SAN FRANCISCO. A 13-year-old Willis Gibson, known as “blue scuti” in the gaming community, has officially become the first player to “beat” the original Nintendo version of Tetris, not by achieving a high score but by breaking the game.
Technically, Willis reached what gamers refer to as a “kill screen,” a point where the Tetris code glitches, causing the game to crash. While this may not sound like a conventional victory, it is a highly sought-after achievement in the gaming world, where pushing hardware and software to their limits is a testament to skill and dedication.
Tetris, a falling-block video game, has long been considered unbeatable due to its lack of a scripted ending. Players faced an endless cascade of four-block shapes, with no predetermined conclusion. Top players aimed to extend their winning streaks by reaching higher levels, but eventually, the game seemed unbeatable.
Willis shattered this notion on December 21 by triggering a kill screen on Level 157, a victory over the game itself by pushing the software beyond its expected limits. Tetris CEO Maya Rogers congratulated Willis, calling it an “extraordinary accomplishment” and a “monumental achievement” as Tetris prepares to celebrate its 40th anniversary this year.
The journey to this accomplishment has been a long and challenging one for Tetris players. Early on, gamers struggled to reach higher levels, with Level 29 presenting a significant obstacle. Techniques like “hypertapping” emerged, allowing players to move the game controller faster than the built-in speed, pushing progress to Level 35 by 2018.
In 2020, a technique called “rolling” combined multifinger methods used in arcade games, propelling one player to Level 95 in 2022. However, challenges arose as the game’s original developers had not anticipated such aggressive limit-pushing, leading to quirks at higher levels.
The introduction of random color combinations at Level 138 made it harder for players to distinguish blocks from the background. Two particularly challenging patterns, dubbed “Dusk” and “Charcoal,” added to the difficulty. Progress was further impeded by longer games and unpredictable glitches.
The breakthrough came with the Tetris-playing AI program StackRabbit, which reached Level 237 before crashing the game. Human players then used StackRabbit’s findings to map out scenarios leading to game-ending glitches, creating a comprehensive spreadsheet detailing specific conditions likely to cause a crash.
Willis embarked on his record-breaking attempt armed with this knowledge. When he crashed the game at Level 157, his reaction, captured in a livestream video, reflected both shock and awe. Gasping and expressing concern about his fingers, Willis made history by achieving what many believed to be an impossible feat in the world of Tetris.
Carlo Juancho FuntanillaFrontend Developer, WordPress, Shopify
Contributing Editor
AMA ACLC San Pablo
