Everyone accepts that Tetris is one of the world's most perfect video games. It's just a fact; there's no point in debating it any longer. The fact that the Game Boy shipped with the iconic Russian puzzler played a massive role in its success, and even today, Tetris continues to be enjoyed and savoured by millions of people around the world via releases such as Tetris Effect and Tetris 99.
Sadly, not all game consoles have Tetris – and (officially, at least) the Playdate falls into that unfortunate category. However, thanks to the fact that it's possible to side-load games onto the yellow portable, we've seen indie developers step in to produce the next best thing – and Ted Brakob has produced the closest we're ever likely to get to Alexey Pajitnov's masterpiece on Playdate.
It's not called Tetris, of course – that would be silly. Instead, it's known as Quandino, but the game is exactly the same.
It's best described as the perfect fusion of old and new; while its monochrome visuals call to mind the classic Game Boy iteration of the game, it comes with features such as an outline of where your piece will land, the ability to 'hold' a block (by turning the Playdate's crank) and the 'hard drop' ability – all of which were added to Tetris after the release of Nintendo's 1989 edition of the game.
You can also enable a dark mode, change the appearance of the blocks and tinker with audio levels – which you'll most certainly need to, as the music is the only weak point of the entire package. The playfield is presented in landscape mode, which doesn't really make the best use of the Playdate's unique aspect ratio, but it does at least allow additional information to be displayed on the left and right side of the main play area.
Tetris clones on Playdate aren't a new thing – we've previously had Blockdate / Playtris and Rainblocks – but Quandino is superior to both of those titles and is an absolute must-have at just $2.50. If you own a Playdate, you need this game in your life. It has made me love my Playdate even more than I did previously, which really is saying something.