BiTRIS is a puzzle game heavily inspired by Tetris, but with a defining twist: it was designed exclusively for two players. Developed in the late 1980s by Jan Egner and Leo Moll, the game quickly gained massive popularity across German-speaking regions and beyond, driven entirely by the grassroots mailbox scene.
Before the era of high-speed internet and digital storefronts, the independent gaming scene thrived in the glow of cathode-ray tube monitors and the screech of dial-up modems. In the late 1980s, global distribution meant uploading your compiled game to a local Bulletin Board System (BBS)—often referred to as a "mailbox". Through decentralized networks like FidoNet, games like BiTRIS hopped from node to node, crossing international borders overnight as sysops (system operators) synced their file directories over long-distance phone lines.
This was the defining era of Shareware and homebrew development. Without the backing of major publishers, independent developers distributed their games for free and relied on an honor system, encouraging players who enjoyed the game to mail physical cash or checks to receive updates, high-score registration, or extra features.
Fueling this creative boom were accessible, powerful tools like Borland’s Turbo Pascal. Unlike the complex mainframe languages of the 1970s, Turbo Pascal offered blazing-fast compilation times and an integrated development environment (IDE) that allowed hobbyists to build robust, highly optimized software right from their bedrooms.
This repository contains the game's original source code, painstakingly reconstructed from various backups and artifacts provided by helpful fans. Alongside the code, you will find original distribution archives and a variety of historical information and stories collected by the original authors and enthusiasts.
After more than thirty years, all of this material is now being released under the MIT License. Our goal is to document this incredible chapter of homebrew game development and mailbox culture, and to help keep the memory alive of Turbo Pascal — a beloved programming language that defined the indie software scene of the 1980s and 90s.