Thrift Treasure: Tetris Link

You never know what you’ll find during a trip to your local thrift store. Thanks to changing popular culture and the success of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” song, buying things second-hand doesn’t have as much of a stigma attached to it as it used to.

When we have some spare time and are driving by a Goodwill or Salvation Army store, we like to drop in to see what treasures we might find. Usually on our list of things to look for are games the family can play together. This time was no exception and we scored with a copy of Tetris Link for $1.38 and still brand new in the box!

Whoever donated this obviously didn’t take a moment to try the game out, because if they had they would have discovered a fantastic variation of the “Connect 4” theme using the familiar Tetris pieces to create strings of blocks and scoring points along the way.

Players take turns rolling a die to determine which type of block they must drop. Their objective is to create grouping of blocks of a minimum of 3 pieces. Once they get this ‘string’ started, they then begin receiving a point for each additional block they add to the group. But…leave an empty space that can’t be filled and you receive point penalties.

Game play continues until the entire board is filled and no additional pieces can be played. Highest score wins, ties are broken by whomever has the longest continual string of pieces. Of course, daddy won the first one to the frustration of my two girls.

What a find for us! 2-4 players can play, making it a perfect game for the girls to play on their own but still flexible enough for the whole family to play together (unlike Connect 4). Their customers agree with the quality of the game; it currently has 4.5 stars on Amazon.com and some great independent reviews.

Be sure to check out Techno Source’s other offerings on their website. You can also follow all thing Tetris Link via their official Twitter and Facebook pages. Watch out for the long/skinny piece though. I always hated that one.

Tags: Abstract, board games, Goodwill, Techno Source, Thrift Treasure

16 thoughts on “Thrift Treasure: Tetris Link”

That’s a cool game. I honestly haven’t been in a thrift store since I was kid, not because of a stigma though. I feel like I shouldn’t shop there when I can usually afford to pay retail prices and leave the awesome treasures for people who need those lower prices.

Scott says:
January 19, 2014 at 9:56 am
That’s an interesting way to look at it. The prices are great, but I find the selection to be even better than what you can find at a local retail store. Since we’re in a smaller metro area in the middle of nowhere, we don’t have the luxury of all the cool stores in places like LA, Chicago, NY.
Stuff pops up at our thrift stores that was probably received as a gift from someone who lives elsewhere, so not available at retail for us. Of course, Amazon is always an option, but sometimes we discover games we didn’t even know existed so we wouldn’t even know to search for them! Like next week’s post! 😉
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I love a good find! Looks like a great game and a blast from the past.

I’ve never heard of this game before. However, I love Tetris games for sure. I think we’d enjoy playing this game for sure. Thank you for the review and awesome pictures.

Scott
Tetris is such a fun game and brand new in the box for $1.38? Really? CA-CHING! What a great score. I have to admit I have been influenced by the common thought that most thrift stores don’t have much in the way of value and I thought as you had highlighted, they all had “a stigma attached to it…” But after reading your post and the great find you had made, I think it would in fact behoove me to give thrift stores in my area a second look. Thanks for the very informative and useful post!

This is a pretty impressive find, very cool game, I never knew they made it into a actual game like this. Very interesting, I love the way it looks, so retro. I bet this is a ton of fun.