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An educational game dubbed "Slave Tetris" has been pulled down off the internet after provoking a racism storm.

The controversial title is called Playing History: Slave Trade and invites players to stack people into a slave ship, mimicking the mechanics of the famous puzzle game.

It is just a small part of the wider game, which was designed to highlight the brutality of the slave trade.

But this point was not enough to placate the furious folk of Twitter.

The game was designed by Serious Games interactive, a Danish firm.

Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, its CEO, hold a PhD on the "educational use of computer games".

On Twitter, he admitted he "should of course know how this would have played out".

"My naivety will be my doom," he added.

He said two hours of the game was spent playing as an escaped slave, with just 15 seconds involved in playing Tetris with human bodies.

Although Egenfeldt-Nielsen repeatedly insisted he meant to make a point about the evils of buying and selling humans as commodities, Twitter users savaged him.

The game Playing History: Slave Trade is still available on Steam, but the controversial Tetris segment has now been edited out.

In a statement, the games designer said: "Slave Tetris has been removed as it was perceived to be extremely insensitive by some people.

"This overshadowed the educational goal of the game.

"Apologies to people who was offended by us using game mechanics to underline the point of how inhumane slavery was.

"The goal was to enlighten and educate people — not to get sidetracked discussing a small 15 secs part of the game."