An Oklahoma teen has succeeded in beating the notoriously unbeatable Tetris game. 13-year-old Willis Gibson, who has invested lots of hours and energy into the decades-old game, couldn’t believe his feat.
“Oh my god,” he exclaimed repeatedly as his screen froze with a score of 999999. On December 21, 2023, 34 years after Tetris was born, Gibson broke the record from his Stillwater, Oklahoma, bedroom.
He posted the video on YouTube on the same day. Viewers who were full of admiration for his accomplishment also witnessed his moment of joy. Gibson was so shocked that he rocked back and forth on his chair, his hands holding his head. “I can’t feel my fingers,” he said in the video.
Beating the Tetris game is the highest success any player can attain. For years, no one thought it was possible, not even the game’s developers.
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To beat the game, a player has to reach a juncture called a “kill screen.” At this point, the Tetris code suffers a glitch, and the game crashes. In the gaming world, crashing the game is the ultimate achievement and more coveted than reaching record-high scores.
For decades, Tetris players have battled to reach higher levels in the game. To do so, gamers must battle arranging the four block shapes that continue dropping down the screen. Filling up a row with blocks will clear it out and free up more space for the falling blocks.
The most skilled players couldn’t cross the level 29 hurdle for years. At this level, the game’s speed increases faster than the in-game controller could respond.
Refusing to back down, players developed genius techniques to solve the problem. With the “hyper tapping” technique, players would rhythmically vibrate their fingers to hasten the speed of the game controller. With this hack, players could advance to game level 35 by 2018.
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In 2020, another player introduced a multi-finger technique that involved positioning a finger at the bottom of the controller. With this finger, the player would push against another finger at the top. This “rolling” technique helped a player advance to level 95 in 2022.
At this level, the game became even more difficult. Owing to the game’s developers not envisaging that the player would get that far, the game’s program didn’t cater adequately to such levels. As such, palette issues began to surface after level 138, with random color combinations appearing and bringing much confusion.
The only successful attempt at beating the Tetris game was by Artificial Intelligence. This attempt aided subsequent human attempts by providing important success clues.
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Tetris was invented by software engineer Alexey Pajitnov and released under Nintendo Entertainment Systems’ umbrella in 1989. Tetris CEO Maya Angela congratulated Gibson, who played the game as “Blue Scuti.”
“Congratulations to Blue Scuti for achieving this extraordinary accomplishment, a feat that defies all preconceived limits of this legendary game,” the statement said. Gibson achieved the kill screen at game level 157. Gibson’s accomplishments could, however, inspire future successes in the IT and gaming arenas.
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