A strange little side quest
Even a quick game like Tractron 2020 sits on top of decades — and sometimes centuries — of ideas. Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris in 1984 after drawing inspiration from pentomino puzzles, then simplified the idea around shapes made from four squares. The surprising part is how quickly the next milestone followed. Pac-Man went on sale in 1980, and its creator Toru Iwatani famously linked the character's shape to a pizza with a slice missing. That long chain of experiments is part of why puzzles still feels fresh when a game finds the right twist.
