Time seems to slow down, you’re playing at expert level but not even thinking, you forget to breathe and you become one with the game. Completely loosing sense of reality and thinking of nothing but the game. It might sound crazy but it has happened, only a few times though.
Most recently it happened playing Tetris Effect in VR. Totally immersed in the game, I played through the entire of the journey mode (about two hours of gameplay) in one sitting and when I finished, I took the headset off and it felt like a few minutes had passed! It was a truly mesmerising experience, maybe that’s what meditation feels like?
Everything about the game is made to suck you in, from the trippy backgrounds, to the music that is always in perfect sync with your movements. Tetris is the perfect game for this experience, once you’re good enough you can move the pieces, see what’s coming up next, hold a spare piece to swap out, T-Spin, rotate and hard drop all without even thinking about what you’re doing or planning, it all just becomes second nature as you feel your thumbs moving without you even realising. It obviously takes a lot of practise, time and effort to be good enough to be able to play like this, but when it happens and you can fully let yourself fall into the game, the effect really is amazing!
I still feel like there has been no other experience like it!
Tetris Effect was my game of the year last lear, but now, looking back on it, perhaps it is the game of the decade… or maybe of all time.
At the start of the year I made a documentary about the creator of Tetris Effect, Tetsuya Mizuguchi. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!
Here’s a full play though of the journey mode by a Tetris expert. Enjoy.
Thanks for reading Day 4!