Tetris

Tetris is as ubiquitous as blue jeans and as addictive as jelly beans. But did you ever wonder where it came from? Probably not: Most computer programs have fairly undramatic origin stories. Not Tetris. In 1984, Alexey Pajitnov, a computer scientist working for the USSR government, created a fun little game that became a smash hit among the computer literate population of Moscow. Before long, it was discovered by a British software firm. The rest, as they say, is history...But it's a history full of high stakes business shenanigans and some fundamental questions about the nature of play. Box Brown, author of Andre the Giant: Life and Legend, blows open the secret history of the game that saved Nintendo and delves into what makes puzzles and games so irresistible to human beings.