A video game that calms you down

A new version of Tetris claims to calm down the player with the help of a device that measures the pulse rate of the player.

Canadian researchers have created a version of the Tetris called BioBlox that claims to calm down the player.

Normally video games raise adrenalin levels. But BioBlox, created by Julian Spillane of game studio Frozen North Productions Toronto, Canada, together with a programmer who goes by the name Ne0nRa1n, comes with a device that measures the pulse rate of the player.

Players put one hand on the pulse-rate measuring device while playing. As their pulse rises, so does the speed of the blocks falling from the top of the screen, which makes the game harder, creating an incentive for the player to calm down and so get a higher score.

"I'm a big fan of weird input devices," New Scientist quoted Spillane as saying.

Incidentally, in 1999, Nintendo released Tetris 64, which also used pulse rate to control the speed of play, but it ran only on Nintendo's console.

However, BioBlox runs on Windows-based PCs and will be available online soon.