opponent. If the block is pushed all the way towards the opponent, the player wins; clearing more lines shifts the block more drastically. Touch mode consists of two variants; Tower mode and Touch Puzzle mode. The former stacks pieces in a disorganized tower, and the player must attempt to get the box of balloons at the top to the bottom by touching and sliding the pieces, or double-tapping them to rotate. The latter contains 50 puzzles ranging in difficulty that must be solved by sliding pieces with the stylus, without rotating them. In Catch mode, which is themed after Metroid, the player controls a rotating block of pieces that can catch other falling pieces. The central core will detonate once the player achieves a 4×4 block. If enough pieces fall to the bottom without being caught, the player will lose all their energy. Puzzle mode contains 200 puzzles, ranging from requiring three to five pieces to solve. The pieces must be selected in the proper combination, and rotated the right way to solve the puzzle by clearing all blocks. While the top screen displays the puzzle board, the bottom screen displays the pieces. The game's multiplayer features player-versus-player basic Tetris, competition Tetris with unique items for up to 10 players locally, and Push mode. Two and four-player competitions could be played over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection before it was shut down, either using a friend code or searching for random players in Worldwide mode, but can only currently be played using a homebrew server. Additionally, the various modes can be played from a single cartridge using Download Play. Development Tetris DS was first announced on January 10, 2006. It was first released on March 20, 2006, in North America, with releases worldwide following on April 13, 2006, for Australia, April 21, 2006, for Europe, and April 27, 2006, for Japan. The rights for Nintendo to make a Tetris game were licensed by The Tetris Company. In an interview, an owner of the company, Henk Rogers, stated that he believed that with Tetris DS, Nintendo would both "move Tetris forward" as well as make money. Also stating that Nintendo was given a great deal of creative freedom in designing the game, he called the game's producer, Hitoshi Yamagami, "one of the smartest game designers I know". Saying that he had "complete confidence in him", Rogers confirmed that there had been no issues