Alexey Pajitnov

Alexey Pajitnov is a Soviet and Russian video game designer who created Tetris in 1984 while working at the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre in Moscow.

Connect

Dmitry Pavlovsky: A Soviet computer scientist who worked with Alexey Pajitnov and helped adapt Tetris for personal computers. Pavlovsky helped bring Pajitnov’s game beyond the Electronika 60.
Tetris: A tile-matching video game in which players arrange falling geometric pieces to complete horizontal lines. This is Pajitnov’s defining creation, first developed in 1984.
Dorodnicyn Computing Centre: A research institute in Moscow where Alexey Pajitnov worked when he created Tetris. Pajitnov developed the original game on the centre’s Electronika 60 computer.
Welltris: A 1989 puzzle video game designed by Alexey Pajitnov and Dmitry Pavlovsky, with play on the walls of a well. It extends Pajitnov’s falling-piece puzzles into a three-dimensional playing field.
Vadim Gerasimov: A Soviet programmer who created an IBM PC version of Tetris with Alexey Pajitnov and Dmitry Pavlovsky. His PC conversion helped Tetris spread beyond its original computer.
Tetromino: A shape formed by joining four equal squares edge to edge. Pajitnov built Tetris around seven distinct tetromino shapes.
Electronika 60: A Soviet computer on which Alexey Pajitnov created the first version of Tetris. Its text-based display shaped the original game's simple visual form.
Hatris: A 1990 puzzle video game in which players stack pairs of hats by type. Pajitnov applied matching and stacking rules to a new set of objects.
Henk Rogers: A Dutch-American game entrepreneur who secured rights to distribute Tetris on Nintendo platforms. Rogers became Pajitnov’s key partner in the game’s international licensing.
Line clearing: A game mechanic in which completed rows of tiles disappear from the playfield. Removing full rows gives Tetris its central goal and creates space under pressure.