An Oklahoma teen finally beat the unbeatable game: Tetris

CNN
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It looks like a 13-year-old from Oklahoma has finally done what's needed Impossible: He beat Tetris.

Willis Gibson is believed to be the first human player to reach level 157 of the classic video game nearly 40 years after its release.

“I'm going to pass out, I can't feel my fingers,” Gibson said after his feat caused the match to collapse. video It was posted on YouTube on Tuesday.

“When I started playing this game, I never expected to crash or beat the game,” Gibson wrote in the video's description.

Gibson's 38-minute viral video of the game, posted under his name “Blue Scuti,” is the latest spike in nostalgia for this addictive and enduring game. Created by a Soviet engineer In 1984 it was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

To date, more than 200 official versions of Tetris have been released on at least 70 systems World record According to the Guinness Book of World Records. The mobile version from Electronic Arts, developed in 2006, has been sold 100 million times, making it the third best-selling video game of all time, according to Hewlett-Packard report last year.

The creator himself said that he became instantly addicted after creating the game.

“I couldn't stop myself from playing that initial version, because it was very addictive to put the shapes together,” Alexei Pajitnov told CNN in 2019.

After its creation, Tetris quickly became popular and had such staying power that it has remained so powerful that the story of its origins in the Cold War era has become a true story. film For Apple TV+ in March.

“It bonded with us in an almost primitive state,” said Victor Lucas, the gaming expert behind the TV series Electric Playground. “It goes beyond video games, quite frankly, like checkers or chess. It's just one of those juggernaut gaming experiences that any human being can instantly understand and consume forever.”

The game is simple: manipulate falling blocks of different shapes and fit them together to create solid rows. As the level increases, the blocks fall faster.

While other video games today offer plot lines, hundreds of characters, cinema-like visuals, and even… Travis Scott live concertsSome experts say the simplicity of Tetris is what has kept it popular for decades.

Although Tetris has remained the same throughout Over the decades, the way it is played has evolved. Until 2011, players believed that level 29 was the highest level possible because this level had the highest speed in the game.

“It's so well designed and it appeals to so many generations of players that people are literally discovering new achievements to accomplish, scores to overcome and challenges to overcome,” video game expert and consultant Scott Steinberg told CNN. “It constantly presents a host of new challenges that even professors find difficult to address.”

Tetris' staying power comes from the game's simplicity as well as its difficulty.

Once the level 29 barrier was broken, players began reaching higher and higher levels in tournaments such as the classic Tetris World Championship using techniques including “hyper-tapping” and “rolling”.

Gibson finished third at the 2023 World Championship. While Gibson is a record-breaking human player, the AI-playing Tetris game reached level 236 in 2021 by manipulating game parameters.

Even at a time when some video games cost as much to produce and look as good as many blockbusters coming out of Hollywood, there's still something to be said for a game that's simple, elegant, incredibly accessible and fun for players of any age, Scott Steinberg told CNN: “Background.” “Sometimes simpler is better, and the greatest games stand the test of time.”