After 34 years, an Oklahoma teenager has become the first known human player to defeat Nintendo’s famous video game Tetris. Willis Gibson documented the moment he hit level 157, causing the game to collapse, on his YouTube channel. The 13-year-old reclined his chair, screaming, “I’m going to pass out, I can’t feel my fingers.” He only needed 38 minutes to beat the game. Surprisingly, until recently, players believed they could only play up to level 29.
The renowned video game, in which players arrange falling blocks into perfect horizontal lines at increasing speeds, was conceived in 1984 by Soviet engineer Alexey Pajitnov and gained fame with its 1989 release on Nintendo’s NES machine. The game is now available on a variety of consoles and platforms, including mobile phones. Thor Aackerlund, a professional competitive gamer, reached level 30 in 2010 by adopting a technique known as hyper tapping, in which a player vibrates their fingers in such a way that the controller moves faster than the in-game speed.
Willis claims that in addition to winning the game, he smashed the overall score and three additional Tetris world records
This prompted other players to experiment with hyper-tapping and other ways to see how far they could get – but as of last month, only AI has managed to reach the game’s genuine kill screen. When a player reaches a level that causes the game to crash, a kill screen appears. Willis’ screen crashes toward the end of his 38-minute run and blocks no longer fall as he beats the game. The adolescent, known on YouTube as Blue Scuti, has been playing the game since he was 11 years old and has competed in various gaming events. “When I first started playing this game, I never expected to crash the game or beat it,” he stated on his YouTube account.
Willis claims that in addition to winning the game, he smashed the overall score and three additional Tetris world records. Other gamers are now attempting to break the 13-year-old’s records, with many of them publicizing their efforts on social media.