Tetris has released on countless platforms over the years, but it really made a name for itself on Nintendo's Game Boy handheld. At one point, a version was apparently planned for the Game Boy's predecessor, which was a line of single game LCD handhelds collectively known as "Game & Watch." While the Game & Watch version of Tetris was never officially announced, and its very existence a topic of speculation, it seems that images and gameplay footage of the handheld has released online. These were shared on Twitter by users @hiropapa00 and @Vectrex0904, and seem to come from a finished prototype.

Video of the Tetris Game & Watch prototype can be found in the Tweet embedded below.

任天堂ゲームウォッチ

幻の「テトリス」試作品のプレイ動画#電子ゲーム愛好会 pic.twitter.com/2UEK4rGIl5

— プラウドロー (@vectrex0904) April 29, 2023

From a historical standpoint, this is a really fascinating discovery! The video game industry is notoriously bad at preserving its history, and completely finished video games have been lost to time, never to see another release. If this is legitimate (and it certainly appears to be), this resolves a long-running rumor, while also offering a glimpse at what might have been. As cool as this discovery is, the Game & Watch format seems to be a terribly inconvenient way of playing Tetris; as hiropapa00 points out, players have to move the bottom screen horizontally, and there's a "3-miss system." Since the game was completed but not released, he goes on to note that this was likely due to a "market problem."

It's possible Nintendo was unhappy with how this version of Tetris turned out, or that it was completed too late in the Game & Watch format's lifespan. It's also possible the company worried it would seem too inferior to the versions released on NES and Game Boy! There's simply no way of knowing for sure, unless Nintendo decides to weigh-in on the matter. At this point, however, it's been several decades, and it might be hard to even find anyone that worked on the Game & Watch version of Tetris. For now, we'll all just have to speculate!

Posted: May 03, 2023 10:40 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/tetris-unreleased-nintendo-game-and-watch-footage-leaks-online/