PhysTris Demo

Tetris is one of the most recognizable video game in existence, given the fact that it sold millions of copies worldwide and there are countless clones out there trying to bring something new to the formula. Thanks to the new technologies available on computers, people have tried implementing powerful physics engines into everything, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

PhysTris looks a lot like the original version, but once you start playing, you quickly realize that things are far from what they were. Hence, instead of having the pieces falling gently toward the bottom of the screen, you can drop them yourself, although the fall makes them behave like real objects. Hence, if the landing angle is not perfect, you might miss the shot and ruin the entire game.

However, the physics engine used to simulate these conditions takes into account a variety of factors, which means that it can sometimes clear lines that are not perfectly aligned. This way, you do not have to worry about getting everything right, while other times you can even force a line to be cleared by dropping the next one from higher up. Naturally, it doesn’t always work, and it can even get you into more trouble.

Thanks to the new opportunities opened up by the physics engine, the game comes packed with a few other goodies as well, including some unique modes to try out. Hence, the missions provide you with puzzles that need to be solved using the pieces, although not all of them are very convincing. The difficulty level is constantly increasing, which is definitely challenging in its own way.

As far as the visual presentation is concerned, the game won’t win any awards in this regard, but it doesn’t look too bad either. Hence, the actual pieces and the backgrounds are quite the same as they were in the original Tetris, only with some sort of anti-gravitational device keeping the pieces from falling. The music is also quite alert and nice, but there are rather few tunes and it gets repetitive after a while.

In the end, PhysTris is the kind of game that can occupy a substantial portion of your spare time if you give it the opportunity. However, the underlying concept is not that amazing and the gimmick can get old rather quickly, which means that you are left with a pumped version of Tetris.