It says a lot about the game of Tetris that we've been playing it for over three decades and despite incredible advances in video game technology, it's still as popular as ever. And while shifting coloured blocks into neat little spaces might seem pretty simple, the key to Tetris's crazy success all these years is the way in which it taps into our psychology in some pretty complex ways.
As Vanessa Hill discusses in the latest episode of BrainCraft above, in one study, researchers found that just 1.5 hours of Tetris a week for three months actually changed the structure of their volunteers' brains. Their cerebral cortex - or, the outer layer of the brain - became thicker in some places, and other areas of their brains became more efficient at performing certain tasks.
But what exactly does changing the structure of your brain do to its function? No one's entirely sure, which makes studies like this difficult to interpret. You could be playing Mario Kart for the same amount of time, or riding a real bike, and that would change the structure of your brain too, so it doesn't tell us a whole lot about the effects of playing Tetris specifically.
Another group of researchers interested in the therapeutic potential of Tetris decided to figure out if playing it would reduce flashbacks for people with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The participants were asked to watch a traumatic piece of footage, and then one group was ushered off to play a good, ol' game of Tetris, while the others were forced to just sit there in silence. The participants left, and their flashbacks were monitored for a week. According to the episode of BrainCraft above, the participants who played Tetris immediately after seeing the traumatic footage had half as many flashbacks as the other group.
Which is all well and good, but did you know Tetris has a darker side when it comes to manipulating our addictions? You're gonna have to watch the episode of BrainCraft above to find out, but just remember - all things in moderation, and that includes one of the best video games ever invented.