This romhack makes straight tetrominoes the only kind of piece in Tetris for Game Boy.

Itris is a patch, also called a romhack, for the Game Boy version of Tetris. It removes the randomness of the falling tetrominoes and delivers nothing else than straight pieces. Why would anyone want that? I don't know, but realizing the idea was a fun reverse engineering exercise for me.

You can try this version of Tetris out for yourself in a Game Boy emulator or on real hardware.

1. Get a hold of Tetris ROM file somehow. The SHA-1 should calculate to 74591cc9501af93873f9a5d3eb12da12c0723bbc for my patch to apply correctly.
2. Rename the ROM file to tetris.gb and place in the root directory next to the Makefile.
3. Run make and you should find the itris.gb ROM file in the same directory.
4. Load the ROM in your favorite emulator or copy it over to a flash cartridge to play on real hardware.

One hot summer my girlfriend and I went head to head in a Tetris tournament. We dug out a couple of Game Boys, a Game Link Cable and one Game Pak each of the Russian block puzzle game. Game on!

During our battles, when taking a break from taunting each other, we often discussed the peculiarities of the game. One kink surfaced again and again: why is it that the straight pieces never seem to appear when you need them the most?