The latest project to come from an ongoing collaboration between the Tetris Company and Red Bull Gaming is a feat of engineering designed by Kevin Bates, who went viral in 2014 by integrating a playable version of Tetris into a business card. The GamePop GP-1 Playable Magazine System takes that technology several steps further, by placing a playable (fully-licensed) game of Tetris into the flexible and durable cover into a gaming magazine.
Bates told The Verge that working on the project took up “most of last year.” The final results were achieved by creating “a custom matrix of 180 2mm RGB LEDs mounted to a flexible circuit board just 0.1mm thick,” Bates says. The thickest parts of the cover get up to 5mm due to placement of coin-cell batteries, but Bates and Red Bull Media House are more than happy with the results.
While the integrated display’s resolution isn’t exactly high-definition, concessions needed to be made to ensure the magazine cover would function properly while being flexed, and that its durability was high enough to withstand the common wear-and-tear seen by a magazine.
The playable GamePop magazine was made in limited quantities, with only around 150 being printed. They haven’t been made available to the public and were sent out to influencers, select media, and Tetris players that were featured in the magazine.
