Tessera

A tessera (plural: tesserae, diminutive tessella) is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a cube, used in creating a mosaic. It is also known as an abaciscus or abaculus.

Historical tessera

In early antiquity, mosaics were formed from naturally formed colored pebbles, but by 200 BCE cut stone tesserae were being used in Ancient Roman decorative mosaic panels and floor mosaics. Marble or limestone were cut into small cubes and arranged into representational designs and geometric patterns.

Later, tesserae were made from colored glass, or clear glass backed with metal foils. The Byzantines used tesserae with gold leaf, in which case the glass pieces were flatter, with two glass pieces sandwiching the gold. This produced a golden reflection emanating from in between the tesserae as well as their front, causing a far richer and more luminous effect than even plain gold leaf would create.

Contemporary tessera

These are manufactured glass tiles made to a uniform shape and size. They are made by molten glass being poured into trays and fired. An imprint of grooves is made on their underside for help with adhesion to cement when fixing.

Tesserae (video game)

Tesserae is a single-player video game developed by Nicholas Schlott based on Kent Brewster's DOS game Stained Glass and published by Inline Design in 1990 for the Macintosh. The game was also released for the Game Boy and Game Gear handhelds published by GameTek, developed by Eurocom.

Gameplay

Tesserae is played by flipping colored tiles over other tiles to remove them from the board. While flipping over tiles subtracts the color from the tile that was jumped, landing on a tile adds the colors, making it more difficult for that tile to be removed. Primary tiles of red, blue and yellow combine to produce secondary tiles of purple, green and orange. A gray tile is produced by combining all three primary tiles. Game play starts simple with only primary tiles on a rectangular board. More complex board shapes as well as introducing secondary tiles increases the difficulty.

New Releases

In 2009, Aki's Playware acquired the rights to Tesserae and revived the game on the iPhone platform. And in 2010, Aki's Playware released a more complete and accurate revival, Tesserae HD for the iPad. Kudit had previously developed the first iPhone clone Mosaic on October 11, 2007 as had Pixlers developed the iPhone clone WORP, on June 7, 2009.