We all know the students at MIT love a good hack, but what’s better than playing a game while doing it? Last night, a team took over the side of MIT’s Green Building and turned it into a giant, playable, multi-color Tetris game.
Looking up at the windows to the front of the 21-story MIT building - which is also known as the Green Building (named after its principal donor, Cecil Howard Green, and not because of any environmental ticks in the plus column) - it's not too difficult to understand why a Tetris hack has become central to the IHTFP hacking community. The windows are arranged in an 18 x 9 grid, not quite the 20 cells high and 10 cells wide that's become a display standard for the game but close enough.
The game started off by scrolling the word “Tetris,” and as the players moved on, the levels became progressively harder. The second level kicked off with more pale colors, while the third involved the colors shifting on-screen. Once someone lost the game, all of the blocks would fall to the bottom of the building.
Creativity if often overlooked for safety, and then people wonder why
they didn’t hit a home run with their advertising or promotion. Sure,
maybe it’s not the first of its kind, but it is creative. Think big,
think creative, and people will talk. Just check out the cleverness for
yourself. (Bonus: There’s a video beneath the videoshow.)
