Of the early Atari Tetris clones, Speed-Puzzle is the weirdest. The loading screen is that menacing face, but twice the size as above the menu, before the usual Atari flicker. Once again, screenshots cannot give a proper impression. Constant color waves go through the letters of the menu, the background behind the faces changes color too. The center box on the gameplay screen is animated in the same way. And the pieces have even more odd shapes than the ones in Tigris.
The interface is a bit different: up/down rotates, fire drops. While this gives the advantage of being able to rotate in both directions, it can be confusing, since in the other games, fire rotates and down drops. Pieces tend to rotate a bit too fast, making it difficult to position them correctly. Once again, these are Atari800Win experiences, it may be different on a real Atari.
According to an intro screen, Harald Höppner worked as a freelance programmer in Berlin at the time. He offered custom made file programs, graphic programs, and Basic and Assembler routines. Speed-Puzzle, which he encouraged the player to spread as much as possible, was probably intended as a kind of advertisement for his services. In the early 90s I found him credited as programmer for two platform games, Yo! Joe! Beat the Ghosts (Amiga and DOS) and Hägar the Horrible (Amiga). Else I know nothing about him.
