# Henk Rogers - Maker: Game designer - Date: b. 1953 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/henk-rogers/ > The Dutch-born New Yorker who followed love to Japan, introduced Japanese players to the dungeon RPG with The Black Onyx in 1984, and then crossed the Iron Curtain to win Tetris for Nintendo's Game Boy. **Why it matters:** Rogers's The Black Onyx was one of the first successful Japanese-language computer RPGs and helped prepare the ground for Dragon Quest; his Tetris deal put the world's most famous puzzle game into millions of hands. ## Quick answers **Who is Henk Rogers?** The Dutch-born New Yorker who followed love to Japan, introduced Japanese players to the dungeon RPG with The Black Onyx in 1984, and then crossed the Iron Curtain to win Tetris for Nintendo's Game Boy. **When was Henk Rogers born?** Henk Rogers was born in 1953 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. **What is Henk Rogers known for?** Henk Rogers is best known for The Black Onyx. **Why does Henk Rogers matter to fantasy and games?** Rogers's The Black Onyx was one of the first successful Japanese-language computer RPGs and helped prepare the ground for Dragon Quest; his Tetris deal put the world's most famous puzzle game into millions of hands. ## Life Henk Rogers was born in Amsterdam on December 24, 1953, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1972. He moved to Hawaii to study computer science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he met Akemi, a Japanese student. He followed her home to Japan, and after three extended visits they married in 1977. The couple lived in her father's family compound, where Rogers was involved with the family's business, and they raised four children, among them Maya Rogers, who would later run the family's Tetris companies. ## Work In 1983 Rogers founded Bullet-Proof Software in Japan; the name was chosen to signify "perfect" software. Its first product was his own design, [The Black Onyx](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-black-onyx/), released in January 1984 for NEC's PC-8801 and programmed by Eiji Kure. It arrived when Japanese-language role-playing games, the computer heirs of [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/), were still rare. The game let players assemble a [The party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/) of up to five adventurers and descend into the labyrinth beneath the town of Utsuro to find the legendary Black Onyx and lift the curse of eternal night. Its six dungeon floors corresponded to the six colors the computer could display, and it showed a bar-style health meter for [Hit points](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/hit-points/), a visual idea other Japanese designers soon borrowed. *The Black Onyx* became one of the best-selling computer games in Japan at the time, with about 150,000 copies sold, and the leading computer magazine *Login* voted it Game of the Year. It is credited with bringing wider attention to computer RPGs in Japan in the years just before Enix released [Dragon Quest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-quest/) (1986). Its descendants were direct: the creator of T&E Soft's action RPG [Hydlide](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/hydlide/) (1984) was influenced by it and borrowed and extended its health meter, while [Shigeru Miyamoto](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/shigeru-miyamoto/) said it influenced [The Legend of Zelda](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-legend-of-zelda/) (1986). It was ported to the MSX, FM-7, Sega's SG-1000 and, as *Super Black Onyx*, the Famicom, and a follow-up, *The Fire Crystal*, added a magic system. Rogers's second coup made him famous. In the late 1980s he became convinced that *Tetris*, the Soviet puzzle game designed by Alexey Pajitnov, had enormous global potential. He negotiated with Nintendo over rights for its forthcoming Game Boy and then traveled to Moscow to deal directly with Elektronorgtechnica (ELORG), the state agency that controlled the game's licensing. He persuaded ELORG's managers of *Tetris*'s prospects and secured international rights for home gaming systems, clearing the way for the Game Boy version that became a worldwide hit. The tangled contest over those rights was later dramatized in the 2023 film *Tetris*, with Taron Egerton playing Rogers. Bullet-Proof also opened an American operation in Redmond, Washington, from 1989 to 1993, whose releases included *Faceball 2000*. In 1995 Rogers founded Blue Planet Software in Honolulu as its successor, and in 1996 he and Pajitnov established The Tetris Company to manage the brand worldwide; Blue Planet was folded into The Tetris Company in 2020. ## Legacy Rogers's career links two pillars of game history that rarely meet: the [Japanese RPGs (JRPG)](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/japanese-rpg/) and the global puzzle game. *The Black Onyx* was a bridge between the American dungeon crawlers of [Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/) and [Ultima](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-i/) and the console RPGs that Japanese designers would soon perfect; it even reached Sega's SG-1000, for which a young [Rieko Kodama](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/rieko-kodama/) designed an enemy. His later ventures turned toward the planet. In 2007 he founded the Blue Planet Foundation to promote clean energy in Hawaii, which in 2015 led the campaign that made Hawaii the first U.S. state with a 100 percent renewable-energy law. He also helped launch the Honolulu startup accelerator Blue Startups, founded the battery maker Blue Planet Energy, and, through the International MoonBase Alliance, backed the HI-SEAS Mars and Moon analog habitat on the slopes of Mauna Loa. ## Facts - Born December 24, 1953, in Amsterdam, Rogers graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1972. - He met his wife Akemi while studying at the University of Hawaii, followed her to Japan, and married her there in 1977. - *The Black Onyx* (January 1984, NEC PC-8801) sold about 150,000 copies and was named Game of the Year by the Japanese magazine *Login*. - Its dungeon has six floors, each keyed to one of the six colors the computer could display. - Shigeru Miyamoto said *The Black Onyx* influenced *The Legend of Zelda*, finding its "character's process of gaining strength" fun. - Taron Egerton played Rogers in the 2023 film *Tetris*. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henk_Rogers) - [Wikipedia: The Black Onyx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Onyx) - [Wikipedia: The Tetris Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tetris_Company) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.