As “Tetris” celebrates 40 years of falling blocks at the Lucca Comic and Games convention in Italy, Variety sat down with its creator Alexey Pajitnov and the Tetris company’s co-founder Henk Rogers to discuss the beginnings of the most successful computer game in the world.

Despite the difference in their appearance, Pajitnov, pale with a white beard, and Rogers, tan with a colorful trilby, make a formidable team who overcame great odds to bring their puzzle game – in which players pair and eliminate a series of multicolored falling blocks – to the world in 1984.

Such were the adventures, there’s even an Apple+ film “Tetris,” starring Taron Egerton and directed by Jon Baird. Pajitnov smiles at the memory: “Noah Pink [the screenwriter] was very attentive to our notes, but it was still a long and difficult fight with them, because they desperately need all this Hollywoodish bullshit.”

Rogers understands the compromises necessary: “Their...