13-year-old becomes first person to “beat” ‘Tetris’
The NES version of Tetris has been beaten by a 13-year-old child – 37 years after it was first released.
It was previously believed that it was only possible to hit level 38 before the game basically became impossible to play due to speed, but in 2021 a new mechanic called ‘rolling’ was discovered which allowed players to get even further in the game. After a series of investigations by players, it was discovered that a kill screen could be hit at level 155.
In December 2023, Blue Scuti and Justin ‘Fractual’ Yu – the reigning Classic Tetris world champion – raced against each other in an attempt to reach the new kill screen, with Blue Scuti managing to achieve a killscreen first in level 157.
In a video posted to YouTube, Blue Scuti believes that he’s messed up at one stage of the game, before realising that he’s managed to hit the kill screen (a term for a screen that prevents the player from progressing any further) of the game.
“Oh my god! Yes! I’m going to pass out,” he said. “I can’t feel my hands.”
It took 40 minutes for Blue Scuti to reach the kill screen, achieving a 1,511-line performance before the game crashed due to hitting limits imposed upon it by coding. While previously an AI named StackRabbit was created by programmed Greg Cannon which managed to reach level 237, level 155 is the furthest a human has ever gotten in the game.
The NES version of Tetris was the first version to have been developed and published by Nintendo and was preceded by Tetris for Family Computer and Tetris by Atari.
In other gaming news, the Mickey Mouse horror game Infestation ’88 has changed its title after neo-Nazi allegations. Elsewhere, modders are working to bring back The Day Before as developer Fntastic prepares to shut down the game.
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Ryan Easby
NME
