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Timing is everything.
My wife loves Tetris. The way some office drones are about the Solitare game that came on old Win9x systems, Kilinahe is about Tetris. Of course, almost everyone loves Tetris. It's one of the most popular computer-based games of all time, and probably the most recognizable computer puzzle game in the world.
Of course, it also has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most legally confused and disputed "brands" in the world as well. (Some notes in the Tetris entry in Wikipedia.) This globally-known game even has a local connection, as the company licensed to distribute Tetris in North America, Blue Planet, is based here.
This means it's sometimes hard to get "real" Tetris. I actually owned the infamous Tengen cartridge for the original Nintendo system, and later sold on eBay simply because it was so rare. And I'm sure we've all played a few other games called Tetris, or based on Tetris, but frankly it's hard to know if you're playing an "official" version of the game, or one of a billion derivatives. Lately, Kilinahe had been playing a Java version online, which was buggy and slow. But she loved Tetris so much, she put up with it.
Well, yesterday, I was browsing the list of games on the Apple website. One of the recently updated games, and a top download of the week, was a game called Quinn. An "implementation" of Tetris. I downloaded it, and tried it out. Perfect! Lightweight, elegant in that OSX elegant way, and with an easy networked play feature that allowed my wife and I to play Tetris against each other. We were up late last night, Kilinahe kicking my butt every single time.
I woke up this morning and decided to download a copy to my kids' Mac, too. And discovered sometime overnight, the Quinn developers had gotten a cease-and-desist note from The Tetris Company. No more Quinn (unless you happened to grab it earlier). They say they're going to explore their options, but given how Tetris squabbles have turned out in the past, I suspect Quinn is gone for good... and meanwhile, we'll have to wait years for an "official" version of Tetris comes out for the Mac.
Timing is everything. Kilinahe is sure glad I went looking for Tetris yesterday, rather than today!
Digg it, baby...
My wife loves Tetris. The way some office drones are about the Solitare game that came on old Win9x systems, Kilinahe is about Tetris. Of course, almost everyone loves Tetris. It's one of the most popular computer-based games of all time, and probably the most recognizable computer puzzle game in the world.
Of course, it also has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most legally confused and disputed "brands" in the world as well. (Some notes in the Tetris entry in Wikipedia.) This globally-known game even has a local connection, as the company licensed to distribute Tetris in North America, Blue Planet, is based here.
This means it's sometimes hard to get "real" Tetris. I actually owned the infamous Tengen cartridge for the original Nintendo system, and later sold on eBay simply because it was so rare. And I'm sure we've all played a few other games called Tetris, or based on Tetris, but frankly it's hard to know if you're playing an "official" version of the game, or one of a billion derivatives. Lately, Kilinahe had been playing a Java version online, which was buggy and slow. But she loved Tetris so much, she put up with it.
Well, yesterday, I was browsing the list of games on the Apple website. One of the recently updated games, and a top download of the week, was a game called Quinn. An "implementation" of Tetris. I downloaded it, and tried it out. Perfect! Lightweight, elegant in that OSX elegant way, and with an easy networked play feature that allowed my wife and I to play Tetris against each other. We were up late last night, Kilinahe kicking my butt every single time.
I woke up this morning and decided to download a copy to my kids' Mac, too. And discovered sometime overnight, the Quinn developers had gotten a cease-and-desist note from The Tetris Company. No more Quinn (unless you happened to grab it earlier). They say they're going to explore their options, but given how Tetris squabbles have turned out in the past, I suspect Quinn is gone for good... and meanwhile, we'll have to wait years for an "official" version of Tetris comes out for the Mac.
Timing is everything. Kilinahe is sure glad I went looking for Tetris yesterday, rather than today!
Digg it, baby...
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