The 13-year-old is the first to play “Tetris” in its entirety

13-year-old Willis “Blue Scuti” Gibson has accomplished something no one has ever done before. In just under 40 minutes he reached level 157 of the NES version and caused the game “Tetris” to crash.

‘Tetris’ is not actually a game that you play in the traditional way. There is no story to follow from start to finish, no boss to defeat. Nevertheless, many gamers have tried to “finish” “Tetris” in the past.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit video game console first released in Japan in 1983 as the “Famicom” (Family Computer) and introduced in North America in 1985 as the NES. The NES introduced many iconic games, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. It laid the foundation for Nintendo’s success as a leading player in the video game industry.

There is no real ending to “Tetris”. When you push the game to its limits, it freezes and you can’t continue playing. In the gaming scene this is also called a “kill screen”. And that’s exactly what Gibson has come to. He broadcast his record performance via livestream on the internet. It took him about 40 minutes and reached level 157 before the game crashed.

‘Tetris’ CEO Maya Rogers congratulated the 13-year-old on his ‘monumental achievement’. No other player had managed to get this far and crash the game before. Gibson has set a new record – at least among the people. An AI called “Stack Rabbit” previously managed to reach level 237 before the game crashed.

Until 2011, it was considered impossible to get past level 29. The blocks then fall so quickly that you can no longer keep up with the NES controller. A gamer managed to get past the level with a trick in 2011. Since then, more and more tricks have been found to speed up controller input. By the way: from level 29 the falling speed of the “blocks” no longer changes.

Tetris was created in 1984 by Russian developer Alexei Paschitnov. The aim of the game is to position the falling “tetrominoes” (“building blocks” of different shapes) so that they form complete horizontal lines and disappear.

(dsc/t-online)