"The Tetris Effect"

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Retro STrife
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"The Tetris Effect"

Postby Retro STrife » July 27th, 2018, 6:29 pm

I was recently reading through Game Informer's Top 300 Games of All-Time, which is a list they released in their 300th issue earlier this year. Tetris was #3 on that list (SMB3 and Zelda: Link to the Past were #2 and #1). In the Tetris write-up, they had an interesting side note about something that people in the medical/science field refer to as "the Tetris effect." Here's a description from the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect):

The Tetris effect occurs when people devote so much time and attention to an activity that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It takes its name from the video game Tetris.
People who played Tetris for a prolonged amount of time could find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf, the buildings on a street, or hallucinating pieces being generated and falling into place on an invisible layout. In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of habit. They might also dream about falling tetrominos when drifting off to sleep or see images of falling tetrominos at the edges of their visual fields or when they close their eyes. In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of hypnagogic imagery.


I find it interesting that this concept from the science world takes its name from a video game. It makes sense, though, since I feel like I've experienced this myself on a few rare occasions. It never happened to me with Tetris, but I think Virtua Tennis for Dreamcast was the one that got me the best...when I first started playing it, I would see volleys playing out in my head when I was daydreaming in English class the next day. Historically, I think Pong is another game that was well known to cause a similar experience on people.

Anyone else ever experienced this from Tetris or any other game?

Sut
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby Sut » July 28th, 2018, 1:55 am

I experienced this with GTA III (or one of the GTA games), one of the side missions was to find different types of vehicles and take them to garage.
I was driving through town when I saw a vehicle that looked similar to one I was still chasing and suddenly thought - “hey I need that”.
I did stop short of car-jacking it though.

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pacman000
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby pacman000 » July 28th, 2018, 8:41 am

Pokemon. I would see the logo out of the corner of my eye, & I've had dreams about playing the game & finding weird hidden areas. Apparently, just outside of Pallet Town there's a forest of Piranha Plants. :lol:

Herschie
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby Herschie » July 28th, 2018, 1:32 pm

Wishing I had red shells from Mariokart any time I'm stuck in Chicago traffic.

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scotland
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby scotland » July 28th, 2018, 2:41 pm

I get the Peter Gunn theme in my head from Spy Hunter when I'm cruising in traffic.

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pacman000
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby pacman000 » July 28th, 2018, 4:12 pm

Pelikonepeijoonit.net had a neat list of video game related dreams. Sadly, the site's down right now, & I can't find the page in the Wayback Machine. :(

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pacman000
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby pacman000 » July 28th, 2018, 4:16 pm


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C64_Critic
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby C64_Critic » July 29th, 2018, 1:06 am

I absolutely had dreams of playing Ultima III while I was playing... Ultima III. I got it for my 13th birthday, and since my birthday is in late May, I had ALL SUMMER to devote to this game, and boy did I. Anyway, I would play it for like 18 hours straight, go to bed, dream about playing it, then wake up to repeat the cycle. Ahhh, those were the days.

Breaker
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Re: "The Tetris Effect"

Postby Breaker » July 29th, 2018, 2:31 am

Definitely experienced this from Tetris. Staring at tile floors or ceiling tiles and seeing tetris patterns, dreaming about playing, etc. Hearing the song over and over in my head... Absolutely.


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