you know what I
mean?

Like the brand Tetris?
Or was this like somebody made a game and then called it Tetris?
Fear, But it is.

This is a real deal, yeah.
It is a real deal.

Yeah, I got I I pulled up a a
couple notes about it too, about how they kind of kind of got
here and what they did, but I'll get to that in a second.
All right, Gooey McKenna, when we were sort of chatting about a
game to to cover.

I like, you know, I, I think
I'd, I'd said to you when we're sort of getting things going, I
was like, I kind of like, you know, the guests kind of bring
what they wanna, what they wanna play.
I'm happy to play stuff, especially jiggy noses,
especially if it's a game that

I've never played before.
I'm even more willing to be like, hell yeah, let's do it.
And then you said Tetrosphere.

So for both of you, what why?
Why this game?

I mean like Tetris is like, to
me, Tetris is like almost like this perfect puzzle game that is
like ageless, but.

It is, yeah.
You know, I think I feel like that's maybe not and it's not
crazy to say, but like, like, why this game?
Why?

Why specifically this game?
The, the, like, the actual reason was like, I was looking
at, you know, like all the games you covered and, and you know, I
wanted, I also wanted to just 'cause I, I have the same sort
of thing with our show is like getting people who want to talk
about like the games that aren't

Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark
Ocarina of Time, you know, So I was like, OK, maybe maybe I
wanna help Dave out and like, maybe pick a pick one that's
like not the most immediate 1.

So I was looking at our, at our
games we've covered and like what, what are our favorites and
like weighed that versus like, well, how popular is it?
So I was like, this was like the, the, our favorite game that
we've covered.

That's not like one of the, you
know, Yeah, like the.

The typical choice sort of
thing.

Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

So, but we do like that being
said, like we've we've covered like 30 something games and this
is probably in like our top ten.

But like I said, we haven't
played like even some of the classics.
So, but I mean, yeah, we, we both like, love this game, but
we hadn't played it until we covered it on the show.
Yeah.

Oh, it was the first time you
played it?

That was I, I, I said this so on
on our show, I told told the story, I, I witnessed it once.
I have a very vague memory of my band.
I, I, I have some regrets about this.
My band.

I used to be played music.
I don't really do that so much anymore, but my band was on tour
and it was one of those situations where we're we're
played, we played at some college and we're we got a place
to stay with some someone who ran the show.
And it was like with at their apartment and there was like
random people hanging out there and it was kind of weird.
And they were playing both

Robotron 64 and.
That's been brought up so much recently on this.
Show.

Yeah, that's crazy.
So funny that's we've been playing that actually too.
We're prepping for that, but they were also playing this and
the there's a connection, I guess.
They both have like these really trippy vibes and these guys were
smoking.

Like they were partying.
They were out of their minds.

And I have regrets about it
because we were like, we were kind of like, we came here to
like sleep.

Like we were like a lame band,
you know, We were like, I kind of want to go to bed, you know,
and these guys are like partying to.
Hardy with their palace, like what the hell?
So I didn't, I didn't play it.

I was just like, screw this
game, this stupid game or whatever.
But then, yeah, we picked it up for the show and we loved it.
What?

Yeah.
What was your we, we were just refreshing.
But you know what was?

Your yeah, I just played it for
like an hour right before it's, it's, it's Tetris on a sphere.
It's it's like it's super vibey.

It's it's one of the more unique
games we've played up to this point up.
We're about a year, a little over a year into the Nintendo
64's life.

So it's kind of it, it's
definitely a stand out.

It it's, it sets itself apart
even though it's it's drawing from another game.
Like it's.

Like Tetris's weird cousin, yes.
Yeah, that's true.

Definitely to what you said like
Tetris, the like we we both love

Tetris as well and it's like it
is this perfect game and this game.
Obviously I don't, I don't know if I would say it holds a candle
to Tetris at all, but I feel like it's distinct enough, you
know what I mean, that it's like

I I almost don't need to compare
them, but I guess I can because it gives me, you know, we were
talking about like playing it like right now when we're like
moving and stuff, it is a really good like de stressor kind of
game for me.

Like I, I get a similar tetrisy
feeling where it's like at, at some points you kind of like
just get into the zone like the tetrazone or in this case the
tetrasphere and you kind of.

Just like the the zone can be a
sphere, it doesn't have to be, you know, it can be whatever
shape it wants really like.

Exactly.
Yeah, I so I, I, I don't know that this was a game that I
would have like said like, Nah,

I'm not interested kind of
thing, but I just wasn't playing games like this at that time.
You know, like I'm pretty sure I got my 64 for my birthday in 97.
So it was around spring of 97 was probably when I got it.
So that's like just before this game came out.
And I just got the typical stuff, which, you know, most,
most people do.

And I usually grew up with the
typical, I grew up with the typical games that you would
think of for the 64.

But the older I get or the more
sophisticated, I like to say I get different types of puzzle
games or different types of iterations of other series or
franchises or something.

I love that stuff.
And that's what this is, right?

I, I had a great time.
I played this way more than I thought I was going to.
I like, and, and you just said like there's a zone that you get
into and I don't think it's the music.
I don't, I, I mean, I like it.

I don't think it's the music.
I don't think it's the trippy backgrounds, you know, I don't
maybe it's contributing.

It's like a subconscious thing.
It it probably helps.

Yeah.
It's kind of like, I don't know if you guys have have anyone's
played bulatro in the last year.

Only a select few people have
not I think at this point.

But that has a similar like
funky music and backgrounds and like why you're just like kind
of playing cards in a way.

But I think it adds to the
experience and this is kind of has that vibe as well.
I, I, it was great.

I played this almost exclusively
on my Steam Deck.

So it was just the opportunity I
had during the last couple weeks of it.
So I was actually playing this a lot on the train back and forth
to work and that 45 minutes on the train just flew right by.
It was great.

So I did that for like multiple
days, like over like to and from

I'm like, all right, I'm playing
Tetris.

All right, I'm playing Tetris.
Like that was just what I did.

And I and I one of the one of
the things that kept me going and like this isn't really, you
know, the game itself didn't necessarily do this, but I'm not
really like an achievement hunter person or trophy hunter
guy.

I've never really been like that
person, but I have and I've talked about this before.
I signed up for retro achievements, which is basically
a community that gets together and creates achievements for
retro games and you, you know, you attach it to your ROMs and
like your, your retro arch and things like that.
And that's what that plays out.

This plays off of on your steam
deck.

So there's a whole bunch of
achievements attached to this being like, oh, you don't, you
know, quote, UN quote die at all when you do 10 levels in a row
of, of stage 1 of stage 2 or stage.
So I, it kind of kept me going more and more and like I wanted
to finish those 10 stages in a run as opposed to, oh, I'm just
gonna play one and put it down.

Like I was like focused and
like, I gotta, I'm gonna get this shit done.
So like, it was fun.

It was a cool way to experience
a game that I never played before.
I personally don't know if it's

Tetris.
I think the shapes are just

Tetris.
Some of them, some of them are like I, I don't know, they're,
they had to make it work for this game.
So they're like, we got to create some new shapes here.
Yeah, like it's I, I get it.

You're you're, you're stacking
and, and getting rid of things and you know, that sort of
verticality that that Tetris has that necessary verticality.
Like it's there, but I don't know, Tetris to me just doesn't
it?

It's you, you have to see things
fall and I don't know it, it, it's still Tetris.
I, I get it, but it doesn't quite feel like, like that's why
when you guys are talking about it and saying like, oh, this is
like their weird cousin.

That's, that's what it feels
like.

That's exactly what it feels
like, 'cause it's the, the personality of it is there.
The ideas of it are there, but I suck at like original Tetris.
Like I'm just bad at it.

I like it.
I think it's genius, but man, you get me to like I don't know
the double digit levels or something and like the original
one that's it.

I'm screwed.
I'm I'm I'm losing for sure like like I don't know what it is
like I know what I need to do.

I know how to do it.
I just can't execute in this game.
I can fucking execute and it was fun because I think it was
actually good it.

Is not as demanding, yeah.
Maybe that's what it is, yeah.

There's a couple weird
strategies like we we had a similar thing when we first
started playing where where like especially there's like puzzle
mode.

Yeah.
So there's multiple modes as well, yeah.
Yeah, and they there's certain puzzles that require you to do
like very specific strategic techniques that the game that
are a bit more complicated.

Not not too much once you
actually learn them, but unless you do the training mode or like
read the manual, it's a little.

Even the manual doesn't fully
cover that stuff.

No, they do like a little
explanation at the beginning of some of the modes that tell you
like, oh, do this and mostly it's clear, but sometimes I was
like, wait, what do you what do you mean?
Like?

I don't, I don't, that doesn't
quite make sense to me, but I I

I think that part part of the
game is interesting, though.

I like how there's it's not just
here's a sphere, try and clear the blocks and that's it.
Like at least they're doing they're trying to do something
with it.

I appreciated that.
So what was the the both of you mentioned the puzzle mode?
Is that the one where it's?

It's like it'll give you like a
challenge.

So it'll it'll pop like 3-3
blocks up and you want to get rid of them.
And you have to figure out within a certain amount of
moves, it'll tell you like, oh, you have two slides and a drop.
You got to figure out how to get rid of all three pieces within
that those parameters.

I like that.
It's very I.

Really like that in it.
It's giving me a vibe of have you ever played the game Echo
Chrome?

No.
No, it's like a very cool perspective.
Like you have to you'll get like a scene with like a little guy
walking right up up like a ramp or something and you would like
shift your perspective and then you could make the ramp like
connect to another block that's like out of it's a very
interesting concept.

Oh, I see.
Go look up Echo Chrome.

I love that game, but the
puzzle, like that puzzle mode, like that's the same kind of
feel I get.

I'm like, I just love being
creative and like solving these in a, you know, within
parameters.

I like the normal yeah, like the
normal single player mode.

I wasn't like huge on.
I was like, OK, this is, I mean, it's the base game, right?
I could see that if you were playing multiplayer and like
going against each other or something like that would be a
lot more fun.

But I like like the hide and
seek one is, is kind of like the base mode where it's like you
just have to the first person if you did it in versus or if
you're playing a single player, you just have to clear enough
space to get to the center of it.
And then like kind of the little, I like that it, it's,
it's pretty good.

I mean, that's that's fine.
But it's it's kind of interesting that even even that
is like the base, you know, like that's already different from
Tetris in itself, which is kind of cool.
I don't know.

I found it anyway.
Most of the modes too, other than puzzle are like built
around doing, it's just kind of doing that getting to the
center.

But they just come up with a
different like there's the one mode where they're like you have
to find the picture, but it's like really just get to the
center.

But I I appreciate them trying
to like do different things with it, even if it's kind of
similar.

Use the drills and get to the
bottom the.

Drill thing, yeah, the one I
played the most that I, like I said it was playing, kept going
and wanted to get 10 at a time, or there was one where I had to
do 30 stages in a row without failing and I managed to do
that.

Yeah.
I can't play this game.

I don't know what the hell is
wrong with me.

I can't play this game.
Nothing's wrong with you, it's a.
Good game.

I think it's genuinely a good.
Yeah, the one I kept coming back to was the one that gave you a
different one every time.

Or potentially it was two in a
row that you'd get the same, but like you'd do the rescue one and
then you'd do the block one and then you'd do the the the tower
one.

OK, so like that, that's the one
that kind of kept me because at least like by that point I, I
knew what all the stages were, but at least I was doing
something different technically every few minutes.
So at least it was a little bit more interesting that way.
Kind of refreshed it.

But you're right, it does kind
of you are kind of doing the same thing every time, like it's
just slight change.

Finding out like everyone's
favorite mode to play.

I think that's interesting.
Like we've got puzzle mode you mentioned, was that called hide
and seek or?

Hide and seek is like the the
basic one, the one if you're anyone's watching the video,
it's the one that we're that we're seeing right now.
That was the one, the thing that

I'm talking with, the mode that
I played takes you through 10 stages in a row, or I got to the
one where it was thirty in a row.
Hide and Seek was just one of the several ones that it did.
It actually it did pretty much every mode that is in the game
except for puzzle.

That's what it did.
OK.

Yeah, cuz that's like completely
different than what the rest of it is, but yeah.
I went through like the main mode cuz it like would give you
a little cutscenes.

So I wanted to see those.
And then on we had on our show, our pal J was on the show and
he, he's into, well, he's in a lot of different games, but he's
like a fighting game sort of guy.
So he did, he focused a lot on the versus mode and he was
dropping a bunch of stuff he learned about like like
strategies you would do to succeed, like playing against
the computer or other players and stuff.
So I love like to this game's credit, there is sort of like it
can suit a couple different like types of gamer.
What?

What was your?
What was your mode?

I I think it just depended on
my, my mood or like with the with like the main mode.
I before when I was playing, I had on, I had TV on the, you
know, Star Trek on it and I could just play it well, kind of
half paying attention to each one.
It's a good zone out game.

Yeah, but that's good.
The games, there's there's a place for those types of games.
I I agree absolutely.

Yeah, but if I wanna just like
think, then the puzzle mode I really like Plus Plus that helps
you like learn how to play.

Yeah, I really.
Yeah, for sure.

That's true.
You know, it's funny it all all three of you have mentioned the
puzzle mode.

It's the those types of modes
just don't work for me in general, not just in this game
specifically.

I just, I wanna be able to sort
of create the, the combinations.

Like I find it very rewarding in
this game where it's not even just like 'cause one of the one
of the sort of mechanics of it is if you connect a bunch of
blocks together and I think it's 20 is the minimum, maybe it's
like 10 or 15.

I think it's 20.
If you clear 20 blocks regardless, like whatever shape
you've connected, you get an item that you can use like a, a
bomb or a magnet or something that clears even more space for
you.

And then you can kind of go from
there.

Regardless of how many I
cleared.

I just, I love like, OK, here's
here's like the the stage starts.
Here's 3 connected to each other.
Oh, I'm going to turn that 3 into 30, you know, and I just, I
kind of, it's really satisfying.

And the game has a couple of
like audio cues that kind of tell you like these little like
swish noises and things like that, that are just like, Oh,
you've cleared, you know, you've gotten to the bottom or you've
cleared a a significant spot or something.
And I'm just like, Oh, that's it's just enough to be said.
Like it's really good sound and game design and like, I don't
know, it just those little things or why I just kept
playing this fucking game, man,

Like, I don't know.
And the puzzle one is, is very interesting.
Like I, I understand why for the three of you and for any game,
any puzzle game that has that, that mode or that type of mode
in it, why it works and why it's fun.
They just have never been ones that I want to keep going back
to 'cause I actually find those to be the most stressful, which
is maybe why I stay.

No, I, I kind of am with you
there.

Like I, I really, I like puzzle
games and I like the puzzle mode and everything, but it's, it's
similar to what I was saying, like when we were talking about
Majora's Mask where it's like, I kind of got to be in the mood to
do that to like, 'cause you kind of do have to sit there and
like, just look at it and think, you know, And I'm, I think I get
such a like dopamine rush out of just like playing the normal
mode that it's that sort of like the comfort food for it, you
know?

So I got to be in the right
mindset to do that puzzle mode 'cause it does hurt your brain a
little bit sometimes.

Yeah, I I have to think enough
at work and at life.

I don't know if I need to.
It reminds me of like mobile games I would play.
I would get like the like wood blocks or whatever and like
swipe through it.

I get the same, the same
feeling, you know, I like those type of games though.
Those are the games that I would just play.
Like if I had this on a Steam

Deck I feel like I would
actually like this game more than actually sitting down and
playing it on 64.

It is.
Just having a handheld option would be cool.
Yeah, it is.

It's, it's a very, like I said,
like I think pretty much all four of us have kind of said, is
that it?

You can pick up and play this
Like you don't have to go and sit here and play this for
several hours.

It doesn't need to be that kind
of game.

I don't think Tetris really is
anyways, or at least not anymore.
Maybe at the time 'cause it was so, you know, revolutionary and
whatever.

But like, when I was playing it,
I, I was stuck on the train for 45 minutes.
So yeah, I'm going to play it for as long as I possibly can
and then run to the door so I don't miss my stop.
But, you know, like I, I, I, it was great for that.
It was great to say like, hey,

I'm just going to play something
that is, you know, McKenna, you mentioned sort of, you know,
watching Star Trek at the same time, in a way, I was kind of on
the train mindless, you know, like I was just sort of sitting
there going, I'm just going to do this thing and I'm just going
to get this right over with.

I just want to get home, you
know, And then it just it flew by because I was having a good
time with it.

And I think if if Jiggy you
mentioned, you know, mobile games, for example, is like, you
know, could be sort of like a little bit of a dirty word in
some ways, but I think this would work really well as that,
you know, maybe not.

I don't know if touchscreen
would work or whatever, but like.
It needs a Gameboy port.

That's what it needs that.
Would be cool.

It's almost like it was made for
it.

Yeah, Yeah.
Actually that would.

It would work, Yeah.
Or could they?

Oh, it's almost like the
original was made for it, right?

Yeah.
Yeah, hey, imagine if it came to

NSO like that.
Would be pretty sick.

That would be cool.
Do verses against your pals.

Yeah, we would go crazy on that.
Oh my God, I would think it was so good until they played
someone else.

Like that's the problem with
that and you're like, Oh no, that's my issue with something
like this.

I'm good at this game.
I'm actually good compared to the original.
Nope, I suck.

No, that's usually how it works.
I have.

Gotten some friends recently to
play it like we've had, we've had friends visit, like friend
Ramona visited and then our friends Rand and Cal visited and
and most recently I I like to both times our friends came, I
was like, here, here, let's play this together.
We're going on a podcast about it.
Like I want to play play some more verses with people and Cal
specifically.

We played a couple rounds and I
was like, cool, yeah, that that was cool.
And then whatever, we had lunch or something and he was like,
yeah, so can we put Tetrasphere?

But can we play some more
Tetrasphere?

And I'm like, yeah, let's do it,
man.

That's awesome.
Yeah, that's great.

So.
This is like the games somebody walks in your house.
You're like Tetrisphere.

Yeah, yeah, I think.
Really, I do want to kind of convince anyone who comes over,
yeah, to try it at least.

I think it would.
I think it's kind of cool because what's interesting is if
you say like, hey, let's play

Tetris together, it's like, you
know, it, it's it's not this, but it's almost like saying,
well, let's play solitaire together.
Like what do you mean?

Like that's not solitaire's like
literally a solitaire experience.
That's part of what that game is.
You're playing cards solo

Tetris.
I think the the average person would be like, well, that's
just, you know, a solo game on your handheld Game Boy, whatever
it is that you had your experience with this has more,
it's deeper than that.

It's got more, it's got more to
it.

You know, they're trying to do
more.

And I think, I think largely
they exceed they they succeed.

You know, I, I had a yeah, yeah,
I just, I had, I had a good time with it.
In in terms of it, we were talking about it being Tetris.
Like some of the even some of the follow-ups to tech Tetris
that even Alexi Pagenov, like designed himself are are quite
like wild departures.

You know, like they even the
Tetris series itself, even

Tetris 2 was kind of a wild.
I was, I was just gonna say I was just looking that up 'cause
I have that for Game Boy.

That was like the, that's the
Tetris that I had because that was just the, the time that I
got my Game Boy was when that came out.
I didn't know the difference.

To me it was like, oh, that's
Tetris at the time when I was younger, right?
So I have the cartridge here somewhere.
It is different because it's almost like there aren't there
like other other weird blocks that you have to clear or
something.

There's like an added.
Yeah, there's.

Weird shapes, Yeah.
It's not your typical.

They added new shapes.
It's very weird.

But even even Ajanov himself
attempted a 3D Tetris.

And if anyone has Tetris
forever, you can go in there and experience a lot of these old
Tetris games.

But yeah, well, Weltris, I think
that was yeah, that was the the first attempt at a 3D Tetris.
And I would say that this this game I think gets it's like, I
think maybe the best attempt at making a 3D Tetris like game.
And Weltras is an interesting game, but I don't think it's
like.

I think it's a little.
It's harder to wrap your head around.
Yeah. 'Cause like Tetris is is just
like.

You can play it immediately like
there, there's you're not doing like a ton of mental gymnastics
to figure it out.

Yeah, that's the charm of Tetris
for.

Yourself speak for you.
Oh yeah, I just go as fast as possible.
Just go.

Just hope my brain can figure it
out as it goes.

Right and left.
What the heck?

Yeah.
Oh, so that that's another thing too, like, you know, talking
about sort of how this this could be like the most
successful sort of spin off almost of Tetris is, you know,
they do different things.

You can shift the the blocks
around and the shapes around.

And the the only thing is,
unless I miss something and I didn't look at the manual, I
just sort of just played it and stuff.
You can't flip any of them, right?
Like they're in fixed positions.

Yeah.
So that's.

That's why there's gotta be L
this way or or a line this way, a line this way.
It's like, oh, OK.

Yeah, exactly.
You know, there's, there's a handful of shapes.
I don't, I don't, I think these are all the basic ones.
I don't think that there's any like added funky ones or
whatever.

I think these ones are.
All there's like the there's like the Randomizer 1.
I got a little frustrated with that one sometimes.
I would always just wait, like wild card.
Yeah, yeah.

It would just like cycle through
all the different shapes.

No, but you know what that is?
That's the one that gives you whatever shape you want.
So you just click on whatever.

Shape, yeah, but you gotta wait.
No, you don't.

I thought you did too.
You don't have to.

Wait, what?
Whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, you know.

Yeah, you don't have to wait.
It's just a little circle, right?
Like the reticle instead of it being the instead of the reticle
being the shape of the actual block itself, it's just a circle
and then it cycles in the bottom left corner.
You can, unless I was just being lucky every single time I did
it.

What?
But I think what could screw you up is that it doesn't like do
the highlight thing where you're like, Oh, it's safe to drop
here.

And so you can only go off of
the, the audio queue, which is not ideal.
Or just like you can maybe tell that there's a group, but
that's, that I've, I've, when watching my friends like play it
for the first time, like that was a thing that I, I could tell
like, OK, this isn't like the, they could have done a little
bit more to like make it, make it clear how this works to
people, like maybe highlight the blocks or you know, whatever.
Yeah, I thought it was the exact same thing, Jiggy.
When I was playing the first couple times it was like, oh, I
have to like this is like a all of a sudden I'm doing like a
timing based like skill thing here.
This is weird.

But no, it basically is like
like a wild card.

You can kind of just put it on
whatever shape you want.

Now I want to go back because I
swear I just sat there and waited for the shape I needed
and then.

Which isn't, which isn't as fun,
especially because there you are kind of on a timer with every.
Yeah, I wanna go fast.

Gotta go fast, yeah?
Gotta go fast, must go faster.

It's like, yeah.
When it does start to get close to the screen, it's like.
Oh my gosh, it's.

Panic mode.
Yeah, it's like.

No, Stop going closer.
No, I got this.

I swear I got this.
Yeah.

Oh man.
So that's The thing is there's, there's no like actual, I mean
there is technically a clock.

There's like a stopwatch almost
in the bottom corner, bottom right corner, and you know.
It looks like one of those those chocolate oranges, like little,
no, no, no, no, not the oranges.

I I think they were Disney.
They had like little candies inside.
They're not kinder Joy's, they're not the eggs, but
they're like little chocolate balls.
It looks exactly like that and they would split open.
Like this and they'd have like a little like a.
Little like Damon and Pumbaa.

Yeah, so it does look like a
bugger.

Yeah, that's what it looked
like.

So that sort of counts down, but
there's no actual numbers.

There's like some audio cues and
stuff to tell you and then like you just said, the anxiety of
the camera zooming in the closer it get.
It's like it's such a kick in the pants too, because it's like
you can see less.

So I'm like, well, I'm getting
less done now.

No, stop getting.
So as the timer starts going down and down, if you don't do
enough combinations, the timer hits a certain point where you
just need to get something done.

Otherwise it's you know, you're
game over or you lose like one of your three hearts if three
lives, which is also something that's different.
Yeah, yeah, I can see it.

Like I feel like with all the
ways it's not like Tetris, I feel like I can understand the
logic behind it because when I when it, I feel like when I look
at Weltris, I'm like, OK, they tried to like they tried to keep
it too close and it and it that's what doesn't work.
And I can see why they're like,

OK, we can't.
The main problem is you can't really see like the stack of
blocks, you know, So they had to make it less reliant on like,
like filling up the blocks, you know, like, so I, I can see why
it's like almost reverse Tetris where you're like digging your
way down, you know.

So I think the lives I get, I
get what they're going for there.
Yeah, it's, it's a little bit more like forgiving in a way,
you know, especially early on, like when you're trying to
figure it out, you're like, oh,

I screwed something up or, you
know, I'm just trying to get my, get my bearings here and stuff.
But like those later stages that

I was playing when I was going
for like those longer runs and stuff, you gotta like, you gotta
clip some, some stacks together, like, and you can't just do like
3, the camera starts zooming in on you.
I was, I'm and I'm just screaming to myself on the
train, like stop, stop, stop.

Or maybe I did it out loud.
I had my headphones on.

I don't know.
I wouldn't be surprised some guys on the train yelling about
Tetrasphere.

Yeah, he's like, like there's
like a guy behind me.

He's like no, no, no, to the
left.

To the left, No.
Shift that one.

Someone who understands what's
going on because automatically knows.
Like he's just the the the one die hard Tetrasphere guy just
happens to be on the train at the exact same time, Yeah.
'Cause I'm, I'm always, whenever

I'm playing this, our, our, our
roommate will come out sometimes and see me playing and he's,
he'll say like, I've been like seeing you play this game for
like a year now.

And I have no idea, like what's
going on.

Which is how I felt when the
when I, when I saw those stoners in Oklahoma or whatever, I was
like, I, I can't even, I think you have to be on something to
understand this game.

You, you don't.
You didn't know it till now, but you are now one of those
stoners, that's what.

Well, I do know, unfortunately.
I have to come.

You have become it's.
It's embarrassing, yeah.

You know what though, It's,
it's, it's fun to get to, to get sunk into a game that's that's a
little bit different as well.

I think like there's something
to that where it's not like this giant RPG that eats up a bunch
of your hours and stuff.

Like I just, you know, I already
said it a couple times.

I'm just, I'm surprised that I
was playing it so much as I, you know, constantly for a couple
weeks and.

Yeah, yeah, it really, it really
there's there's something about certain puzzle games or, you
know, just even sometimes just basic single player games that
are newer and stuff where it just.
Oh yeah, no, this just got to me at the right time, you know, it
just sort of hit at the right time.
It's got like just the perfect amount of difficulty for me
personally, like things like that that you can't predict, and
this I think this was one of them.
So if I played this a year from now, would it be the same?
I I don't think it would be that be drastically different, but I
think I there's something about just this like exact time right
now.

It was a good like semi semi
mindless thing that I could just sort of escape into which was
nice.

It's very arcady, very once you
learn the mechanics you get in, you could play a couple rounds,
put it down, come back to it.

I still like, I just I can
imagine in my head how great this would be.
Like handheld.

Yeah, yeah.
It just, it just would, it would make it so much better for me.
And it's really simple.

The controls work with something
like that too, like with that aspect where, yeah, you need A&B
and you need, I mean, I, I use the D pad on the on the Steam
Deck.

I'm not sure if can you use the
joystick.

I don't even know.
If you can, I don't.

I don't think so.
OK, I didn't try after I I figured out you couldn't use the
joystick in the menu.

I'm like, oh I can't use that,
but I never tried in the middle of gameplay.
Yeah, no, you you can't.

Which it it doesn't.
I feel like it makes sense that it's the D pad and honestly, I'm
happy to have an N64 game that really uses it.
You know, we we get it every so often.
But yeah, I think it speaks to the era like just in general
like this.

They're still like arcade style
games like that are that are on the console and I I don't know,
I actually appreciate those style games.
Like I feel like, and 64 wasn't like the console for arcade
gaming.

I would say but it, or at least
that, but it at least had that style of games though, So I
really appreciate that.

Yeah, for sure.
My my experience with the D pad is always going back to the
wrestling games because they always required though.
Yeah.

So that's anytime I have to use
that as like the primary, it's just like now I just want to
play No Mercy again.

Like, that's that's where I keep
going.

I had to.
I wrote down.

I found this.
I was sort of looking up, you know, like, why did they decide
to go this way with Tetris?

Yeah, Like, this is one of the
first things I thought of.

Right.
And we've talked about it a little bit.
But one of the interesting things I found was there was
like this, I guess, I guess you would call it a blog post, A
blog post from what's the name here, Christopher.
Oh, shit.

I lost it.
I'm organized Christopher Bretz, who was the graphic artist on
the game.

Oh yes, he's on.
He's on Blue Sky.

Oh, is he?
He's good.

There we go, I follow on blue.
I gotta find him then.

So yeah.
So this.

Yeah, yeah.
So in this in this, he says that the original development of this
began in 95 and the whole thing was this was not going to be
Tetris.

And he related to it at all
until Nintendo came in and said, well, Tetris basically saved us
in a lot of ways.

Or like that's why Game Boy was
so successful.

The whole history of all that
is, is pretty well known.

And then they switched it over
to this, that this is this is sort of they made all the shapes
more Tetris like, whereas before it was going to be sort of
moving blocks around on a sphere like that was the idea was a
similar type of thing.

Yeah.
And it was called it's for some reason it's a weird for it's
hard for me to say fear, but

PHEAR so like just take away
the.

Fear.
Fear yeah so and it was supposed to be some like some yeah like
so tubular man like so cool it sounds like such a 90s type name
to.

Come in fear.
With a PHPHPH fear.

Yeah, like they always said, fat
with aph.

Yeah, I'm not.
I'm not fat, I'm pH fat yeah the.
And it was supposed to be a title for the Atari Jaguar.
That's what it was originally developed before.
Yeah on the initial thing.

So yeah, which I have 0
experience with, but that's not something that, you know, flew
off the shelves, so to speak.

So this one in a completely
different direction or sorry, different console and stuff.
And what he said in this post was that he was mostly in charge
of menus and the UI and sort of having sort of the layout that
we see in it where like the lives are there and where the
blocks are on the left side and those types of things and
designing the the colors and sort of the depth of the shapes
and all that kind of stuff.

And the main thing that he had
to do was make everything lighter and quote UN quote more
accessible.

So for whatever reason, what
they had before was something a little bit like darker and maybe
a little less easy to understand possibly, but early in
development.

So, and where's the last thing I
said here?

I I saw here.
Oh, and then what happened was this game was shown to the
public at conventions and stuff like that alongside one of
probably one of the best games in the console was side to side
with Starfucks 64 and 96 and 97.

So if this was something that
wasn't on your radar at the time, it's kind of
understandable.

Overshadowed.
Yeah, it's kind of.

I saw a couple like old shots.
I don't know if they were at E3 or if they were at one of the
Japanese shows at the time, but it was like this big Star Fox
logo and then some kid playing

Tetris underneath it.
And it's like.

Well, you know, well, I, I had
like back in the day, I remember seeing this game places and I
and I would be like, Nah, yeah,

I, I was not interested in it at
all.

But I do like that there's
little googly eyed robots.

That's cool.
There's little I support googly eyed robots.
Yeah, yeah.

That was a Nintendo note I bet,
right?

Like make the robots cuter.
Yeah, So what one of the other things, my eyes, one of the
other things this guy said, the

Brett's guy said was that that
part of the lighter aspect of it is to create.
Not not mascots.

I don't think that's the word
that he used, but find a way to make these like small cutscenes
to give it more personality and that's one of the things it
created.

So there's like these little,
there's what like 6 different little sphere dudes?
Yeah.

Different designs and I don't
know, is there like a story there?
I don't know what's going on, but.
They're playing hide and.

Seek don't really make sense.
And the one thing that that that

I thought was pretty good was
that this sounded like a surprising number to me, but
maybe it's just because of this game was never really on my
radar growing up, but it sold 430,000 copies.
That's a lot.

That's that's quite a bit for
just like when you said, you know, puzzle, puzzle Tetris game
that was probably overshadowed by a lot of massive titles in
1997.

When you say that though, I, I
was thinking like we're, we're moving chronologically and one
thing that comes up a lot was just at the time, like there
weren't a lot of games coming out for the N64 N 64 does not
have games.

So like there probably was not a
ton else coming out.

Like we we paired this with what
game do we paired it with?

Dark Rift, which was this really
generic kind of cruddy fighting game.
There was not much else like there were some big games around
it, but I could see like like this.
I I never, I didn't do this, but this would be the perfect like
this is one of those like rental games to me where it's like you
could pick this up and and bust through it in a weekend or
something.

But I'm I'm I'm surprised it
sold that much though.

But.
Yeah.

So when I.
Look at Starfox, the Mario Kart.

Yeah.
So it's it's between March and let's say September, which is
the sort of, you know, it came out in August of that year.
March has Doom 64 has Hexen, which you know, if you've
played, if you played Hexen on the PC before that, maybe that
was something on your radar.

Star Fox, Dark Rift,
Tetrisphere, Goldeneye and then

Clay Fighter.
So like I could see it being lost in the shuffle, but over
400,000 is not nothing.

So, you know, until that period
of time, you're right, there really was, you know, Mario Kart
and Super Mario and.

Yeah.
Pilot wings and wave race.

But like everyone would have had
those.

So what else do you add to your
list a year later?

You know, like that's that's
kind of it, right?

Because it's basically almost
exactly a year after it came out, at least in North America.
So what else you gonna play?

You know, like it's gotta be
something.

I feel like probably.
Our.

Our age.
My guess is like our age people, it's like I, I don't know about
you guys, but it would, it would be like, I get like a game on my
birthday maybe and a game for

Chris, you know, like I didn't
have a ton of N64 games.

So I like obviously this might
not be the first choice.

But yeah, maybe if you're like
someone like a little bit older with more like income and you're
and you're more active and buying new games like I, I could
see this.

It would be an easy pick up I
think.

Yeah, yeah.
Like I was, you know, it was 97 was Goldeneye, Star Fox and
Diddy Kong.

Like that's, that's what 97 was
to me.

What else do you need I?
Mean yeah.

And that that's exactly to the
point, right?

Like what else do you need?
I think like it's that's pretty much what the console needed and
was.

So yeah, I, I, I, I think this
is, I think, you know, this, whoever brought it up before
bringing this to NSO would be awesome.
I think this is a that's a really good place for it for a
lot of reasons.

And, you know, it's always nice
to have something that was like, it's still, again, regardless of
of whatever sales we're we're talking about here, I feel like
it's still probably a relative unknown, a game like this.
So having more, having more people being able to play it is
great.

That's, that's what it should
be.

I think expose it to more people
and do something a little bit different.
It's not just Tetris, you know?

That's not, that's not all
you're getting here.

Fear.
It's fear.

It's fear.
Fear the blocks.

Fear the Fear the Tetris.
And it's though it would be good, it would be good for it,
'cause people, you could just try it, you know what I mean?
Like, yeah, just give it a shot.

Give it a shot and maybe you'll
be like me and two hours later, like oh shit, I gotta go to bed.
I don't know.

My heart tells me we're going to
get this before we ever get

Diddy Kong Racing, SO or Donkey
Kong 64.

Jesus, like I don't know.
I don't get it.

I gave up on NSO personally a
while ago so.

I was, well, I was happy the
Banjo Tooie came to it, but I remember being so salty about
Iggy's Wrecking Ball coming before Banjo Tooie.
I was like, are you kidding me?

Priorities, people.
Priorities.

What?
Do you do in Nintendo?

Oh, the last thing I wanted to
sort of mention about this is it took me way too long to realize
that like those little sphere guys are like different
characters you can select.

In the menus.
I had no idea.

I was like, I'm just going to
play, I'm just going to go and it is it, Is it just for verses
'cause I just hit play and just went.
I don't even know.

No, I I think the different
modes like the you can play is different.
You have like you can change your character or something and
they have like different stats, but it doesn't really.
Yeah.

Didn't matter.
There are different stats there's I think there's also
there's at least N unlockable character.
No, I remember right.

Never did that, yeah.
News to me.

Oh, I go, I go immediately go
Tetrosphere cheats.

See what I what they got.
So there's a secret character.

It's yeah, when I, when I saw
it, I, I saw it after the fact, like I saw it after I sort of
put it down the other day and I went, oh, there's different
speed and like power and like power of what?
Like what are you powering?

I don't.
I don't really get the.

Fear.
Like how hard they have the fear they slam them blocks harder.
I guess like you can move to it once like what are you, I don't
know what are you doing that that there's power there must
have maybe there's more advantage to it in in versus and
I have no idea.

But yeah, GUI, McKenna, anything
you want to add that we might have missed on the actual, on
the game itself, or just.

Play the game I wanted to.
I do want to shout out the game was developed in Calgary, so
shout out Calgary H2O

Entertainment.
They did two other games for N64 we haven't covered yet, but one
was the New Tetris I believe the other Tetris.
Game and then yeah, yeah.

And then Aiden Chronicles,
that's quite a different game, yeah.
Oh, OK, I've heard of that, but

I've never played that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know of it.

Just know of it.
So shout out to them.

And you mentioned the
soundtrack.

Neil Vos I believe is the
composer and I read that like he was inspired by like like
Prodigy and stuff like that.

He even named one of the songs
it's in reference like.

Prodigy.
It's exactly what it sounds like.
So sick and honestly, Oh yeah, I have very strong feelings about
it now because we, we like will sometimes drive around and like
we don't just drive around, but when we're driving around we'll
listen to soundtracks of games we're covering just to like just
listen to them.

And we were doing, we were doing
that on around the time it was

February last year when and
we're on a trip where we, we got engaged.
And so now I sort of, and, and we listened to this all.
It wasn't the only thing we listened to, but we listened to
it quite a few times.

And so now I associate it with.
That part of our life, and that's awesome.
Tetris brings people together.

Gather everybody that's.
The most wanna yeah have a rave about it I guess.
But now I love you.

Let's have a rave.
Let's get in the Tetrasphere together.
That's what I said.

Is the Is the ring a sphere like
with different colors on it?

I wish I'd planned it out.
That yeah, if only right you could you could do it again.
It'd be fun.

Just.
You oh, I go into the game.

I hack the game and instead of
the robot in the middle, it's the ring.
It's.

The Ring.
Wow, that would be extra.

But but is it?
Is it a puzzle level?

Does she does she have to get
through multiple puzzles or?

It's the last level too.
You have to earn it.

Earn it.
No, she just gives up.

She's like, I'm not, I'm done.
Did you really have to make me do this at 10:00 PM?
Like, come on.

Really.
No, no, no, you gotta, you gotta do it.
You gotta do it.

I'm, I'm just sitting there like
intently watching like.

Come on, come on.
Like don't.

Don't.
You no, you needed to slide.

I'm like back seating.
Game over.

It's like, well, I tried, I
guess maybe, maybe the next

Tetris game.
Yeah, maybe Weltris.

Welt, yeah, maybe when you get
to.

Weltris, yeah.
Hetris.

Yeah.
Or Tetris 2.

Bastris Tetris 2, yeah.
Tetris 2.

I have nothing else really about
the game.

Mckenney, do you have any any
final thoughts?

I guess one thing I was thinking
is like in, in comparison to

Tetris, One thing I I really
like about this one is I feel like I have more agency in in my
success.

Like there are strategies in
Tetris.

You can, you can line things up,
but a lot of times you just get the blocks you're given and
sometimes you get unlucky.

Whereas here I feel like I'm, I
can really manipulate.

I can move stuff around and drop
stuff and.

There's usually somewhere nearby
to place the block.

I feel like if I fail it's my
fault.

Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, because 'cause I guess like the the scenario that
you're in is kind of presented to you in a much different way.
Like you're maybe you don't you, you can't see everything 'cause
everything's stacked obviously in like a 3D plane.
But you're right, the agency's a good way to put it.
I think that's that's true, which is kind of like why I was
saying a lot earlier, like I like that I had control over
setting off 30 blocks at once.

Like it felt, it felt good.
And maybe that agency, like you said, is exactly the better word
for it because it's.

Yeah, I don't know.
It's great.

It's a good way to put it, yeah.
Even when you're setting up like we were when we were playing
versus, like you can be like, oh, we only want like two types
of blocks to show up.

Or you can say like, let's get
all the blocks.

It's, it also just has a nice
like, like sort of you can make your own sort of difficulty
curve to the game and stuff too.

Yeah, it's, it's a pretty
accepting game in that way.

I think like even even single
player like you can, you can start out with the with the
early levels and kind of stick with that or just sort of mess
around with different things.

I think it's got a pretty good
difficulty curve as well.

Like I think later on, as with a
lot of puzzle games and stuff, things ramp up and you have to
do better combinations and all those types of things.
But like, I didn't really feel overwhelmed until I got much
later.

And that's fine because that's
what I'm signing up for the more

I played, right?
And that's, that's so I think that's, that's helpful.
And like you just said, we kind of like the difference between
that and regular Tetris.

Like I feel anxiety right away
when I play Tetris.

I don't have any.
I don't have any in between.

I'm just like, I know I'm going
to fuck this up.

Like what?
How, how quick is it going to happen, you know?
That's pretty much it, quick.

Is it going to happen?
I I swear, I don't know what it is, man.
I don't know.

I I feel like I'm OK at puzzle
games until I play the classic puzzle game and it just beats,
beats me up.

I just, I don't know.
I don't know what it is.

Yeah, I don't know, Jiggy.
What?

Part of it might be.
No, no, go ahead.

Sorry, Tetris, like the end game
is like it.

It's trying to kill you the
whole time and it and it will eventually.
Unless even even the best players in the world who do the
playing with the controller upside down, they roll it like
they're gonna die eventually in the game is.
There is there like one person that like survived?
UN quote beat.

Tetris like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was like a kid.
It was like a yes. 13 year old kid or something.
And yeah, that was a control back.
That was a wild story.

Yeah, that's that was recently
like that was like within the last couple years.
Oh yeah, even.

Even.
That was around the time we were covering this, I think.
Oh, yeah, yeah, it was.

It was popping off then, yeah.
That was pretty.

Cool.
Yeah, but you?

Know, like, the only small group
of people are gonna ever do that.
Yeah, here you get the satisfaction of like, oh, I beat
it.

Yeah, I was like, that's why I
like Doctor Robotnik's mean being machine, because I can
fight back, you know?

Yeah, yeah, it's perfect.
This is this is a a a game that, you know, if there was renting
sort of available right now,

This is great for that.
I, I, I always look, I should look up sort of what the actual
cartridge goes for, but you know.
It's it wasn't too bad, I don't think.
Yeah.

I want to say it was like around
30.

Yeah, so pretty average.
Yeah, it was a pretty, pretty average price.
Yeah, let's see if I look it up just.
Randomly so you can try try it out on the you know using a
different method that you know.

I don't know, definitely.
Definitely, as all the legal methods would make it very easy
to play it on the go like I did.

So you do that, Yes, Yeah,
definitely do that.

But if you like it, I would, you
know, and you want to play it on the N64.
I think this is this is a cool game to have in your collection.
You can be be like how we get to be like, oh, try this out like
you, 'cause you know, most people you get to show it to
like probably haven't played it

And right, they'll get, they'll
get something out of it.

I think so, yeah.
Like if you yeah, OK.

So yeah, it goes for about, I'm
seeing a range from 22 Canadian, at least 22 to 55, depending on,
you know, wherever that eBay list is going at the moment.
So yeah, that that's, and you're right, it's sort of like, yeah,
it's Tetris, but it's still a unique title.
So if you have it in your collection, it's kind of a
different, different thing to have.
It's not the typical games like

I have on the shelf behind me or
anything like that.

Like there it's something
different, which is fun.

I I really liked it.
I think people should check it out regardless of what method.
I think it's worth it and I think you'll get a lot out of it
even just playing it solo.

I wish I had some experience
playing it versus like against someone.
But hey, maybe one day I'll have the cartridge and I'll be able
to like, you know, actually play it with someone and stuff Cuz
it's it's good.

It's a solid time Jiggy.
I assume you're are you gonna go back in and try your your the
the reticle thing that you couldn't?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I am.
I think I'm gonna go back and play it a little bit more just
to experience it a little bit more and kind of dive in, get a
good feel for it because I, I could see myself playing this a
lot more again.

I'm like, I do think I'm going
to say it again.

I do think in handheld this is
something that I would like really play a lot.
Like if this was on my Switch, I would totally be playing this
constantly.

Just pick it up and just pop in,
play a few rounds, pop out.

Like I could really see that
being a lot of fun.

Yeah, when, when you're playing
like the the earlier stages it you can definitely just like sit
in bed and play it, you know, like it would actually it would,
it's very easy to get to, you know, 15 minutes.
You play it, you get a couple things done and you feel
accomplished.

You're like, OK, that was a good
way to sort of end the day and, and brush things off and and
that's it.

And that's sometimes hard to
find with, with some games at least especially games nowadays.
But like, this is one of those games you can definitely do that
with.

Maybe we could get a Tetris
Forever DLC?

No?
Can I throw this in there?

Maybe that's really cool the way
it's going to happen.

Yeah, maybe that's that's like.
The What do we have to talk to?

Yeah, we'll just, we'll just
pick up the like I say on on one of the other podcasts I do just
you just pick up and, and instead of talking to Mr.
Hollywood, like we say, just pick up and talk to Mr. Video
Game.

They'll they'll make it happen.
I got the line.

I got the the red landline right
here.

Just like the Batman phone.
It's ready to go.

We'll make it happen, OK?
Tetris FEAR.

Check it out, everybody.
Definitely a fun and different puzzle game.
Even if you're really bad at

Tetris, the originals like I am,
you'll get something out of this, so give it a shot.
Flashback 64.

Where can everybody find it,
guys?

We're on Blue Sky Flashback 64
and then yeah, we're in all the all your podcast feeds and stuff
and we, we put our shows up on

YouTube as well.
Just flashback 64.

We also on YouTube, we have some
archives of like streams.

We do, we stream like every
Monday, typically with our friends.
We'll big feature of NSL.

We like is actually the ability
to like change, like play online and like pass the controller
around.

So we'll stream, we stream like
N64 games with our our friends and we take turns and stuff and
it's got a real like old school pass the controller feel, but
virtual.

So we stream on Twitch.
I think I'm there though.

We're flashback 64 pod, right?
Yeah.

So yeah.
Gotcha.

Check that out.
Yeah, nice.

Jiggy keeping busy.
Oh yeah, I'm keeping busy.

We talked Majora's Mask at the
beginning of this this episode and I just dropped a Mysteries
of Majora's Mask video on my channel.
So, yeah, and I've been playing through Wind Waker every Friday,
so I think this Friday's gonna be the last Wind Waker stream.
And then I'm done with Zelda for a while.
I'm just gonna.

I doubled up, now let's move on
and.

And you've been sort of doing a
couple of like couple

PlayStation games and stuff or
like sort of, you know, dipping your toe in in that.
Pond Oh yeah, I recently bought

APS one I got like every single
Crash Bandicoot game I just sorted.
I'm really excited.

I just ordered Symphony Symphony
of the Night.

Oh man.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to playing through that one.
I'm going to do some some stuff on that and the original
Resident Evil as well.

I'm kind of like, I don't know
why I'm in this like horror game kind of mood.
I also just picked up on Steam,

Silent Hill 2, the remake.
I'm just like, man, I'm just so like in this mood.
I want to play scary games.

And it's, you know, it's March.
I don't know.

Let's let's do it.
Scary games for scary times.

I feel like you.
Know.

Oh yeah, there you go.
Maybe those games are scary.

Well, maybe those games are less
scary than reality right now, so maybe that's what it is.
Actually not a bad way to go through it.
Yeah, I should.

I should do that.
It's Tetris.

Poop Tetris.
Let's go kill some zombies or something.
Yeah.

Yeah.
As I mentioned off the top, you can catch the show and support
us on Patreon, patreon.com/remember 64 show as
well.

That is the same handle you can
find on social media, mostly just Blue Sky and Instagram.
Of course, subscribe and all those fun dealios on your
podcast app and on YouTube and tell your friends about us and
Flashback 64.

Why not get more 64 in your
life, more gaming in your life.

Let's do it Until next time,
everybody pick up a puzzle game, play some Tetris and play some
64.

We will talk to you soon.
Goodbye.