Xixit

Year 1995, late evening, parents asleep and I'm sitting in front of a monitor with that characteristic buzz of a tube display. I've got a dozen games on disk, but this one just ate an hour of my life without me even noticing.

Xixit is a puzzle action game from Optik Software that builds on the foundations that Tetris carved in stone back in 1984 — falling blocks, limited space, time pressure. But somewhere along the way from Alexey Pajitnov to this little project, things got interestingly complicated. Xixit doesn't just work with shaping and stacking, but adds a chain reaction mechanic where correctly placed blocks trigger a series of automatic removals. One action, five consequences. This is the moment that kept you coming back to games like this.

The controls are exactly as simple as you'd expect from a mid-90s DOS game — keyboard, no overthinking button mapping. But the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly and the game soon forces you to think ahead, not just react. Here's the catch though: once you understand how the chains work, you start playing differently. You stop putting out fires and start setting them deliberately. That's the moment when the game has you.

What set Xixit apart in 1995 was that feeling that Tetris isn't just about survival, but about systems. About how you can turn the chaos on screen into a cascade of clarity with a single move. These days that sounds like a description of half the mobile puzzle games out there, but back then it was a breath of fresh air. Graphically the game is humble, sound-wise too — Sound Blaster did what it could, don't expect more. What's aged the worst is the lack of any progression system or rewards we're used to now. The game just lets you play, and when you're done, you're done.

Today Xixit will appeal to anyone who loves clean puzzle mechanics without story wrapping and live service nonsense. If you grew up with Tetris or Columns and you're curious where this genre could have gone in the hands of a smaller studio with an idea, it's a half hour well spent. It'll run in your browser without issues, DOSBox will do its job. Just keep in mind that half hour might sneakily stretch out.