Tetris video game defeated: Here's how a 13-year-old did the unthinkable

Willis Gibson triggered a kill screen on level 157, which the gaming world takes as a victory over the game-something along the lines of pushing the software past its limits.

A teenager from Oklahoma has rocked the video game world by beating the falling-block Tetris game and became the first player to officially beat the original Nintendo version by breaking it at level 157.

Thirteen-year-old Willis Gibson, who hails from Oklahoma, US, pushed the game to its limits, a point where the Tetris code glitches, thus crashing the game. Willis triggered a kill screen on level 157, which the gaming world takes as a victory over the game—something along the lines of pushing the software past its limits.

Why does the gaming world term game crash a win?

In gaming terms, crashing a game is a highly coveted achievement, given that records involve pushing hardware and software to their limits and sometimes beyond.

Tetris CEO Maya Rogers hailed the teenager's achievement and congratulated Willis, who was recognised in the Tetris world as blue scuti.

"Congratulations to blue scuti for achieving this extraordinary accomplishment, a feat that defies all preconceived limits of this legendary game," Rogers said in a statement.

What is Tetris, the Nintendo's original version?

Tetris is a puzzle game where blocks keep falling from above that players can arrange in real-time in a rectangular playing field, also known as Matrix, to clear lines. Alexey Pajitnov created the electronic puzzle game Tetris in 1984.

Why is Tetris considered unbeatable?

Before Gibson made the game crash, Tetris was considered unbeatable. Since the creation of the game, gamers faltered on various levels.

Here's why Tetris was considered unbeatable

While beating the game may appear to be a feat by a teenager, it has taken decades of progressive steps by various gamers worldwide over decades of developing new techniques. In the first 20-30 years, gamers failed to hit level 30 of the game, as level 29 was considered a roadblock. While in 2011, players failed to go beyond level 35. After that, when Tetris gamers overcame the level 30 roadblock, level 35 seemed unbeatable.

But this was not the end, as gamers faced another dead end at level 95, and then the speed of colours around level 130 seemed unbeatable.

The long quest for domination

The feat is massive in the gaming world, where Tetris is still a major phenomenon as it's considered unbeatable by humans; however, Artificial Intelligence has beaten it. That's partly because it didn't appear to have an ending. Even after a gamer hit a top score of 999999, the four-block shapes keep falling.

1st hurdle - around level 30

For 20-30 years, Tetris gamers could not hit level 30. Level 29 posed a roadblock as blocks began falling quicker than any controller could respond. Players held down buttons for quick moves, which only moved as fast as allowed by a game's code called 'Delayed Auto Shift', or DAS, which controls 'autorepeat'.

2nd hurdle - level 35

In 2011, players found ways to make progress by developing hypertapping techniques. In it, players flex their arm until it triggers tremors - then, they use these tremors to tap the buttons at a very high speed. By 2018, this technique took players to level 35, after which they again hit a wall.

3rd hurdle - level 95

The next big thing came in 2020 when a gamer realised they could place their hands below the controller and roll their fingers/knuckles on the back of the pad to push it against another finger on the top. Called 'rolling', this much speedier approach helped one player reach level 95 in 2022.

4th hurdle - around level 140 - colours

Then, other obstacles arose. Since the original developers had never counted on players pushing limits so much, weird quirks began to crop up at higher levels. One difficult issue arose with the game's colour palette around level 130, which made it much harder to distinguish blocks from the black background.

What are the top five hardest games to beat?

• Contra
• Demon's Souls/Dark Souls (Fromsoft, 2009/2011)
• Ghosts'n Goblins (Capcom, 1985)
• Ninja Gaiden II (Tecmo Koei, 2008)
• The Adventure of Little Ralph