On my bedside cabinet, next to my alarm clock, is a jar holding my cufflink collection. One set contains seven odd cufflinks. They are bold in colour, now a bit scratched with flaking paint, but with clear geometric designs: a squat Z, S and T, an L, a J, a square and lastly, the ever useful long bar.
Even as a lecturer in games development, I don’t tend to wear my game affiliations that boldly but these cufflinks, the odd badge and my Minecraft waistcoat are exceptions. There are very few video game elements that I could describe so simply that even some non-gamers would recognise. But I am, of course, talking about the shapes, or the “tetrominoes”, from the nearly 40-year-old game of Tetris.
