Bikaka

Bikaka is a hexagonal-grid take on Tetris for the classic Macintosh, written by Swedish programmer Ingemar Ragnemalm. Version 1.4, released in summer 1995 as part of Ingemar's Shareware Pack #1, adds background music and a slightly gentler opening difficulty curve compared to the unforgiving earlier releases.

Concept

Where Tetris drops tetrominoes onto a rectangular well, Bikaka uses a hexagonal playfield and pieces shaped to match. The result is a falling-block puzzler with a different geometry of rotations and clears, retaining the speed-and-stack tension of the original but reframed for a six-sided grid.

Version 1.4 changes

According to the author's release notes, version 1.4 introduces music (active only on 68020 or better Macs, with a recommendation to disable it on a Classic) and tweaks the piece set so the early game is no longer punishingly hard. "The old versions were very unforgiving," Ragnemalm wrote.

Author

Ingemar Ragnemalm, based in Linkoping, Sweden, was a prolific Macintosh shareware author best known for Sprite Animation Toolkit and a long series of small action and puzzle games. Bikaka shipped as one entry in his summer 1995 collected shareware pack.

System requirements

Per Macintosh Garden, Bikaka runs on 68k Macintoshes under System 6.x through System 7.6. Music playback specifically requires a 68020 or later processor.