Rimtrix

Tetris with polished asphalt. In Rimtrix, colored blocks fall and you stack them into rows — nothing complicated, but that very simplicity is what makes this 1989 game something special. When a sequence drops and you clear four rows at once, the computer complains with a sound that feels like a visit to the dentist. Not exactly joyful, but I know it belongs there.

It's a clean clone of the famous Russian original. Blocks of various colors and shapes fall from the top of the screen, you rotate and place them, trying to form unbroken rows — they then vanish and you score points. The game speeds up as you progress, and suddenly death is looking over your shoulder. Nothing new under the sun, but that was never the goal. Rimtrix is simply Tetris, the way anyone with a home computer knew it back then.

The controls are precise, as they should be. Arrow keys move the block side to side, another key rotates it, another drops it faster. There's no lag or unpleasant surprises — the game responds exactly as you expect. The graphics are functional, mostly monochrome against a dark background, nothing that would distract you from your rhythm. You play it all in your head — the game field, falling pieces, score table. I don't need anything more.

Rimtrix isn't a revolution. It's not even the best Tetris you've ever played. But in the late eighties, when legal copies of the original were expensive or unavailable, clones from British programmers were pure gold. This game served exactly what it was meant to — keep you entertained for a while without pretense or unnecessary frills.

Today you play it because you want to play old, simple Tetris without all the modern effects and polish. It runs in DOSBox without a hitch, the graphics don't hurt your eyes, and the sounds stop distracting you after a few minutes. You cruise through score after score and wonder how Czech gamers in the nineties ground their teeth on stuff like this. Then you remember — there was nothing else back then.