3D Tetris

Since Blockout, programmers have taken Tetris to the third dimension. There are two basic approaches to this: First, a sort of first-person view, where you look down the well, as in the original Blockout, John Shramko's 3-D Pitfall and Digital Nightmares' 3D-LomTris. The other is a sideview that can be done isometric or in perspective 3D and was first implemented by Frac. The first has the advantage of a somewhat more spectacular view. Both have the problem, compared with conventional 2D Tetris, that it is less easy to tell for the player where exactly his piece now is and where it will land.

Jon Mayfield's 3D Tetris, which takes the second approach, offers two solutions to this problem: You can rotate the 3D view with the mouse, giving you a better overview, and there is an additional top-down view on the left hand side. There are, however, a couple of problems with 3D Tetris:

• Controls are sometimes unresponsive, especially the space bar that is supposed to drop the piece. Hitting it once won't do the trick, keeping it pressed will carry the command over to the next piece which than becomes unmaneuverable.
• This kind of 3D-view simply can't look good in VGA, unless you have a 5" screen.
• For some reason, it tends to become boring.

Maybe that was why the jury of the X2 Support Group 1995 Programming Contest, where he submitted his game, did not award him any price. Still, in retroepect, their decision seems strange. After all, 3D Tetris was probably the first Tetris clone in true 3D. It may even have been the first 3D game that was not some kind of FPS or action adventure, but a completely abstract puzzle game, something that would become common only a couple of years later.

Jon Mayfield, who used the handle Jmx at the time, pursued a carreer in the gaming industry. He wound up at the Acclaim studio Austin, where he participated in the 1999 Southpark games.