After nearly 35 years, one could suppose that there aren't many achievements remaining in the original Tetris for Nintendo game, for those who are casual players. But Willis Gibson, referred to as "blue scuti," is by no means a casual player. On December 21, the 13-year-old accomplished an unachievable accomplishment by being the first player to "break" the classic puzzle game.
Playing Tetris on Level 157, Gibson surprised both himself and the viewers on a live stream by running into an unheard-of, game-ending bug. Gibson has a long history of playing with creativity, statistical analysis, and perseverance, together with hours of training and a committed group of like-minded players, to pull off an accomplishment that many once thought was unachievable.
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13 Year Old Breaks Tetris To Create History
Globally, competitive gamers have traditionally preferred Tetris. For many years, gamers thought Level 29 was the maximum level that could be attained in the beloved game. By then, the falling block speed is so high that it becomes impossible to use the NES controller to continuously transfer pieces to either side of the playing area, which guarantees a loss. This wasn't exactly a "kill screen," where a coding fault causes the game to crash. Although there isn't a flaw in the game, most people assumed that Level 29 was the first Tetris kill screen because it wasn't physically possible to keep up.
The Oklahoma boy, known online as Blue Scuti and by his legal name, Willis Gibson, plays for around 38 minutes and reaches level 157 before declaring, "Oh, I missed it," thinking that a misplaced block derailed his attempt. However, he bounces back, and as the blocks zip down, he exclaims, "Please crash," finishing off another line of blocks—the Tetris point-scoring process. With the de facto win, the game freezes, and he exclaims, "“Oh my God! Yes! I’m going to pass out. I can’t feel my hands.” . His score came out to 999999.
Gibson accomplished this on December 21, 2023, becoming the first person to record a "true" game crash. What was long thought to be an unbreakable classic was truly defeated by a human player nearly 40 years after it was developed. Scuti uses the game's original version, which has a limited score counter. At level 26, he maxed out the score counter and breezed through hundreds of lines with no effort. Fans have dubbed two levels, Dusk and Dawn because they present the largest obstacles.
Due to the reduced contrast and numerous ghost pieces in these levels, it can be challenging to see them, especially given how quickly these professionals are playing. But after many hard hours of effort, Blue Scuti and his rival EricICX were able to advance over the first two levels, Dusk and Dawn, but things became extremely difficult. In keeping with Tetris' heritage, gamers aren't stopping at Gibson's milestone; instead, they're setting new benchmarks by trying to reach even greater point totals and playing for as long as they can without hitting the kill screen bug. For the competitive gaming community, 2023 concluded on a positive one, but just like Tetris, there's always more to learn.
