Valgus²

Valgus and Valgus² (pronounced Valgus squared) are the only games I know where the Tetrominoes are named, like the monsters in Pac-Man: Bosco, Candy, Bathsheba, Fennis, Ziggy, Iggy, and Tyrone (update 2007-01-17: in Geo, the pieces have names too, or nicknames, to be exact). And Valgus² is the only Tetris clone I have found yet that was ported to the PC from another platform. I suppose it is also one of very few games to be ported from the ST to 8-bit Atari.

Valgus was simply a public domain Tetris for that platform, though with a two-player mode. Valgus² takes a different approach: the blocks glide from all sides towards the center, and complete squares are removed. Blocks can be moved in any direction, except the one they are coming from. Once they get past the center, they become unnavigable, and drift on to the edge of the screen. When one side is filled up, no more blocks will be coming from there.

This interesting concept, which demands totally different strategies, is partly ruined by the fact that a level will abruptly be over, a score assigned, and you proceed to the next level, which does not seem to be any different.

While the original Valgus was in the public domain, Valgus² is commercial, and what you download is a demo. It does not seem to be restricted very much. Valgus² was developed 1990 for the Atari ST and ported to the PC and 8-bit Atari platforms in the following year. It has made very little impression on the community of its original platform.