Columns was not invented by a games company. Jay Geertsen, an engineer at Hewlett-Packard, wrote it as a personal program, and it circulated as shareware on workstations and home computers before Sega bought the rights. “Columns started life as shareware,” remembered Steve Hanawa of Sega of America, who brought it to Sega in Japan. “Since Tetris was a big hit, I was always looking for the next ‘Tetris’.” Sega put it in the arcades, on all three of its consoles and in the box with its handheld, and Columns became Sega’s falling-block game, the one it could set against Nintendo’s Tetris.
Fast facts
- Designer: Jay Geertsen. Sega’s arcade version credits him with Hisaki Nimiya, programmer Kazuo Wakihara and composer Bo.
- Sega releases: arcade, Mega Drive, Master System (all 1990) and Game Gear (a launch game in Japan in October 1990, and the pack-in in America).
- Rules: sticks of three jewels; match three or more of a colour across, down or diagonally.
- Reviews: Mean Machines 89%.
How it plays
Mean Machines set out the rules in November 1990: “The jewels descend in assorted blocks of three, the order of which can be changed as they fall down. When a minimum of three jewels of the same colour are placed together, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, they disappear – and the jewels above fall down to fill the gaps.” Pressing the button does not turn the piece, as in Tetris; it cycles the three colours, top to bottom, so red, yellow and green become green, red and yellow.
The rule that jewels drop into the gap is where the skill lies. When a cleared group lets the jewels above fall, they can form a new line, which clears in turn and sets off another. The game keeps the field small, six jewels wide and thirteen high, and the jewels fall faster as the game goes on. The Falling Block entry places Columns among the games that each changed one of Tetris’s rules: here, matching colours replaced filling rows.
The home versions added choices. Mean Machines found options to swap the jewels for dice or fruit and a two-player mode in which the players take turns to lay jewels in one well, “meaning that they inadvertently help each other half of the time”. The music, it said, was “similar to the Hallowe’en film theme”. Sega’s consoles also had Flash Columns, in which the player digs down through a set number of rows to a flashing jewel at the bottom.
From Hewlett-Packard to Sega
Sega Retro dates Geertsen’s original to 1989 and to HP-UX, Hewlett-Packard’s version of Unix, with copies for MS-DOS, the Atari ST, the Macintosh and Windows made by others. Retro Gamer described it as “created by Jay Geertsen for DOS and ported to the Atari ST before he sold the rights to Sega”. Hanawa recalled that a friend found the game and asked for his opinion; he passed it to Sega of Japan, whose “decision was to get all of the rights for the game from the original designer, Jay Geertsen, so SEGA was able to obtain it.” Hanawa had earlier introduced Tetris to Sega of Japan too, but Sega found it “didn’t have a legal consumer right” to that one.
Reception
The arcade game reached Britain in the summer of 1990. Sinclair User warned its readers: “the bad news – Columns is another Tetris-like game. The good news – it’s not second rate.” C&VG’s Julian Rignall thought puzzle machines never did well in Britain, “us Brits seeming to be a race who likes to shoot or beat up things”, but recommended it for “a relaxing, stress-reducing and very addictive… cerebral workout”. Mean Machines gave the home version 89% in November 1990. Julian found that it “sounds rather dull” but was “the sort of game that you keep on coming back to time and time again because it’s simple”, and called it “a great way to unwind”.
On the Game Gear
Columns was one of three games on sale with the Game Gear when it was launched in Japan on 6 October 1990, with Super Monaco GP and Pengo. In America in 1991 Compute! priced the handheld at $159.95 with Columns in the box. Retro Gamer thought it never “had a chance of winning people away from Nintendo’s flagship title”, the Game Boy’s Tetris, “but it was popular enough to keep Sega’s hopes alive”. The Sega Game Gear entry tells the rest of that story.
Later games
Sega kept the series going. Sega Retro lists Columns II: The Voyage Through Time for the arcades in 1990, Columns III for the Mega Drive in 1993, Stack Columns for the arcades in 1994 and Super Columns for the Game Gear in 1995. When Edge saw Columns Crown for the Game Boy Advance at a Tokyo show in 2001, it judged it and Puyo Puyo Advance “best of breed”. Compile’s Puyo Puyo, which Edge thought had “more similarities with Sega’s Columns” than with Tetris, took the colour-matching idea further by sending the effects of each chain to the other player.
Sources
- Steve Hanawa, interview in SEGA Master System: a visual compendium (Bitmap Books, 2019), p. 18: Columns as shareware, the next Tetris, Sega of Japan’s purchase of the rights from Jay Geertsen; Tetris and Sega.
- Retro Gamer issue 41, 2007, p. 78: Columns “created by Jay Geertsen for DOS and ported to the Atari ST before he sold the rights to Sega”; the Game Gear bundles; “never really had a chance”.
- Wireframe issue 25, October 2019, p. 40: “Created by Hewlett-Packard engineer Jay Geertsen, Columns was Sega’s sparkly rival to Nintendo’s all-conquering Tetris.”
- Sinclair User issue 103, September 1990, pp. 56–57: the arcade game and how the colours cycle.
- Computer and Video Games issue 107, October 1990, p. 101: Julian Rignall’s arcade review.
- Mean Machines issue 2, November 1990, pp. 78–79: review, 89% (the rules, the dice and fruit, two players, the music, the backgrounds).
- Computer and Video Games issue 110, January 1991, p. 133: home review (jewels, dice or fruit).
- Sega Retro, “Columns” and “Columns/Production credits” (web, secondary): Geertsen and HP-UX, the 1989 date and the other ports; the sale of the rights in early 1990; the six-by-thirteen field; Flash Columns; the arcade credits; release dates; the later games. https://segaretro.org/Columns
- Edge issue 7, April 1994, p. 70: Puyo Puyo compared with Columns.
- Edge issue 103, November 2001, p. 57: Columns Crown and Puyo Puyo Advance at a Tokyo show.