We’ve gotten some Lego sets based on video games over the last few years. Stuff like the Atari 2600 set, or all the Super Mario Bros. playsets featuring various characters and obstacles. But none of them are as cool as this fan-made Lego set that turns Tetris into a playable tabletop game.
Tetris Solid, created by victorvey300, is a new project currently on Lego Ideas, a website where users can upload their pitches for Lego sets and possibly see them become real sets if enough fans support them and Lego approves them. Tetris Solid turns Tetris into a brick-built interactive puzzle complete with colorful tetrominoes and the ability to track your score. Even more impressively, this isn’t done with any electronic Lego bits.
It’s remarkably elegant and clever in its execution, using sliding bricks, vertical “lanes,” and a treadmill to reveal each new piece that you must play. Watching the set in action makes me want to play with it right now.
Of course, as its creator explains on the project’s Ideas page, there was no way to make Tetris lines disappear when you fill in gaps, like in the actual game. So instead, the creator behind the project tweaked the rules. In this version of the popular shape-dropping game, you have to fill the board completely with all the pieces, turning Tetris into a puzzle. It’s a smart way to flip the classic video game into a Lego set that still feels very much like a Tetris spin-off.
Because of how the pieces are built, you can spin them around and drop them into place however you want. And once you’ve finished, either by adding all pieces to the board or failing to do so, there’s a handy and very satisfying “Reset” switch that drops all the pieces at once, letting you start playing all over again.
Inside the set, the creator has included a small nod to the creator of Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov. Hidden in the Tetris Solid set is a small office featuring the creator of Tetris and his old PC used to make the game.
At the moment, Tetris Solid has nearly 4,000 supporters. That’s very low considering how rad this set is and how it actually works. I’m not convinced Lego would ever sell a set like this, it might be too complicated, but I hope I’m wrong because I’d love to own this awesome bit of Lego engineering myself one day. If you want to support Lego Solid, head over to its Lego Ideas page.
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