Columns

Sega's Tetris — the pack-in game that sold the Game Gear

Columns is Sega's match-3 puzzle game, originally designed in 1989 by Jay Geertsen for HP workstations under HP-UX, then bought and marketed by Sega from 1990. The principle: columns of three coloured gems fall continuously, and you must align three identical gems horizontally, vertically or diagonally to clear them. Like Tetris on the Game Boy, Columns was chosen by Sega as the pack-in game for the Game Gear to show off the handheld's colour capabilities against Nintendo's monochrome screen. The Game Gear version is distinctive: a night-time urban landscape backdrop that gradually darkens, reworked music with more 'flute-like' tones, and an exclusive feature allowing gems to be replaced by fruit, dice, or playing-card symbols. It also includes a Flash Columns mode and a 2-player versus mode (link cable required). A founding title of the Game Gear library, re-released on 3DS Virtual Console in 2013.