''Tesserae'' is a single-player video game developed by Nicholas Schlott based on Kent Brewster's DOS game Stained Glass and published by Inline Design in 1990 for the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

. The game was also released for the

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same te ...

and

Game Gear The is an 8-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation handheld game console released by Sega on October 6, 1990, in Japan, in April 1991 throughout North America and Europe, and during 1992 in Australia. The Game Gear pri ...

handhelds published by

GameTek GameTek was an American video game publisher based in North Miami Beach, Florida known for publishing video game adaptations of game shows in the late 1980s and early 1990s. GameTek was a trade name for IJE, the owner of electronic publishing r ...

, developed by

Eurocom Eurocom (formerly Eurocom Entertainment Software) was a British video game developer founded in October 1988 by Mat Sneap, Chris Shrigley, Hugh Binns, Tim Rogers and Neil Baldwin, to specifically develop games for the Nintendo Entertainment S ...

Gameplay

Tesserae is played by flipping colored tiles over other tiles to remove them from the board. While flipping over tiles subtracts the color from the tile that was jumped, landing on a tile adds the colors, making it more difficult for that tile to be removed. Primary tiles of red, blue and yellow combine to produce secondary tiles of purple, green and orange. A gray tile is produced by combining all three primary tiles. Game play starts simple with only primary tiles on a rectangular board. More complex board shapes as well as introducing secondary tiles increases the difficulty.

New releases

In 2009, Aki's Playware acquired the rights to Tesserae and revived the game on the iPhone platform. In 2010, Aki's Playware released a more complete and accurate revival, Tesserae HD for the

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operati ...

. The program, however, is no longer in the iTunes store. Kudit had previously developed the first iPhone clone ''Mosaic'' on October 11, 2007 as had Pixlers developed the iPhone clone ''WORP,'' on June 7, 2009. In 2011, coinciding with the opening of Apple's Mac App Store, Aki's Playware released Tesserae 20th Anniversary Edition for the Mac. This new release revives Tesserae on its original platform with modern graphics and new features, including a dynamic tournament scoreboard on the main window. Players can replay mosaics to improve their tournament scores and trophies. In 2014, Tarkus Game Software revived the game on the Android platform. The game has a new modern design, was optimized for smartphones and tablets and completely free.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

'' stated that ''Tesserae'' "is a fine game ... and should be considered by any Macintosh owner. It provides many hours of challenge with a simple but elegant design that is sure to please anyone who enjoys using his or her head". ''

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...

'' inducted ''Tesserae'' into its 1991 Macintosh Game Hall of Fame in the "Best Brain Game" category, ahead of runner-up ''

3 in Three ''3 in Three'' is a 1989 metapuzzle video game designed by Cliff Johnson and published by Cinemaware and Inline Design. While bearing some similarities to his previous game, ''The Fool's Errand'', ''3 in Three'' took place inside a computer. The ...

''.

References

External links

* *
Tesserae
at

1990 video games Game Boy games Game Gear games Classic Mac OS games Video games developed in the United States Windows games {{puzzle-videogame-stub Eurocom games Single-player video games GameTek games