Tetris Has Finally Been Beaten After 34 Years

thegamer.com:

We're just two days into 2024 and already gaming history is being made. A 13-year-old has beaten the original NES Tetris, previously thought to be an impossible task, after 34 years.

The assumption I always had was that Tetris goes on forever and ever until you finally run out of space. While that's mostly true, as the game has no story, levels, or any form of progress beyond high scores and increasing speed, you 'beat' the game by crashing it, AKA reaching the "True Killscreen".

Two years ago, YouTuber EricICX hit six million points in Tetris, whereas Blue Scuti crashed the game at 6.8 million.

The longer you play Tetris, the faster the blocks fall, upping the ante as you're forced to think in split-second moments about where each piece should drop. The speed caps at level 29 which was, for decades, assumed to be the "end" of the game as it was near impossible to reach the sides. Fittingly, it became known as The Killscreen.

Thor Aackerlund smashed that assumption in 2011 with a new technique that involved vibrating his fingers, reaching the mythical level 30. But the speed doesn't increase once you pass the pearly gates of 29.

It wouldn't be until 2018 that Joseph Saelee reached level 31, pushing the record to 35 by 2020. The aforementioned EricICX took things even further, hitting level 38 - a staggering nine more than the assumed "Killscreen".

In 2021, a player called Cheez employed a new button-smashing strategy, "rolling", that was far faster than finger vibrating, enabling them to climb to level 40, putting 29 firmly in the rearview mirror. Others jumped onto this trend and before long, EricICX clawed up to level 146, over five times the original "Killscreen".

But level 146 presented a new challenge - a glitch