Skip to main content

This colorful Tetris variant is the gaming cooldown I needed

The Y2K style of Tetrachroma.
Sparsevector

Last year, I played some difficult games. RPGs like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island put my skills to the test. While I found the Souls-inspired Black Myth: Wukong relatively easier compared to other games in its genre, some of the bosses still really gave me a hard time (looking at you, Yellow Wind Sage).

When December rolled around, I looked around for something more relaxing to play during the Steam Winter Sale. I just needed a cooldown. As I browsed the deals, I came across a new spin on the classic Tetris for just a few bucks: Tetrachroma. In this puzzler variant, it’s not just about clearing lines; colors have to match as well. The beauty of Tetrachroma is that it can be as easy or as difficult as you’d like, and it was the perfect game to wind down 2024 with.

Recommended Videos

Or so I thought. I wasn’t prepared for how challenging it would become at a high level. It’s an engrossing hidden gem that I still find myself coming back to in the calm early days of 2025.

Flipping the table

Tetrachroma’s puzzle concept is similar to Reversi, a Japanese board game. Placing different-colored pieces adjacent to a line changes the color of the line. Not only do you have to completely fill out a line but its color also has to be entirely uniform throughout.

Speaking to Digital Trends, developer Sparsevector (who chooses to remain anonymous) says that initial inspiration for Tetrachroma came from playing Reversi in Nintendo’s Clubhouse Games series. From there, he started playing a bunch of different Tetris and Tetris-like games to understand the genre. The biggest direct influence came from Tetris: The Grand Master, a fan favorite piece of the series’ history.

Gameplay in Tetrachroma
Sparsevector

“I love Tetris fan games because they all differ in various details that give them each their own unique feel — stuff like the sounds or the visual effects when pieces lock,” Sparsevector tells Digital Trends.

Tetrachroma has many different gameplay settings, usually designated by how many colors there are. In the free play Spectrum mode, duochrome difficulty, where blocks come in two colors, and in trichrome difficulty, blocks come in three colors, and tetrachrome comes in four colors . There’s even a mode that just plays like straight up Tetris, called monochrome, where you don’t have to even match the colors in order to clear lines. This lets players get familiar with the block-setting seen in Tetris games before easing into Tetrachroma’s color-changing mechanics at higher levels. In the Marathon mode, there’s even the option to choose double-wide blocks for an extra challenge.

“I think Tetrachroma is challenging at a really fundamental level. The core mechanic requires you to think ahead,” Sparsevector says. “Until you develop an intuition for how the color transformations work, it can be very tricky!” As a result, he tried to be as generous as possible with the game’s control options, visual indicators, and difficulty settings to make sure players have all the tools they need to tackle the challenge.

As someone who doesn’t play many Tetris-like games, I admittedly had trouble getting a grip on the color-switching mechanic. I played many, many rounds of the monochrome setting to get the basics down first and I studied up on Tetris strategies. After getting comfortable, I eventually went up to higher difficulties, which meant applying the color-switching system.

What managed to help this entire learning process was the game’s aesthetic and soundtrack. It calmed my nerves whenever I felt frustrated when a round wasn’t going my way. Tetrachroma adopts a Y2K and vaporwave look that’s rather popular these days in music and fashion. Sparsevector sought a look at the was simultaneously retro and slightly artificial.

Gameplay of Tetrachroma
Sparsevector

“I thought about how many Tetris players have nostalgia for the time they first learned to play Tetris,” Sparsevector says. “The game is not Tetris and doesn’t play how you remember, so I want the game to feel somewhat like a memory, but not your own.”

That style was influenced by beats artists such as Macroblank and Slowerpace, who typically take old and obscure music and turn it into their own edits and compilations. Their album artwork is often evocative, mixing traditional art with corporate logos, text in different languages, and bold color palettes. These include Macroblank’s The Eternity of Pain and Slowerpace’s Goddess of Light albums.

“The visual aesthetic also led me to the style for the game’s music, which is based around unconventional electronic versions of classical music,” he adds.

Sparsevector loves toying with simple mechanics and then building entire games around them. His next upcoming project, Jump Mechanic, looks like it’ll take his interests even further. In this game, players control a robot named J.Me that gets lost in a world of different game mechanics and keeps jumping to survive. I’m looking forward to it and seeing what he cooks up next considering how hooked I am on Tetrachroma.

Topics
George Yang
George Yang is a freelance games writer for Digital Trends. He has written for places such as IGN, GameSpot, The Washington…
7 free game demos you need to check out during Steam Next Fest
steam next fest october 2024 game recommendations permafrost

The last Steam Next Fest event of the year is upon us. Valve holds one of these events every few months on Steam and encourages developers to share demos and early looks at their upcoming PC games. Only indie developers participated initially, but more high-profile studios chipped in recently. That’s only makes it harder to find some of the best games on offer, as hundreds of demos are available.

I played several demos featured in October 2024’s Steam Next Fest ahead of the event, and I want to spotlight my favorites. From strategy RPGs to dumb physics-based platformers, these seven Steam Next Fest demos are worth checking out.

Read more
Video games are having a meta moment, and I love it
Astro Bot dresses up as Kratos.

Video games are having a meta moment. New games aren't just occasionally breaking the fourth wall, but directly acknowledging the influential titles that have come before them. In September alone, Astro Bot, The Plucky Squire, and UFO 50 all showcased what seems to be a unifying moment for the video game industry.. All three of those titles are fantastic in their own right, but each is also a love letter to the video game industry's history in their own way.

To some extent, video games have always tried to replicate what was popular at the time. This moment shows that video games are no longer just chasing trends, though; they're actively in conversation with those trends. That can be done through cameos, gameplay references, or by embracing the same game design constraints that birthed the medium's most foundational titles. It's a new kind of self-referential moment for video games -- and I love it.

Read more
This new Analogue Pocket looks just like my actual Game Boy Color
Six Analogue Pockets lined up in a row with Game Boy Color colors.

Analogue is unleashing yet another nostalgic Pocket onto the world. The handheld manufacturer announced Tuesday that it's releasing a limited-edition Game Boy Color line that'll go on sale September 12 on its website and start shipping on September 16.

The new Analogue Pocket comes in six nostalgic colors: kiwi, teal, grape, gold, berry, and dandelion. I can't speak for how accurate most of the colors are, but I still have my purple Game Boy Color, and the grape color looks delightfully similar. It just has the Pocket's more modern display.

Read more