Cult game defeated 16-year-old is the first person to play "Tetris" all the way through
For decades, it was considered almost impossible to get past level 29 in the classic "Tetris" version. Now a teenager has managed to play through to the end and get back to level 0.
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- A 16-year-old US teenager was the first person to complete a modified version of the game "Tetris" and set the counter back to level 0.
- In doing so, he overcame the otherwise notorious crashes after level 155, which were prevented by the modified version of the game.
- Despite this modification, the game remained challenging, especially due to hard-to-recognize blocks and high requirements in later levels.
A US teenager has become the first person to complete the video game "Tetris" - in a customized version - and return to the beginning. The 16-year-old, who is active under the pseudonym "dogplayingtetris", took a good 80 minutes in a Twitch livestream to get past level 255 in the classic NES version.
The counter then jumped to level 0. In the second run, he made it to level 91 again. Important limitation compared to many previous record attempts: He was playing with a modified version that prevents the crashes that Tetris is notorious for at higher levels.
"Tetris", with its blocks falling from above in various shapes, appeared on the Nintendo NES console in the 1980s. The aim is to push the blocks to the left or right so that there are no gaps. Full rows build up, incomplete rows stop and eventually block the screen: Game Over.
For decades, it was considered almost impossible to get past level 29, where the blocks fall so quickly that ordinary button movements are no longer fast enough. But in recent years, players have developed techniques with names like "hypertapping" and "rolling", where you press the buttons on the controller extremely quickly or roll your fingers on them.
Danger of crashing after level 155
Although this allowed us to get well past level 29, it turned out that even bigger problems lurked later on. For example, in the levels after 138, where the blocks sometimes have unusual color patterns that make them difficult to recognize. From level 155, the likelihood of the game crashing when complete rows are dismantled increases. This has stopped previous record runs, such as that of the 13-year-old player with the pseudonym "BlueScuti", who crashed "Tetris" to level 157 in January.
In the case of the 16-year-old "dogplayingtetris", the software code of "Tetris" had now been adapted so that he did not have to worry about this risk of crashing. Nevertheless, the game still presented him with challenges: On level 235, for example, you have to complete a whole 810 rows to progress. And the dark green blocks are harder to spot than in other levels.